Become a programmer and write your own application: students of the first stream of Java University talk about their goals and training

The fourth stream of the Java University project will begin in mid-February . Its main goal is, with the help of experienced mentors, to help anyone who wants to master Java programming from scratch to the Junior Specialist level in 12 months. Java University is a logical continuation of the big idea of ​​the JavaRush company: to make Java learning interesting, practical and allowing students to work for results, to hone the technical skills needed in real work. On the eve of the start of the new stream, we decided to take stock and conducted a survey among the students of the first stream who had already completed the first module of training. In this text we publish the main conclusions.

Students' background

Among those who came to study at Java University, there are people with education as marketers, accountants, aircraft engineers, psychologists, and even piano teachers. Interestingly, people who had previously studied programming at the university also came to the course. Thus, users noted higher education in the following specialties: software development, information systems and programming, information technology in education and others. Among the professions that users of the first stream have, there is also a wide variety: there is an electrician, a builder, a driver, an accountant, a handyman, a security guard, a 1C programmer, a dancer, a teacher, an installer, a system administrator and a mathematics tutor. Only 33.3% of students responded that they knew the basics of Java before taking the course. Another 33.3% of students noted their level of programming knowledge as zero. Almost 30% of students studied programming at university or through online courses. Only 3.7% noted that before the course they already knew several programming languages ​​(not Java).

Motivation

We also asked students why they chose to study Java. When choosing a language, many were guided by the fact that it is widespread (and this is important when looking for a job). “I looked at which language was the most popular in January 2021 and chose Java,” says Daniil. Several students were advised to choose Java by their IT specialist friends. “Friends who are programmers said that this is the best option (where to start),” says Alexey. We also asked what goal students wanted to achieve by learning Java. Most people want to get an offer for a Java junior position: “Learn Java and become a developer”, “Employment and further growth as a developer” - these are the common answers. There are also those who came to learn programming in order to create their own project. “Learn to create your own full-fledged applications,” writes Vasily. “Retraining as a developer, and then implementing my own projects,” says Artem.

Final project

At the end of the first module, students wrote their first final project - a program for cryptographic information conversion. We also implemented basic cryptanalysis algorithms. The project covers the topics covered by the students. 55% of students passed the project excellently, 20% passed it well and satisfactorily, 15% failed to complete the task, the rest did not submit the project on time, but promised to complete it.

Reviews

Here we have collected some student reviews about the first module.

Vitaly :

“Quite a rich program, a lot of material. Especially for me, who was not previously familiar with programming, the lectures help me a lot in my progress.”

Alexander :

“In general, everything is great. With each new lesson, wishes are taken into account, mistakes are corrected. I’m pleased with the final project, which helps put everything together into the big picture.”

Artem :

“It’s worth noting the mentors. They are really very responsive and good people, thanks to them I mastered the first module without any difficulties.”

Yuri :

“In general, the module is not very difficult: taking into account the fact that I fell behind due to lack of time, the final project was still completed as needed. After the project I will catch up on missed lectures and make levels based on these lectures. I think I’ll have time to do everything before the next module starts.” Do you want to master Java development within a clearly defined time frame with the help of experienced mentors? Leave a request, classes for the new stream start in a week!