Makers Academy Pre-Course Week 1

So, week 1 of the pre-course at makers academy is over and it seemed to go by quite quickly.

Everyone was added to a slack channel and began introducing each other, getting to know everyone else who would be sharing the experiences of the 16 weeks that lay ahead.

Week 1

The two main topics covered in the first week were the Command Line and Version Control, using Git. The learning objectives are clearly highlighted so you get an idea quite early on of the sort of things that are going to be covered. The topics are nicely explained in ‘knowledge pills’ which go over the key concepts in short and easy to digest snippets of information. I did find myself referring to these quite a lot and as I found git to be slightly confusing at first, I chose to research more about it.

Once you have gone through all of the material and studied the concepts and have a clear understanding of how things work, you move on to the weekly challenge. For the first week, that consisted of a command line murder mystery challenge where all the skills you would have learnt during the week would be put to the test in this virtual crime scenario. It really was a brilliant way to cement understanding of the concepts covered, the fact it was interactive and almost like a game pushed you to finish, but also gave a sense of satisfaction each time you ‘solved’ a piece of the puzzle. I did get stuck a few times, but thanks to slack, I could see how other people had dealt with the same problems I had come across and the whole feeling of everyone helping each other out was great.

Overall, my first impressions of the course, content and style of the teaching is great. It’s only been one week and I feel as if I’ve learnt a lot, but also have begun to start learning how to solve problems, which is exciting!

I may have also drank a silly amount of coffee, but all in all it’s been a great first week and am really excited for what lies ahead, onwards and upwards for week 2!