Developer Student Clubs
University of Central Florida
As most of us know, college is very expensive for students; especially for Computer Science/Information Technology majors.
Learning new programming languages and frameworks can be costly. It can be an expensive out-of-pocket cost you might not have the budget for.
Yes, we have YouTube, which is a great resource where individuals put their content out there for free. Some services give quick trials of their products.
However, sometimes those resources aren't enough to develop your skills for a strong foundation in the field.
I am writing this blog to leave my little seed of knowledge to any upcoming or current STEM majors.
So, here is what I wish I knew when I started at the University of Central Florida.
My goal as a Tech Lead is to empower individuals and help others learn from my mistakes.
Here are some available resources I would have loved to know earlier in my academic career.
Google’s Student Benefits: QwikLabs
Developer Student Clubs have the benefit of being sponsored by Google Developers.
Among other perks, free access to Qwiklabs is one of the most intriguing. Qwiklabs is a learning platform owned by Google where students can begin labs or Quests
(playlists of labs) which are centered around a specific topic/technology.
Normally, you would have to pay for credits for Qwiklabs. However, by attending one of our Cloud Study Jams, you can get up to 60 days of unlimited access to Qwiklabs.
If you missed our last Cloud Study Jam, stay tuned for our next one so you can dive in!
Another way to get access to Qwiklabs is through the Google Student Benefits, which sometimes includes Qwiklab Credits.
Go check it out and verify your student status at https://google.dev/edu. If you’re interested
in using Qwiklabs to study for your Associate Cloud Engineer certification, go and read our previous blog post:
https://dscucf.com/blogs/blog-post-1/
Linkedin Learning
Something that continues to develop my skills and my LinkedIn profile is utilizing Linkedin Learning with their massive collection of courses available for
all active UCF students, faculty, and Staff. “Explore over 12,000 courses and 5,000 video tutorials from industry experts and leaders all in one place”.
I have completed over 15+ courses that have strengthened my skills as a Full Stack Developer.
Use your UCF NID to sign in at the following link:
https://digitallearning.ucf.edu/linkedin-learning/
JetBrains
I understand why previous professors made us use old IDEs for coding (such as Code Block or NotePad++).
It was to learn how to rely on our ability to detect errors in our code such as semantic errors, syntax errors, or resource errors (such as not imported libraries).
However, in the real world and more intense courses, using a powerful IDE makes our lives easier. JetBrains increases productivity with IntelliSense to help warn about
mentioned errors before compiling your code. JetBrains provides a year free for Student licenses to their products for multiple different programming languages.
I have used JetBrains products for Java, JavaScript, C#, and C. Click here to apply for the 1-year License:
https://www.jetbrains.com/community/education/#students
GitHub Students Dev Perks
GitHub Student Dev Perks have a huge arsenal of benefits. Github provides students these resources on an economical budget.
They have partnered up with more than 60+ companies to give us great deals on tools to leverage in our projects.
I review these perks before any big projects to see what services I could use for my application.
With Computer Science overall, there are plenty of benefits out there for our taking to help strengthen our skills as developers and engineers.
These companies do this to help with social mobility for developers to get started rather than struggle to find the money.
It’s a step in the right direction for a prototype or a school project.
I hope this helps any UCF students and other individuals interested in joining the DSC UCF family!
To see the full list of Github Student Dev Perks, click below!
https://education.github.com/pack
Also, we will be posting any additional student resources in the #student-benefits channel.
Antoine Gordon-Alvarez
Tech Lead at DSC-UCF