Codecademy promise Full stack engineer career path This means you can learn front-end and back-end development from the basics to a level where you can apply for a full-stack engineering job.
The recommended timeline is 4-8 months, but depending on your existing knowledge, motivation, and study time, you can complete the self-paced course sooner or spread your learning over a year.
This training is part of Codecademy Professional Subscription – This means that some financial investment is required to run it.
I will do my best to explain what this course is about, reviewing the various modules and Codecademy’s teaching methodology. This will help you make an informed decision. Full stack career path They fit you like a glove.
About me and this review
As a software developer for over 10 years, I have learned multiple programming languages and am now able to teach them to others. At one point, I created over 50 coding courses for popular learning platforms.
From this, I learned how information should be conveyed in order for students to learn most effectively. And I’m going to hold Codecademy to the same standard in this review.
Why should I consider Codecademy’s Full Stack Engineer Career Path?
There are many ways (free and paid) to learn front-end and back-end development online. The charm of Codecademy career path Our streamlined curriculum takes just a few months from start to finish. There’s no need to do extensive manual research or jump back and forth between different resources.
An attractive user interface was created to make learning more immersive and fun. There is also a community within the platform that can help you whenever you get stuck.
Overall, their offer seems to give some compelling reasons to choose Codecademy over other ways to become a full-stack engineer.
Timeline
The entire Career Path has 50 credits and a total of 168 lessons. There are several intermediate-level projects to apply your new skills, and each unit also has multiple code challenges.
Please don’t joke. It takes a lot of effort to become a full stack he engineer from scratch.
Each lesson requires you to actually implement the code yourself. And it takes a lot of effort and time to code these complete projects as well.
Six months is a reasonable timeline to complete the course in this intensive manner. If you’re motivated, smart, and have a lot of free time, you might be able to accomplish it in 3 or even 2 months.
The exact schedule will depend on you and your situation.
How to use
The curriculum consists of a number of modules, each of which teaches one major aspect of full-stack development.
Text-based lessons within each module introduce you to one concept at a time and challenge you to implement it through Codecademy’s signature built-in coding environment.
At the end of the module, you will need to pass a two-part exam to further prove your learning and receive a Codecademy certificate at the end.
Features of Codecademy’s full stack engineer career path
Let’s take a look at exactly what’s inside the program.
module
There are a total of six modules, designed to take you from the basics to job readiness.
Module 1: Basics of Web Development
Learn how to script your website using HTML and CSS. This includes local development, deployment, and styling your website using CSS.
Module 2: Interactive Web Development with JavaScript
JavaScript is used to make websites interactive. That’s what this module on Codecademy will teach you. At the end, you’ll be asked to create your own portfolio website.
Module 3: Front-end development
The Front End Development module takes a deeper dive into JavaScript development and testing, introduces you to the React framework, and dives deeper into using Git and GitHub.
The portfolio project for this module will be building your own message board app inspired by Reddit.
Module 4: Backend Development
In the backend portion of your career path, you will learn more about using the Express.js framework on the backend and using databases with PostgreSQL and REST APIs. Next, build your own e-commerce app using the REST API.
Module 5: Full stack development
In the fifth module, you’ll begin by learning about front-end to back-end connectivity and web app deployment.
Then you can learn more about security and DevOps.
Finally, flesh out the client side of your e-com app and combine it with the backend you’ve already built.
Module 6: Preparing for the interview
The interview preparation module is of interest to those who actually want to get a job as a full stack developer.
We’ll teach you everything from data structures and algorithms to the soft skills you need to ace both the technical and behavioral aspects of software engineering interviews.
project
lesson project
These are small projects that can be found within almost every lesson. These contain many hints that will keep you stuck until you code the solution.
challenge project
You can complete your projects within the embedded environment, or create and share embedded environments. Abstract), or off-platform (and share it) GitHub) In the same way.
You can then download Codecademy’s solution code and compare it with your own solution code.
they have some starter code You will need it to run, but you will be doing most of the work yourself.
portfolio project
portfolio project It aims to help you become autonomous as a developer and create your own applications from scratch, from architecture to coding to deployment.
In contrast to Codecademy’s other manual projects, you are required to gather your own resources and create individual apps using your own code.
The result will be something you can confidently show off to potential employers, as opposed to guided projects that thousands of others have built the same way.
Therefore, the name is portfolio project!
quiz
Codecademy has created a number of quizzes to test whether you retain important full-stack concepts while making the learning process as fun and interesting as possible.
community
The community features you get with Codecademy are invaluable. No matter how thorough the study material you use, it is inevitable that you will get stuck at some point.
This is where our member forums come in handy. No matter what obstacle you encounter, there will be someone who has been there before and can share their insights with you.
Additionally, you can create your own diary-type thread to document your progress on the Full Stack Curriculum.
The accountability and feedback you get from this community of peers is most motivating and helpful.
Advantages and disadvantages
Strong Points:
- Interactive UI is one of Codecademy’s strengths
- With a wealth of code challenges, quizzes, and projects, learning is never passive and always very hands-on.
- The training is very well structured and the lessons build on each other
- They have done a great job of combining guided learning with allowing them to become more and more independent as they progress. Journey to full stack
Cons:
- Codecademy is mostly text and codebase with very few instructional videos. If you are a highly visual learner, this may not be the best fit – check out the Codecademy alternative.
- Pro monthly subscriptions aren’t necessarily cheap. If saving money is your primary concern, you may want to consider learning from free resources and tutorials instead.
- It doesn’t include one-on-one or group coaching calls or mock interviews like expensive online bootcamps.
- Codecademy certificates are not equivalent to higher education certificates
Pricing
The Pro subscription required to access the full-stack career path costs $29.99 per month, or 20% less if paid annually (23.99 per month).
This makes sense if you’re serious about reaching full stack with a few months of intensive study.
However, if you just want to touch on the topic briefly and don’t plan on spending that much time on the material, it may be too much.
Compared to other platforms like Udemy, Codecademy is more expensive, but it also offers an intensive multi-month curriculum. Considering that there is an entire module dedicated to interview preparation, this course can be considered affordable.
Most independent coding interview prep courses cost a similar amount, but they don’t teach you how to code.
So whether the price is high or low depends on your goals and perhaps your level of commitment.
7 day trial
If you’re not sure whether you want to stick with the Full Stack Engineer career path long-term, you have the option to try it out for a week completely free.
There is plenty of time to go through the material and complete the first few lessons. See if the content is right for you and see yourself committing to training over the next few months.
Will it get you a job?
This course does not guarantee employment as a full-stack engineer.
It will put you in a great position.
If you completed the program diligently and created some unique portfolio projects yourself, that’s a good selling point to potential employers.
Of course, after your training, you should continue to hone and expand your skills, preferably working with others, to create more and more real-world projects.
The skills you learn at Codecademy might be enough to land you a job. Or it could take months more to level up and get your name out there.
Either way, you are on a path of continuous improvement and will eventually be able to enter into professional development.
Final verdict – Do you recommend the full stack path?
In my opinion, Codecademy is a great all-around option for learning full-stack development.
- The step-by-step and interactive aspects keep you motivated to keep learning.
- The structure and richness of both guided and autonomous projects is excellent.
- If you actually use the platform often, the monthly fee is sufficient.
And while this certificate is not the same as a degree or bootcamp certificate, it can still be valuable, especially if you don’t have any work experience to prove.
Overall, I would recommend the Codecademy career path to anyone who is serious about getting into full-stack development..
You can always add other books and resources if you feel it’s not enough of a challenge.
It’s a good idea anyway for any course.