How I learned to code from Helsinki to Harvard

When I decided to learn to program I started looking for the best resources possible on the internet. Two courses stood out: Harvard’s CS50 and the University of Helsinki’s Java Programming. Both are full-fledged Univesity courses promising to build knowledge from the ground up, no shortcuts, no “Learn -programming language- in 1 hour”, just lectures and practical problems.

Harvard’s course teaches a variety of languages from C to Python, SQL and JavaScript. Helsinki’s is more straight forward and teaches only Java and the fundamentals of Computer Science. I chose to begin with the Java course to focus on one language and learn as much as possible about it, and I’ve almost completed all of the assignments (Feb 2021). Sadly certificates are only avaible to citizens of Finland, for now.

These points come from tens of programming assignments. On of the hardest to make was a recipe book that allows to research by cooking time, indidual ingredients and more. The most fun was a graphical interface for Tic-Tac-Toe. Using JavaFx was challenging, but I am satisfied with the end result.

I am now diving deeper in Java, learning about Multithreading and performance.

As to CS50, I’m slowly working throught the lectures and problem sets, learning more about core concepts of computer science with C.