- On today's internet
there's thousands of programming courses.
So just how do you know that the person
who has put that course together, the instructor,
is someone who actually knows what they're talking about
and can actually lead you on your journey
to becoming a software developer?
Let's talk about how to do that in today's video.
(lively music)
Welcome back my name is Tim Buchalka
with another programming tip of the day.
And we're talking about just how you can figure out
if a particular person has the skills as an instructor
to pass on to you to help you in your quest
to become a software developer.
Well first and foremost,
check the credentials of that instructor.
And what I'm talking about is not looking at the video
the sales video or looking at the sales page
and not looking at the testimonials on those pages
because those pages generally
have got the best case scenario.
So they'll give you a bit of information about the course
and they'll say how good they are
and how great the course is et cetera
and perhaps the person who's most happiest with the course
leaves a testimonial and they put it on there.
But that doesn't really give you enough information
in my opinion to make a decision.
Firstly I would check is to make sure
that they've actually got credentials
and by that I mean
real world commercial programming experience.
Very important to have done this for a living
as a commercial developer.
If your instructor or the person who has put together
this course that you're looking to take
has no commercial programming experience
then really how can they hope to teach you the skills
that you need to get a job commercially
and to actual programme commercially.
Unfortunately the reality is there's a lot of marketers
out there today, marketers I mean as people
who are trying to make a quick dollar.
They put something together that they hope will
be worthy of someone wanting to buy it
but they've got no idea whether it's correct,
whether it teaches best industry practises
or whether it's suitable really to help someone.
They have to be able to teach someone how to programme
is what I'm trying to say.
The best way to make sure that happens
is firstly to make sure that this person is a programmer.
Pretty basic but if you're wanting to learn how to programme
make sure you learn from a programmer.
So if they need to have real world commercial
programming experience and I would say substantial
number of years of commercial programming experience
a least a couple of years at the barest minimum.
That's number one so make sure they've got some experience.
But secondly this is a lot easier for you to check,
is just to go and read the reviews.
I know that this is probably an easy thing
but go and read the reviews left by real people,
people who have left reviews on this particular
instructor's courses in the past.
Not necessarily the course you're looking at
but another course even some of their earlier courses.
And try and see if there's a pattern there
on their teaching techniques.
Now obvious things here,
if there's a lot of negative reviews
and very few positive reviews
then that's already a red flag.
But more than just that I suggest you go through
and read the comments, what do students love
about this instructor's course?
In other words what do they get the most out of,
what do they think that this instructor has done best
and done things right than most?
But also what do they dislike about it?
What's the things that in their opinion
they felt that the instructor didn't do properly?
And try and get a general overview
from a number of different students
so don't just read one negative review.
Look I can tell you right now
that there's always going to be someone
who absolutely hates someone's content for whatever reason
and that applies to most things in life.
Some people will love something,
a lot of people will just think, yeah it's all right,
and some people will hate something.
That's just the reality of being a human.
So don't just read one or two reviews to form your opinion,
try and get a diverse range of views.
So you might want to read 20 or 30 reviews
and see if there's a pattern emerging.
Now if you read 20 or 30 reviews and it's constantly glowing
and everything is exactly the same
and they've just got all five-star reviews
maybe that's a bad sign.
Bad sign in the sense that are they fake reviews?
You aren't gonna find that
in any programming course of substance.
You're gonna find people who love it as I said before,
people who are on the fence about it and people who hate it.
But it's what the majority of people think about the course
that should be what you're formulating your opinion on.
So if overall I'd say 80% or 90% of the people
are giving it five-star reviews and absolutely love it
then there's a good reason why they love it
they think it's teaching them
and they've learnt a lot from it.
And they've got a lot out of the course
that's a sign that you've found a good instructor.
And the best thing you could do is try and find reviews
where the person has said that they've used the content
and they've gone on to get their first programming job.
That would really to me be like a no-brainer
that would be a tick to say,
I've found the right instructor for that.
So there are two things that you can do.
Check the credibility of the lecturer.
Make sure that they're not just a marketer,
that they are a programmer, they've got teaching experience
but also check the reviews to make sure
that other people who have been through the course,
either the course you're looking to buy
or another course by the instructor,
are happy with the material and get a gauge for that
and that will put you in the greatest position
to be fairly sure, nothing's 100% but be fairly sure
that this instructor is the right one for you.
All righty so I hope that helped.
If you've got any questions feel free to leave a comment
and I'll get back to you.
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