6 Reasons I Like the Odin Curriculum

05 May 2014

After returning from my 2013 Appalachian trail (AT) thru-hike, I began re-learning web development, and in the process, stumbled upon the Odin curriculum.

Previously, I had studied web app development for several months at Udacity. When I returned from my 5-month hike, I had forgotten a lot of the detail. I needed a refresher, and thankfully, I found the Odin Project. Here are the 6 reasons I am now learning with the Odin curriculum.

##1. It’s a Guidebook

When I solo hiked the AT (2,200 miles), I carried a guidebook. It contained small maps, elevation profiles, distance markers, and other useful information. It was a’must have’ item for hiking from Maine to Georgia.

When attempting the huge feat of learning web development, the Odin curriculum is like a great guidebook. It’s filled with small projects, detailed explanations, links to helpful resources, and a supportive community.

It keeps you on-trail, and reduces a lot of those completely lost in the woods moments.

##2. Repository of Learning Tools

I studied regular expressions briefly when deploying my first real website, but had little experience and a vague understanding.

With the Odin curriculum, I found resources such as regexone, which is currently my favorite website for learning regular expressions.

Similarly, I enjoyed reviewing and learning new things about git version control from Atlassian.

These links are just a few of the awesome resources you can find following along with the curriculum.

##3. Small Goals Create Momentum

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Learning web development, especially on your own, can be extremely daunting. Big projects are scary and easily derail you.

Completing small projects is fun, builds momentum, and leads to bigger goals and projects. After working through a few small projects, some of the bigger projects don’t look as overwhelming. That huge puzzle doesn’t look too bad, once you’ve put a few of the pieces together.

As an example, I enjoyed working on a sketchpad project (basic introduction to jQuery), and now seeing jQuery on the web isn’t as intimidating.

Like learning a musical instrument, it takes time, deliberate practice, and patience to achieve some level of success. By working on small projects, you avoid a lot of frustration, and learn to enjoy the process.

##4. A Healthy Dose of Everything

I am learning a little of everything at the appropriate time and discovering how each web technology fits into the bigger picture.

I’ve learned just enough about the command line, git version control, html/css, Ruby language, object-oriented programming, databases, and algorithms to complete each successive project.

When projects become more complex, you learn more about each technology.

I think this approach is better than learning all the tools independently. That would be like spending a month learning html/css, and then after that, spending a month learning back-end development and databases. Ideally, you should be learning both for two months to reinforce learning and see the connection between both technologies.

##5. Build a Portfolio

At Udacity, I’d watch short, 5-minute videos and solve small problems until getting to bigger problem sets at the end of each lesson. I enjoyed this style of learning, but there was no repsoitory of code I could go back to. This is where I think the Odin Project stands out. Rather than just submitting small code snippets, you’re constantly writing and pushing code to github.

You have a record of your code from the very beginning. It’s not the best-written code, but you can trace your progress and always go back and review. It’s all easily accessible in your github account.

Psychologically, it’s nice to see all your work in one place. It gives you a sense of accomplishment, and I’m sure it’ll be interesting to look back at it in a year or two to see how far you’ve progressed.

##6. Open Community and Founder

There are volunteers running study groups/sessions. After writing a few walkthroughs, I can appreciate the time and effort contributors put into this project.

It’s also open-source.