Did you know that you can get a Full Stack Web Development Certificate at Aims Community College? It’s true and you won’t have to pay an arm and a leg like you do at some of the bootcamps that teach these skills. Not only that, you’ll earn college credit and that will apply toward an AAS degree, should you decide to pursue that route. The classes required for the certificate are as follows:
- CIS 118 – Intro to PC Applications Credits: 3
- CNG 120 – A+ Certification Preparation Credits: 4
- CSC 119 – Introduction to Programming (Python) Credits: 3
- CWB 110 – Introduction to Web Authoring (HTML5/CSS3) Credits: 3
- CWB 204 – Web Presentation: (Responsive Design) Credits: 3
- CWB 205 – Client-side Scripting: (JavaScript/jQuery) Credits: 3
- CWB 206 – Server-side Scripting: (PHP/MySQL) Credits: 3
- CWB 209 – Web Content Management Systems (WordPress) Credits: 3
The first 4 classes are required for the AAS degree, but if you’re already working in the IT field and just want the Full Stack skills, you can take the CWB classes and you’ll have as good a working foundation as you’ll get from any of the numerous unaccredited $20,000 15-week code bootcamps you see advertising full stack web dev courses. Most of the Aims classes are all available at night or, if you’re a self-motivated individual, you can arrange to take many of the classes online.
You’ll learn what you need to know to create attractive, responsive web sites with HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, MySQL, and PHP. You’ll even become an expert in WordPress because you’ll understand its underpinnings and you’ll know how to fix it if you ever break it.
Some may ask where’s the Angular, the React, the Vue.js that all the cool kids are talking about? How about Node.js? We do talk about those technologies, and you may see bootcamps that focus on those all-JavaScript stacks exclusively because they get away with teaching you a single programming language. And in the area of web development, knowledge of one programming language is simply not enough. For example, 80% of the websites use PHP and SQL on the server side and that’s not likely to change soon. And, once you understand web development basics, you’ll be able to learn those shiny new JavaScript frameworks with an online course or two from Lynda.com or Udemy since you’ll know the fundamentals of JavaScript and how it makes use of libraries.