Treehouse Front End Web Development course

Ok so I thought a full rundown of my experience taking the Team Treehouse Front End Web Development course would be fun/helpful. This website has been CRUCIAL to my learning. It’s really kept me going when I felt like I didn’t know what to do next. If you’re currently trying to teach yourself to code, it is definitely in your best interest to join this site, join a track, and just chip away at it every day.

The first sections are HTML and CSS. At first I was like “no thanks, I’m not a designer, I’m going straight to back end development, I don’t need this!” and now I’m not so sure. Taking these first classes have helped me SO MUCH over the past month. When you’re working on templates in your Django app, totally understanding HTML is necessary. When you’re learning Javascript and JQuery later on, you NEED to know how the DOM works. Sass is amazing, but it means nothing unless you know CSS. Oh man, and learning Sass on Treehouse is amazing because the creator himself teaches the lessons and he’s hilarious.

The course then goes through basic programming and javascript. Even if javascript isn’t your main language (mine is python), it’s all the same stuff. Just slightly different syntax. Javascript has lots of {}s.

Then there’s kind of a random HTML forms course. It’s short, and good to know. Just take it and move on.

Nothing will make you want to learn JQuery more than first taking the “Interactive Web Pages with Javascript” course. Oh shit, if I remember correctly, THIS course was really hard. The instructor moves really fast, so if you don’t get it, DON’T WORRY. I barely made it through this portion, and still got out the other side. JQuery is waiting for you, and it’s beautiful. You must get through the Interactive course so you can get to JQuery, where your mind will be blown and the world will seem limitless. Funny enough, when I lived in the computer science house at RIT for 3 months, the creator of JQuery lived on my floor. Hey John!

Then there’s a couple more random HTML courses you should take just cause you should definitely know that stuff. And then AJAX! This was a great course, and if you do want to work in front end web development, basically all websites use this and you need to know it. It’s essentially a way for a website to send the user more info without them having to refresh the site. This will make sense to you, and it’s lovely.

Accessibility and Web Optimization left no real lasting impressions on me, I don’t even remember what was in there. But then comes Console Foundations. If you aren’t already comfortable using your Terminal (or command prompt), this is a very important step. Web dev takes place in the console, and that will be where you hang out, so get used to it. Typing commands into your Terminal also makes you feel like a hacker, so get ready to rollerblade to your nearest subway station and hack the world.

The last step of the track is “Git”. This is THE way to keep track of all your projects, and everyone uses it, and so will you. Also, go ahead and start a Github account and start uploading everything you do. It’s nice to have a place to go to look at all your old code and see how much you’re improving!

All in all, I would say DEFINITELY take this course. It’s free for the first 2 weeks, and $25 a month after. I got the free account thinking I was going to cancel it right when the free trial ran out, and now I view this site as a valuable tool that I use every day. Also, you can tweet to the teachers and request courses, which rules. Thanks Kenneth! (He’s the python teacher)