Imagine you are not satisfied with your current job, and you have always dreamt of becoming a developer. What is the next step you should take? Do you need a University degree in IT to start working your dream job?
The solution to this dilemma might surprise you.
The Internet has grown so huge that you can find and learn anything you can think of. Programming is not different from it. In this article, you will be given a list of the ten best sources where you can start learning to code and jumpstart your programming career. And there are also free Kanban board templates to boost work efficiency.
So let’s begin.
FreeCodeCamp
If you are a complete beginner and starting your coding career from scratch, I would recommend you to start with freeCodeCamp. It has a great database of coding tutorials and projects that will take you from a novice to a coder who is capable of building his websites or web apps from scratch. They offer you a variety of courses about frontend and backend development, QA, machine learning, and more. Since it is an open-source project, all the courses and tutorials you get for free, with no additional cost!
Codecademy
Very similar to freeCodeCamp, Codecademy is another great website for learning to code for anyone who would like to get started. You can learn pretty much about any programming language, such as standard HTML/CSS/JS, SQL, C#, Java, Python, and more. They teach you to code in a very interactive way, so you will surely never get bored in the learning process.
If you would like more knowledge, you can subscribe to PRO membership which gives you more features, such as career paths (it will tell you exactly what to learn and in which order), more real-life projects for practice, unlimited access to any course. The PRO membership costs $19.99 per month.
W3Schools
W3Schools is something that I used when I had no idea about programming, and I needed something where I could start my coding journey. It has everything you need to start learning web development (frontend and backend). If you need a very organized and not frightening website to introduce you to any programming language and give you a good knowledge base, then go for W3Schools; it is completely free!
YouTube
Yes, you read it right! YouTube is not only used purely for entertainment or music. If you know how to search, you will be surprised by how much educational material you can find. Not only basic and entry-level stuff, with YouTube, surprisingly, but you can also get your skills even to an advanced level. Just search for it, and you will get thousands, even millions of useful videos on that particular topic you need. YouTube is also a free source for learning to code.
TreeHouse
TreeHouse makes all the courses fully interactive and enjoyable. Their main goal is to make learning about programming as fun as possible. You get access to fun and challenging quizzes and workshops and all the courses and beginner-friendly lessons taught by experts. TreeHouse covers courses for web design, databases, android development, web development, and more. If you find their service fun and helpful, you can always subscribe to their pro membership.
edX
Jokes aside, but edX looks like an online university, giving all the people around the world to enroll in the courses taught by the experts from the most prominent universities. You watch videos lectures, do your homework, and you have the option to ask the lecturer about anything you find unclear. Most of the courses are completely free to enroll in and follow-through; the only thing you can pay (which is optional) is if you want to get a certificate after the completion of the course and put it in your portfolio.
Coursera
Almost the same as edX, Coursera provides programming courses, most of which are free. Even the way they organize courses and teach them, you might think you are visiting a clone of the edX website. There is a variety of available coding courses you can enroll in. You can take them and get certificates. Even so, you can enroll in an IT degree in computer science, but bear in mind that you will have to pay for an additional cost. Regardless of whether you are a beginner or advanced coder, everybody can find something they like.
Udemy
Udemy has probably become the biggest online platform for selling courses on different topics. Whether you want to become a web developer, android, iOS developer, C# expert, all of that you can master through Udemy courses; when it comes to pricing, some basic courses are available for free. However, you cannot get as much knowledge as in paid courses. Price varies from as little as $11.99 during a sales discount to a couple of hundred dollars.
There are so many coding boot camps available on Udemy, offering about 80 hours of exclusive video content. If you are not low on budget and you have some money to invest in knowledge, buying a high-rated course from Udemy will not be the wrong choice.
Sololearn
Are you an active social media user? Well, what if I tell you that Sololearn is a social media for coders. You can choose from 20 programming languages and follow the selected course through interactive quizzes, fill-in-the-gaps exercises, and community coding challenges. The most interesting thing I found about Sololearn is the active and fun community base where you can always get polite and useful directions or tips on what’s wrong in your code or the improvements you can make.
For every course you complete, you get +XP points, and the more points you get, the higher rank you will have on the leaderboard. Sololearn is completely free, and it is also available on Android and iOS devices.
Khan Academy
Last but not least on our list is Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a type of non-profit company which provides coding resources suitable for beginners. By enrolling in courses, you can learn about basic coding principles, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. Resources are provided through video instructions. After you have watched the given video, you can sharpen your skills by competing in challenges.
Conclusion
With a huge span of resources at your disposal, learning to code has never been easier. The tricky part is to determine which online resource is the best suitable for you. I hope this article comes in handy. I have rounded up the top 10 websites in which you can learn to code easily and interactively.
