Class Central Cohorts describes itself as "social learning for Open Courses". This means you don't have to undertake an online course in isolation - instead you can join in with other learners. Two new Bootcamps from freeCodeCamp are about to start with this support. 

freeCodeCamp has the mission of helping people to learn to code for free. We first reported on its approach in 2016 - see the report by Nikos Vaggalis FreeCodeCamp - Not Just A Bootcamp. According to its own publicity, since it was founded in 2014, more than 40,000 freeCodeCamp.org graduates have landed jobs at tech companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Spotify and Amazon.

Coding bootcamps typically cost upward of $10,000 so freeCodeCamp seems like a great idea for people who want to learn programming as all you need is a computer, an internet connection, time to study and the desire to learn. However, one of the known shortcomings of free online courses is the high dropout rate. This usually isn't a reflection of the quality of the course content, but more that studying on your own without others to turn to for help with problems or just to share and discuss new ideas can be very daunting. This is the thinking behind Class Central Cohorts, which developed from earlier Study Groups from Class Central. According to Class Central founder, Dhawal Shah they are intended to

 "add a social layer to free online courses".

The elements that are added to the course content from freeCodecamp are:

• Live streams with your instructor to explore the course material.
• Coding projects to build a portfolio showcasing your knowledge.
• Talks from guest speakers talk about the realities of being a developer.
• A dedicated discussion forum for interacting with peers and instructors.

During 2021 Class Central had over 8,000 enrollments for its Web Development Bootcamp structured around freeCodecamp's Responsive Web Design Certification. An "improved" re-run of this course, tled as before by Jessica Rose starts on January 10th and currently has nearly 6,000 enrollments. Over the course of 6 weeks it will cover:

• HTML fundamentals: syntax, elements, images, links, lists, forms, buttons.
• CSS: selectors, classes, ids, attributes, fonts, colors, sizing, positioning.
• Accessible and responsive web design: websites for all and on all devices.
• CSS layout tools: positioning elements with CSS Flexbox and CSS grid.
• Projects: personal portfolio website, survey form, landing pages…

The other bootcamp is an entirely new one on JavaScript at an introductory level based on freeCodeCamp’s JavaScript Certification and already has over 8,000 learners enrolled. Six weeks in length, it is led by Ramón Huidobro and covers:

• Programming fundamentals: syntax, variables, operations, loops, functions.
• Data structures: arrays, multidimensional arrays, array methods, objects.
• Algorithms: searching, sorting, reversing, merging, splicing, hashing.
• Object-oriented programming: methods, constructors, prototypes, inheritance.
• Functional programming: terminology, constraints, mapping, filtering.
• Projects: palindrome checker, caesar cipher, telephone number validator…

This combination of free resources sounds like a winning formula if you want to take your first steps to becoming a web developer.

More Information

Class Central Cohorts

Enroll for JavaScript Bootcamp

Enroll for Web Dev Bootcamp 

FreeCodeCamp.com

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FreeCodeCamp - Not Just A Bootcamp

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