Why You SHOULD NOT Take Harvard CS50!

if you search YouTube for how to learn how to code today one course comes up over and over again the course is called cs50 by Harvard University Harvard cs50 introduction to computer science this so everyone loves it and gives it great recommendations I don't think that Harvard cs50 is necessarily the right course for everyone and in this video I'm going to tell you why if you don't know what Harvard cs50 is essentially it's a introductory computer science course offered at Harvard University that is available for anyone and everyone to take online people get really excited about it because well first of all it's from Harvard which is kind of a big deal but secondly it's a really good course for anybody that's trying to learn about introduction to computer science and doesn't have any exposure into the field and to be fair it's really well organized and really well taught the lecturer that teaches the course is really engaging and I think they do a really good job introducing you to the concepts that you need to know for computer science so why am I here saying that it may be not the right course for you if you're trying to get into computer science but before we get into that I'm going to say that if you've never done any programming at all this course does have something to offer I just don't think you necessarily need to take the entire course it's a great way to learn the foundations and principles of how the internet works and how computers work and if you've never been exposed to any of that I'd definitely would say that at least the first lecture is well worth your time but I don't know if you have to do the entire course to get what you need out of it if you're someone that's looking to really get into programming and you have a lot of free time on your hands and you're able to spend all this time taking an actual University level course that's going to require University level amount of time to do then maybe this is the course for you but for someone like me that's learning how to code on the side while working full-time I don't really want to come home and watch two hour lectures and then do exercises I want to do something that's much more targeted and applies to the goals that I have in mind for myself so why do I think that Harvard cs50 kind of misses the mark well like I said I think the introduction to how computers work and how the internet works is really really helpful and you can learn a lot from that however after you finish kind of the first or second lecture it goes into all the details about how programming works at a fundamental level now this is definitely important don't get me wrong but the way that the course does this I think isn't the best way for people who are trying to learn how to code on the side or working full time and don't have the time to commit to doing a full University course so the way Harvard kind of organizes things is it really starts from the foundations of programming which is good but they do it from the lowest level of languages such as they start with c and you know I think it's important to know those Concepts and eventually maybe you can pick them up but if you're really not planning to program and see I think it's worthwhile to skip that and you can learn those foundational principles even while you're learning other languages such as python or JavaScript you may not know all of the Nitty Gritty details of everything that comes with c and you may not know how everything exactly works but I think this goes back to the foundational idea that you don't have to know every single thing about programming in order to be a good programmer you really just doesn't know enough to be good and you have to have the mindset and capability to search for answers and solutions when you don't know something I think that's what actually makes a good programmer it's a small mindset shift but when you start thinking about programming in that way then you kind of realize that it's not about learning all the foundational details and you kind of cater your study plan to that idea that I just have to be good enough and I haven't ability to look things up as I need to learn them don't get me wrong I think Harvard cs50 is a great course and it's a great idea because it's brought the idea of programming to the masses and when you have availability of resources like that you can get more and more people involved in actually learning how to code I just think that it's not necessarily the perfect solution for every type of programmer so I said a lot there and I kind of gave the philosophy of why I think Harvard cs50 may not be the best starting point for a lot of people but I do want to give some practical advice and a roadmap that I think people can benefit from and it actually starts with Harvard cs50 but just the first lecture I think the first lecture gives you a good idea an understanding of how the internet works and how programming even works on your computer when you're actually typing a program how does that actually get interpreted by the machine that you're working on but after that I think it's a much better idea to go into more focused learning where you pick a language like python or JavaScript and if you're doing JavaScript you know HTML and CSS to go along with that and then find a more targeted resource such as free code camp or the Odin project to use that and actually die dive deeper into those specific languages the reason I say that is because once you know the foundations of how a programming and computers work then you can learn the foundational programming principles associated with the language that you are actually going to use this way you're not just kind of wasting your time learning C and learning a language that you may never actually program in but rather you're learning those foundations along with a language that you actually want to use in the future you can always go back and learn C and learn those lower level languages but I think to start out with it's better just to hit the ground running and learn the language that you want to use so that you can actually get as much practice as possible in that specific language especially if you don't have all the time in the world to do this for me personally I took the first lecture of Harvard cs50 I thought it was really great and really helpful I'm now moving on to the Odin project and really enjoying that if you want to see my full review of the Odin project I'll link it here and you can definitely take a look to see if that's the right course for you I think the biggest key when it comes to learning how to program is to pick a resource and just run with it you don't want to get stuck you know going back and forth between lots of resources and that's why I think that if you have a plan of action you know you want to do one lecture in CSU and then do the Odin project that's kind of how I'm approaching it if you have that plan in place then you can kind of just go through the emotions and do it the biggest thing in learning how to code is actually coding sounds crazy but that's the thing that's going to give you the best results down the line so that's my review and thoughts on Harvard cs50 I think it is a great course that's targeted at a lot of people and it does a lot of good for the world I just don't think that you necessarily have to go down the entire pathway of the course if you don't have the time for it and I think you can pick out the bits and pieces of the course namely the first lecture that are going to give you the most bang for your buck and you can make a plan afterwards to go down a language and framework that you really want to learn hopefully that was helpful it gave you some insight onto why I think Harvard cs50 may not be the best starting point for every single person and if you guys enjoyed this video definitely hit the like button subscribe to the channel and if you're interested in learning more about the Odin project and my thoughts on it you can watch my full review video here hopefully that'll be helpful I will see you guys in the next one peace foreign

Channel: Full Stack MD

Views: 96,768

Keywords: coding, programming, web development, html, css, python, javascript, odin project, learn to code, how to code, become a developer, computer science, get started with coding, harvard, harvard cs50

Id: lOA8rriYFB8

Length: 6min 13sec (373 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 03 2022