Three years ago, I published my first and only article on habr.ru, which was dedicated to writing a small application in Angular 2. At that time, it was still in beta, there were few tutorials available, and I found it interesting in terms of ramp-up time compared to other frameworks/libraries from a non-developer's perspective.Ā
In that article, I mentioned that I worked as a marketer (too bad it wasn't at Google :). The discussion in the comments turned to why Angular instead of React, and someone praised the code's cleanliness. It was very interesting and enlightening.
Over the last three years, I have been slowly but surely working towards a career change. That discussion sparked the thought that there might be a chance. I periodically took various online courses. I completed small projects for myself and experimented with different technologies. However, I obviously lacked any systematic knowledge with such a 'lifestyle.'
A year ago, I decided it was time to stop the confusion and began searching for courses that would not only systematize my knowledge but also provide confidence that I could find a job. Admittedly, this was no easy task. The search results yielded a lot of advertisements for online courses, seemingly containing all the components of 'success.' But in reality, it was far from that. Reading reviews, facing tons of spam after a single call with salespeople from these courses, reading the contractsāit became clear that after completing the courses and stopping payment, no one would guarantee anything for me. In my view, this was hardly different from the tons of free materials available in Russian and English. The same effect.
In the end, I decided to ignore the courses and go study programming at a college. Documents submitted, I'm happily writing about it and run into two questions: 'why do you want this?' and 'why not a university?'
And here I have to explain that university means passing the Unified State Exam (EGE) and nothing else, but I haven't taken the EGE and I don't want to waste another year with uncertain prospects.Ā
And college with part-time studies offers practice and the opportunity to try myself in a real company (and who knows, maybe even work there), along with making new connections with people in the same field, plus mathematics. Mathematics is important to me because I want to develop further in ML.
It just so happened that this post was seen by Valentin Dombrovskyāone of the co-founders of the courses. and community .
We had an engaging discussion regarding education, community, personal projects, and work. During this conversation, Valentin confirmed some of my thoughts and debunked some myths.Ā
Looking ahead a bit, I can say that I managed to view the students' graduation projects and their presentations live, as well as interact with some graduates to form my opinion.
With Valentin's permission, I will outline the main points from our discussions regarding education, how everything works in Learn Python, and why there is no mention of job placement support on the website of these courses.Ā
Self-sustaining community of Python enthusiasts
Valentin Dombrovsky: āSince 2012, the MoscowPython community has existed. The community is a cool thing in itself. Itās about communication, networking, and knowledge sharing.Ā
At some point, Ilya Lebedev, who taught at Bauman University, came to us with the idea of creating courses together with one of the universities for Coursera. We began working in this direction while simultaneously deciding to create our own courses. The course on Coursera was never launched due to bureaucratic delays, but we did launch our own courses.Ā».Ā
Learn, learn, and learn againā¦
Valentin Dombrovsky: āThe first cohort for the courses was held in June 2016. Our courses are quite a living organism. Since then, they have undergone certain changes. Initially, there was no division into areas, but by the 11th cohort, we decided to split the groups. With a large amount of information, we want students to have the opportunity to explore more in the direction that interests them the most. At the same time, we donāt impose any limits ā they can study everything at once if they have the time and energy.
Many popular courses keep teachers on staff. Our curators are employees from various companies who dedicate their time to teaching because they enjoy it. Between cohorts, some curators might change, take a break, and then return. However, each curator sees their cohort through from start to finish.Ā
In offline groups, each curator is assigned about 5-7 students. This is the optimal number. In such a group, the curator has the opportunity for full evaluation of homework, discussions, answering questions, and code reviews for each student. With each cohort, we create chats with the curators, where everyone can ask questions, clarify information, and communicate with fellow students throughout the week.Ā
We form groups based on initial skills and knowledge. Previously, we relied on the studentās self-assessment; this year we will rely on a short test that each student must pass. If something doesnāt work out, we will naturally transfer the student to a group with a corresponding level of preparation.Ā
You can work on the final project either alone or with a partner. We have experienced cases where more than two people worked on the final projectāthis is not optimal. Some may end up slacking off. Therefore, we have limited the group to two people.Ā».Ā Ā
What about employment?
