Last Saturday, Udacity hosted its 2nd Annual Global Meetup. Many attendees at the Seattle meetup had taken either CS101 or CS046 from Udacity. Both are great introduction to programming courses that are free, always available, don’t require any prior experience, and can be taken at your own pace. The video curriculum was developed by university professors and the material covers the equivalent of an introductory college course.

These courses are both excellent choices if you are looking to build a solid foundation for computer science as your college major or in preparation for a career change. And since CS101 is taught in Python (a scripting language) while CS046 is taught in Java (a compiled language), you can take both courses and learn different types of programming skills!

There’s still plenty of time this summer to get started with these courses. Here is more information about each one:

 

Introduction to Computer ScienceCS 101 – Introduction to Computer Science in Python

This class teaches you to build a web crawler, using the Python language. It is great if you like to learn by doing your own projects. There are also four bonus lessons. Python is a popular language for startups that are building websites.

 

 

Introduction to Programming in Java CS 046 – Introduction to Programming in Java

You’ll learn the fundamentals of object-oriented programming, including concepts like classes and objects, data types, arrays, and methods. Java is one of the most popular programming languages in the world. It is often the language used for enterprise applications, and is also used to build mobile apps for Android.