Coding Basics is Rocket Academy (RA)'s intro course in software programming, also known as coding. It is the first course in RA's software engineering curriculum, teaching basic coding syntax and concepts through building simple programs. Students interested in software engineering careers can join RA's Software Engineering Bootcamp after Basics to build more complex software systems and get a software engineering job.
What is Basics About?
Coding Basics aims to introduce the elements of constructing a program and thinking about how it should work in a short (6 weeks, 12 meetings) amount of time. This happens in a "sandbox" JavaScript environment meant to focus on the universal, fundamental concepts of programming, rather than being specific to the JavaScript language. Using project and mastery based learning it aims to incrementally level-up students' coding knowledge through fun game-based mini projects.
What is Basics Not?
Basics is focused on project-based learning, so does not cover theoretical computer science concepts. Basics is focused on universal programming fundamentals, so does not cover software systems or code frameworks as they are deployed in a commercial setting.
Software Engineering Bootcamp Acceptance Criteria
Coding Basics (CB) is a pre-requisite for Software Engineering Bootcamp (SEB). CB section leaders will share feedback with students each class on their progress. By the end of CB, students should know whether they have met the criteria to join SEB.
In general, the criteria to pass Basics and join Bootcamp are the following.
1.
Completion and submission of the 3 projects in Basics
2.
Demonstrated improvement between each of the 3 projects based on section leader feedback
Typically we look for the following attributes in evaluating projects.
1.
Proficiency with technical syntax (variables, functions, conditionals, loops, data structures) and tools (VSCode, Git, GitHub, Chrome DevTools)
2.
Code quality (naming, code comments)
3.
Computational thinking (i.e. ability to translate application requirements to code)
1.
Decomposition: Each function performs 1 conceptual operation
2.
Data Representation: Use of relevant data structures for each problem
3.
Abstraction: Re-use helper functions with varying parameter values when possible
4.
Algorithms: Construct stepwise logic to accomplish tasks
Through the above criteria, RA is essentially asking the question: Would I hire this person as a software engineer if I had their attention for 6 months full time or 12 months part time to teach them coding. If the answer is yes, welcome to Bootcamp! If the answer is currently no, let's have a conversation and see how we can help you get where you want to be!