Valentin Dombrovsky: āIn May 2019, we launched an employment support program. We observed for a long time what our graduates do after completing their studies and what problems they encounter. As preparation for launching the employment support program, we started creating podcasts for juniors discussing various relevant topics. For example, one of the latest ones is about how to become a developer in a few months. We do not guarantee employment. Let's be realisticāno course can guarantee this. But we do our utmost to help our graduates who are looking for jobs find them. Over time, we have accumulated various stories about employment and gained experience.Ā
Spoiler about employment during the final project presentations.Ā».Ā Ā
Yes, when I attended the final project presentations, one person from the cohort mentioned that during the course, he received a job offer. And Valentin frequently posts screenshots from chats on Facebook such as "I found a job at such-and-such place" or "I moved to a new job with a salary increase."Ā
Notice, by the way, thatĀ
Valentin Dombrovsky: āthe employment support program . Currently, it operates on the following principle:Currently, it operates on the following principle:Ā
- A week after the course ends, we hold a webinar to which we invite all graduates. We donāt say that this program is only for those who have just finished. On the contrary, we invite everyone. And perhaps this is more beneficial for those who finished a bit earlier, as they have gained some experience and learned some things during that time. The webinar is conducted by our teamācourse founders: Mikhail Korneev, Ilya Lebedev, and Vladimir Filonov. This is largely due to their good understanding of what is expected from developers in terms of HR and, on the other hand, what technical specialists require.
- After the webinar, we give the participants a week to fill out a questionnaire, where they provide information about themselves, a link to their resume, a link to GitHub, and a link to their graduation project. Currently, some of our partners are requesting that the link to the graduation project be included.
- After that, we take a week to review the questionnaires and note what needs to be adjusted. Following this, we provide feedback with those remarks. We also give another week for them to make corrections.
- After all the corrections, we distribute these questionnaires to our partner database.
We will repeat this cycle after each cohort. We plan that for each distribution cycle, a person who wishes to remain in the database, for instance, if they havenāt found a job yet, will resubmit their questionnaire with updated information. This is currently how it is organized.
At the moment, we have around 16 companies we collaborate with, such as X5 Retail, Yandex, MTS Bigdata, and BestDoctor. .
One should not forget that personal connections also aid in job searching. Attending various meetups and conferences that we hold is a great way to meet and network. In job searching, itās important not to rely solely on hh.ru or on us. Here, one must be proactive and maintain communication with people in their field of interest.Ā».Ā
The paths of juniors are unfathomable.And here Valentina's words are echoed by one of her former students, who took the courses and whom I managed to talk to. In a short period, he grew to become one of the group curators, got a job at a large company, and now even hires programmers himself.
Valentin Dombrovsky: āIf we return to the employment guarantees that some courses list on their sites, they mention thousands or even tens of thousands of graduates. But how many real employment success stories are there? If we look for reviews, there are only a few.Ā».Ā
Community is not just about studying, but also about a lot of valuable resources.
Valentin Dombrovsky: āAs I mentioned, the courses emerged from the community. We are not aiming to massively bring in people, teach them somehow, and then leave them to seek the next ones. Our mission is to nurture the community. After completing the courses, we strive to provide graduates with useful materials, we record , conduct Students remain in chats with curators and after finishing their studies can comfortably ask questions and seek advice. Curators are always available to help and respond.Ā».
Instead of a conclusion
A lengthy search and numerous questions about how to study, how to progress, what is important, and what is not ā led to the writing of this text.Ā
If this experience can help someone, that would be great.Ā
I liked the honesty and openness in these responses. There were no evasions or half-truths. After our conversation, I had the feeling that choosing these courses could be the door I want to step through.Ā
I already have an idea for a graduation project that I will be working on. And little by little, I am preparing for it, collecting materials. I hope that the next article will be specifically about it and not in another three years.
Source: habr.com
