Skill Validation - Free versus Paid

You Can Do This!
1

Greetings Fellow Campers,

I recently joined freeCodeCamp (I had an account but apparently it was deleted).

I have taken different courses, both free and paid, so I was wondering what approach or steps people here have taken towards validating ones skills, such as an online profile, or volunteering or non profit work, etc. or certificate(s) to prove one has the skills.

Would be great to here different opinions,

Cheers ’

2

Heya!

Completing courses is a great way of learning coding but in reality, a certificate means nothing if you are looking for work. Showing them a certificate isn’t going to tell them if you can actually code. In my opinion, the best way to show people how amazing your coding skills are is by making a portfolio where you have links to some of your projects.

Aside from that. Gaining work experience by doing some non-profit/volunteering work is also a good way to test if you are up to an actual job in programming. And of course, you can also put that work experience on your cv!

That’s how I think about it anyways. Good luck with your coding endeavours!

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Thank you !

Much appreciated !

4

Hi! Your potential employer needs your skills, not your certificates. So, work on this, and build some resume-worthy projects for your portfolio. Happy coding! :slight_smile:

5

I think certification is useful for monitoring your own technical progress, but as others have said a portfolio of work will better represent the end product that you can deliver. It can’t hurt to make use of validation links on profiles such as for Linked In, but you want to keep creating projects and solving problems to develop your skills.

6

Just like Daehworra said, just make a portfolio.

Freecodecamp is a good place to build skills from absolutely nothing.
After you finish almost or all of FCC (short for freecodecamp), do a web dev bootcamp to get a job.
certificates are extra credit for your code.
Maybe put the link to your account and certificates in your portfolio.

7

Thank you to each and everyone who replied !

I am currently struggling (financially speaking), had to close a paid web dev course I was enrolled in and thought FCC was a good option. I’ll also read and study books. Can anybody suggest any good books (on a wide variety of web dev subjects) ?

Years ago I was also enrolled using :evergreen_tree: :house: ( :wink: ) but could no longer afford it. I appreciate your comments, because they’ll help to get back on my feet.

Thank you again !

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8

Hello
Really I am also doing same thing as you mentioned. But what others said is quite useful to get the skills set to build and showcase yourself. That makes sense instead jumping on getting the certificate.
Thank you for your post as I am also facing same problem.

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As others have said, the biggest things is creating projects for a portfolio. It’s both the thing that will most influence employers and the best way to learn. There aren’t many better places for do that than FCC. Good luck!

10

Besides other useful and great comments and more about your second question, I think books may not be the optimal solution unless you prefer learning by them.

Sure, buying and having well-known books of the field you are interested in learning would definitely help but there are numerous resources online that are equally valuable and mostly free.

I would suggest

  • Using those resources (FCC, code academy, scrimba, etc.) to implement the personal project.
  • Sharing the project online through GitHub
  • go through issues people may open when using your projects and enjoy the virtual collaboration i.e active learning.

next step: contributing to small mid-size open source projects on GitHub

After all, I wish you the best of luck on this journey!

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