Previously, it was believed that a classical school with full-time classes is the most effective way to acquire new knowledge. But it's hard to ignore the fact that online courses of varying length have been growing in popularity over the past few years. In 2020, the whole world paid attention to online learning due to the global lockdown: the online format allows you not to interrupt learning in cases where it is scary to go to an audience with other people. In addition, scientists have proven that online learning is not inferior in quality to traditional, but at the same time allows you to train 15–18% more students. Research is research, and many people are still wary of online courses. The reason for this is the fear of not coping alone, skipping a difficult topic, not getting proper help. In this text, we will look at the fears associated with online lessons and the benefits of the CodeGym course that will dispel your doubts.
What are the fears of online learning?
1. There is no clear training schedule
The absence of a rigid training schedule is both a disadvantage and an advantage of the online format. An advantage, because you don't have to adjust your life to evening lectures three times a week. The disadvantage is, first of all, for chronic procrastinators who like to put off difficult tasks on the back burner.
Solution - kick chart
For those who need a "magic pendel" to study regularly, CodeGym has come up with a kick schedule . Kick-manager can be programmed with your own hands for the necessary days of study - he will remind you when it is necessary. The kick schedule initially included the option of reminders for every day and weekends. There is also a "Score for study" button, which is needed if you decide to arrange a mini-vacation for yourself.
2. No one will check my assignment
Indeed, how can you learn to code properly if you can't find a mistake? This is a well-founded concern for those who want to learn a programming language online.
Solution - automatic check of tasks
On CodeGym, you will know the correctness/wrongness of a decision instantly. For this you need:
write a solution in Java;
click on the "verify" button: your solution is sent to the CodeGym server;
you receive information about the correctness of your solution and recommendations in case of errors.
In addition, automatic verification has an advantage over the teacher in offline courses: he will immediately evaluate the task, unlike the curator, who is busy with other students.
3. No one to ask for help
There are online courses that do not require any feedback from teachers. It turns out that you need to look for someone you know who has encountered such problems. It happens that there are no such acquaintances.
Solution - Help section
To help with finding answers, CodeGym has created a "Help" section, the so-called collective mind of students and resource professionals. In this section, you can ask a question, and someone from the Javarash community will answer it. You can also use this section when solving a problem in CodeGym when you have problems with the correct answer. You just need to click the "Help" button and you will see the answers of other users who are related to this task. If there is no answer you need, you need to click the "Ask a Question" button - the link to the problem will be pulled into your question, and you will only need to formulate the problem and click the "Publish" button. User responses can be formatted as "Solution" or "Helpful" to make life easier for other users who will read the comments. You can also answer other people's questions - this will help you in your future work as a programmer, because IT people often check someone else's code. Well, recently, another useful feature has appeared in the CodeGym plugin in beta - “Get the right solution”. Of course, in order for you to show honest progress in training (which employers can still check later), we recommend using it mainly to check your correct solution with the reference one.
4. No classmates and accomplices
If you studied at the university, then remember that classmates could help with your studies: give a summary, explain a new topic, suggest a solution to a problem, and help with writing a term paper. In online learning, as a rule, there is no opportunity to meet people who master the same topic as you.
Solution - sections "Articles", "Chat" and "Forum"
The “Forum” section was created so that the participants of the CodeGym quest could discuss among themselves a specific topic that requires several opinions: it can be a discussion of incomprehensible tasks, and the functionality of frameworks, and tips on how to look for a job after the end of the course. Start a new thread or speak up in one of someone's discussions. The forum is a great tool to ask questions about the course, Java, or programming in general. In the "Chat" you can chat with friends on any topic without creating a thread on the "Forum", or share links to useful articles for training or videos. Or you just have a question, the answer to which you need to know instantly. There are different types of chats to choose from: general chats, chats about specific technologies and topics, chats for users from the same geographic region. Chapter"Articles" can also become an assistant in the development of Java. This will help practical materials on writing programs, creating databases, mastering multithreading. Success stories will inspire and keep you motivated.
5. Little practice
Jun's biggest fear is the lack of real projects in the portfolio. No projects - no first job. There is little practice in many online courses.
Solution - CodeGym Internship
For three months you will work on a serious project, while simultaneously receiving theoretical information. Internship participants gain experience with the Java Enterprise platform and a full-featured Spring/JPA Enterprise application with role-based authorization and access rights using the most popular Java tools and technologies. And these are Maven, Spring MVC, Security, JPA (Hibernate), REST (Jackson), Bootstrap (css, js), datatables, jQuery + plugins, Java 8 Stream and Time API. Recruitment for internships is held four times a year.
conclusions
As you can see, learning online is not scary at all. CodeGym found solutions to overcome the fears associated with online learning: you can study at home just as effectively as in full-time course formats.
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