Celebrating the 8th anniversary of the first release at GeekUniversity

Today GeekBrains is 8 years old, and over the past year we have been joined by 1.3 million users - the number of registrations on the portal has exceeded 3 million. We have many new curricula and professions, but our main achievement is GeekUniversity online university . It allows you to train middle-developers for a year and employ them in the Mail.Ru Group and to our partners. Now there are 2,000 students enrolled in 7 faculties, and at the end of August we are waiting for the first 50 graduates.

The project from two faculties launched in April last year. Now there are already seven faculties represented: web development, Python, Java, iOS and Android development, game development and information security. We focus on training in practice, students work on real projects and take elective courses from partners - MTS Bank, Wildberries and many others.

About the success of this project can talk for a long time. But instead, we will introduce you to one of the first students of GeekUniversity, 19-year-old Dmitry Usov. The founder of the project, Alexander Nikitin, learned from him what was the most difficult thing to learn, how he found work, and why he had to get what he had not been told in high school. Instead, Dmitry found out from Alexander how GeekBrains appeared, where to start learning programming, and why he doesn’t like C ++.

With this conversation, we open a cycle of interviews with students of GeekUniversity. They will talk about the features of training and employment after graduation.

Alexander : Dima, where are you from?

Dmitry : From Samara. After the 9th grade, we moved to Moscow. I wanted to study for a long time as a director, but there I had to give up literature, social studies, biology, chemistry, but I didn’t want to do this, because the school didn’t allow this knowledge. And then I entered the Moscow State Pedagogical University, for applied computer science in management.

Alexander : What games did you like to play?

Dmitry : Basically it was Lineage, Wolfenstein, Red Faction, Quake, Warcraft 3, CS. And when did you start programming?

Alexander : In the fifth grade I got a computer. No one in the classroom and in the yard was not, but I had. It was very cool. In 6-7 class a friend came to me, on a diskette brought a program on Basic, which showed a riding car with sound. I began to change some parameters, the machine was going differently, or it did not have a wheel, but it was moving. I felt the magic of programming, and it hooked me. Although I did not write anything meaningful for several years, it was only in the 10-11 class that I began to try to make simple websites in HTML and JavaScript.

Dmitry : In what languages ​​did you try to write?

Alexander : On different. For example, when making websites, PHP was popular. Neither Python nor Ruby has been particularly developed. Although now Python is interesting to me as an application in machine learning. I generally advise everyone to machine learning. In a few years, it will play a huge role in IT.

Dmitry : Will there be a machine learning course? There is a very high threshold for mathematics, will it be possible to explain such a complex topic in one lesson per week?

Alexander : I think you can think of something. We will definitely do something about machine learning. Yes, you won't learn math for the lesson, it's true. Another thing is that neural networks are also evolving: they are packaged in some solutions, frameworks. Today, ready-made neural networks are already available; it is enough to take data, train it and try to benefit from it. The world is changing very quickly. For example, we have always adhered to the concept that it is possible to get the profession of a programmer not in six years, as I was taught in high school, but in a year.

Dmitry : At school I had a friend who was interested in me because he knew how the computer works, how to make websites. He knew how I could not. Up to grade 11, I did not think that I would become a programmer. This is a matter of chance that I chose this university and entered. Having chosen the subjects for the delivery, I immediately went to the courses on HTML and CSS. In 2-3 months I was taught layout and styles. And I thought that I can do websites. He did not know how to program. I thought that I would be accepted to work with open arms. But it did not happen.

Alexander : When I was in grade 11, we had a boy in school a year younger than me. According to him, he worked in the company "Nival", which made the game. And he was paid money there. For us, high school students, he was paid some extraordinary money, he could buy shawarma to all his friends. Or buy and throw it away. We immediately wanted to be like him. I had the following question: did you go to study at a university for a programmer?

Dmitry : Yes.

Alexander : But found it necessary to go for some additional courses. Why?

Dmitry : Six months have passed since I went to university. I wanted to try something new. I was at HSE, at Moscow State University, mainly at economic seminars. I realized that it was not mine. In parallel with this, I went to the university and there it was just ... nothing. You sit, leave, sit, leave. Everyday. It was all so lacking that in the evening I went to MSU to attend courses in order to somehow make my head work. I had no programming skills. I even bought a book about javascript in the hope that it would help. The book was very expensive and huge. I did not understand what objects were, I reread, probably 500 times. At the same time, my mother suggested that I take an internship with one of her students. Month was like, found out how it all works from the inside.

Alexander : What did you do there?

Dmitry : Basically, I was given tasks a la "Add up the Yandex home page" or "display some files." After the new year I began to scribble wherever I could, asking me to take it for free, to give at least some practice. On May 5, I went to the social network and saw that the online university from Mail.Ru Group had opened. I thought it was a lifeline. Mom supported me to go, but since July I will not take money from her. And there were literally June and July, and it is necessary to find a job in one month.

Beginnings classes began with Alexander Pryakhin. Very cool teacher. In the first lesson, he said that at the end we will have an online store. I thought I didn’t know how I would do it, if now I’m just zero. We are told about Bootstrap 3, then PHP. I start learning from two streams, running back and forth. After PHP, my session ended and I went to get a job. I was taken as an intern at RosEvroBank.

Alexander : What is the most difficult thing for you to study with us?

Dmitry : I had difficulties with algorithms, data structures. Just a nightmare as difficult. My fellow students, 30-year-olds with experience, ask questions, and I, because of my age, do not understand which computers are being spoken about. The teacher rolls, rolls, but I do not understand.

Alexander : If you get an education, then at some point you will definitely not understand something. And that's fine. Without this, there is no. Somewhere you have to make an effort, read a book, go online courses, enroll in university. This is normal and it goes away if you try to figure it out a little longer. I think you have repeatedly had it so that at first you do not understand something, and then you enter all the same?

Dmitry : I had all this programming.

It was difficult to decide to unite with Mail.Ru Group? Give a project?

Alexander : First, we are still completely managing the project. Secondly, we are its co-owners with Mail.Ru Group. Cooperation has strengthened the position of the project. We like to do online education, we are going to do it further.

Dmitry : Tell me, how did you launch a programming school project?

Alexander : We took the engine from WP, rolled in some plugins. January 14, 2010 launched the site, announced that here we will learn to program. I am very glad that today I am ready to subscribe to the same words. In February, there was a first free course called “PHP in two weeks”. It was very funny. We conducted audio webinars, without video. Then they realized that there is no point in teaching for two weeks, people are ready to study longer. And they began to do monthly courses.

Dmitry : Why is there no faculty in C ++? Why don't you love him like that?

Alexander : We love much more than we can run in the form of faculties. Since we are a commercial organization, the demand is very rigidly dictated by the proposal. First of all, we make training programs in the most popular areas. More low-level languages, the same C ++, not to mention the assembler, are much less in demand. The market needs far fewer specialists. Now there is a big need for mobile developers.

Dmitry : Android and Java development are not much different. How would you express the difference between them?

Alexander : It is clear that in both cases the Java programming language is used. But libraries in Android development are used to create mobile apps. They have different tools, libraries, frameworks. Now you are at RosEvroBank. What do you dream in life and in your professional career?

Dmitry : I consistently set myself small goals. For example, in February I had a goal - to buy a Mac Book, and I bought it only in October. There was a goal - to grow from an intern to an employee, in July I joined the company, and in November I was promoted.

Alexander : What is the title of the post?

Dmitry : Software Engineer.

Alexander : How do you see your career further? Do you want to further develop as a programmer?

Dmitry : I like it when I don't understand something. I have been learning programming for 6 months, if you count with work, then it is 12 hours a day. After work, I watch webinars and do my homework. And on weekends as well. Now the course on Yii 2 has begun, it is easy for me, because I already have experience. We had a team development, we chose Laravel as a technology.

Alexander : Did you manage to make friends with someone from classmates during your studies? What is your relationship with the guys?

Dmitry : Not to say that we are friends. Although very cool guys study with me. I am the youngest on the stream. Someone fumbles well in networks, someone builds infrastructure well, and so on.

Alexander : Do you think your peers are more stubborn, hardworking, active than the older generation?

Dmitry : I think not. The current generation is very loose because of the enormous amount of information flowing through them. They would certainly become genius programmers if they made an effort.

Alexander : Where do you get motivation? According to your story, you can see that you are extremely stubborn, purposeful.

Dmitry : I know that life is short. You can not imagine when it will end. Every time I draw motivation from books, articles, life situations.

What is the best way to start programming?

Alexander : How to say so that it does not sound like an advertisement? A superactual question for those who cannot program. Therefore, we have developed for him an answer called “Basics of programming. Free course. Since we are in the 21st century, this is a video format, and if something is not understood, there is an opportunity to ask and get an answer.

Dima, I was very pleased to meet you. I am surprised at how much desire you have to act, learn, develop. You have no idea how nice it is to see such purposeful students. It is like a balm to the soul. Thank you for this meeting!