Future Coders

I recently had the opportunity to get an inside look at a graduating class from Full Sail University. Future Coders may be a little misleading as these students have already been rocking out, but I’m still calling them “The Future” because they are now leaving school and heading out to join the community.

Where They Learned

Admittedly, the initial thought of university based web education had me a little skeptical. As with most things in life, though, proper perspective is achieved by getting a first-hand look instead of judging from afar. I challenge anyone to take a walk around the Full Sail Campus and not drop your jaw. In a city hosting Disney World, it approaches a Campus layout with the same level of awe inspiring detail. My wife joined me for the tour and said that she would even become a geek like me in order to attend there.

Inspiration is vital and there is no lack of it on this campus. The achievements of past creatives and some fantastic tech are all around the facilities. While these aren’t coding related, being in a space with full video green rooms, amazing sound decks and an ESPN motion capture studio has to be inspiring. The campus is filled with creatives and the feel as you walk around is amazing.

Who they Learned From

These students took the web design and development track, which focuses on Interface Design & Usability, Web Standards, Flash / ActionScript 3.0, Dynamic Back-End Development, leading to a Final Project.

Graduation from the program doesn’t just end with Final Project, though. These students sit down with their teachers and the faculty and discuss the program. They discuss the good and the bad, sharing observations and suggestions for improvement. There was some great data shared in comparing Github’s commit history graphs with their daily schedules. The staff truly listens and engages, it was great to see the process in action. I imagine that this happens with every group, but this particular one seemed as if they could not be ignored. They were extremely impressive.

Their Final Projects

The biggest challenge that I could imagine that there is for the instructors at Full Sail University is letting these awesome students out of their sight. I only got a few short hours with them and I went home wanting to know what they’ll each be doing next. For the time being, though, we’d like to share their Final Projects.

Anthony Colangelo

What did you think of Full Sail University?

I absolutely loved Full Sail University. The community is so vibrant, the teachers are all brilliant and truly amazing teachers, and all of the people around here are awesome people to be around. They’re all smart, passionate, and driven, which inspires you and makes you push yourself harder. I cannot convey my love for this school and these people enough.

Why did you build it, and how did you do it?

For our final project, we built WDD Social (http://wddsocial.com), which is a social network for the Full Sail web community (teachers, students, and alumni). It is a great way for the community to meet, share projects and industry information, and to stay connected. It is also a great way for the outside world, especially industry professionals and future employers, to see what the community has to offer.

We built it because, after going through the degree, we realized this is something that has been missing from the community and it is something that would make the community better as a whole.

We built the front-end of WDD Social with HTML5, CSS 3, and jQuery 1.6. On the back-end, we built a custom PHP 5.3 framework, called Framework5, and a MySQL database.

Which teachers and courses really stood out to you, and why?

The teachers that stood out to me were Jason Madsen (@jason_madsen, now the Program Director, formerly the Object-oriented Programming teacher) and Rick Osborne (@rickosborneorg, now Department Chair, formerly server-side language and database teacher). They both are so smart, passionate, and hardworking that it truly inspired me to work extremely hard. They really taught me a lot, and I will always go back to them for advice and insight as I move on in my career.

Follow Anthony @antcolangelo

Alicia Brooks

What did you think of Full Sail University?

Full Sail University was by far the greatest choice I could have made. I absolutely love the fast pace and realistic structure. The accelerated program keeps you on your feet, working hard, and out into the world so much sooner. I feel that it really did prepare me for my upcoming career.

Why did you build it, and how did you do it?

 
I built my final project, supportmymission.org because I wanted to help people through my web skills. Supportmymission is a non-profit that makes raising funds for mission’s trips easier. It allows users to share their mission with everyone online rather than being limited to the people they know. I used a lot of technologies but the main one was CakePHP, learning a framework was something I wanted to accomplish before graduating.

Which teachers and courses really stood out to you, and why?

 
I have to say that every teacher at Full Sail is awesome, they are all experienced and all always willing to help you advance your skill set. I would have to say that Brandon Brown (@bybrandonbrown) and Marianne Sheldon (@marianneSheldon) definitely stood out to me. I asked them so many questions during final project. They were always willing and open to make time for anything I needed. I really appreciated that!

Follow Alicia @aliciaj_

Oliver Lacan

What did you think of Full Sail University?

I loved nearly every minute of it.

I mastered more in two years than I’ve managed to teach myself in ten: vector drawing, user experience & usability concepts, basic animation, object-oriented programming, server-side dev, relational and NoSQL databases, web standards & accessibility, mobile dev, and the all-essential production process. I’ve met good, passionate and driven people, both on the teacher and student side.

New classes each month meant that we never got stale information, curriculums evolve month-to-month. It also made it hard to get sick of a topic for which you had no affinity.

What is your Final Project?

My final project at Full Sail is called Roomies. It’s a web application that offers task and expense management for roommates with busy schedules. It incentivizes collaboration and good relationships by rewarding participation and assignment completion.

Why did you build it, and how did you do it?

We wanted to make tedious house-related group tasks and expenses less painful and stressful. The idea had been in the back of my mind since the fall of 2009 when I met Andrew Smith, another Full Sail web student, on Twitter and realized he had a very similar idea. We wanted it to exist too badly.

To build Roomies we used Ruby on Rails (a first at Full Sail). We became familiar with it while working on cleverCode, a tiny company we founded six months into our degree with my classmate Zach Nicoll. Andrew, who joined us in early 2010, introduced us to RoR and I started actively teaching myself how to use the framework six months before our final project.

After we discovered CouchDB at Full Sail, Andrew showed me the MongoDB document-oriented database. The excellent integration with Rails through the Mongoid ODM made us decide to use it on Roomies instead of classical SQL.

We also used CoffeeScript, Sass, Haml, and Compass to speed up and clean up our development process as much as we could since we had less than 2 months of active development time.

Which teachers and courses really stood out to you, and why?

All teachers at Full Sail have one great quality, they constantly evolve. They’re encouraged to freelance by the faculty which means they’re always learning new techniques and eager to pass them on to us.

Chris Burke & Gus Hernandez – Web Interface & Usability / Applied Design Tools & Interfaces: Those two classes are the crux of the user experience, usability and web design knowledge we received. Both spectacular courses taught by two guys who will not wear gloves to smack you down if you don’t apply critical thinking and logic when designing an interface. In a field where people give to much credit to aesthetics, I can’t overstate how crucial this was.

Concepts of Object-oriented Programming: As a non-programmer when I started Full Sail, I struggled through the first ActionScript class there. After Sean Bernath ( @sbernath managed to help me “get” programming, Jason Madsen was the guy who carried me through the “OOP revelation” faster than I had ever imagined possible. His skill at breaking down intimidating concepts into simple metaphors and challenging exercises made me fall in love with coding, and bear in mind this was AS3 & Flash. The fact that he went on to become the Program Director at Full Sail Web makes me extremely confident regarding the degree’s future.

Advanced Server-side Languages & Advanced Database Structures: I’m still amazed at the in-depth knowledge of database design & management Rick Osborne managed to transmit to us. His push for the use of Git (now widespread in the program), unit testing, and further OOP concepts is why I think grads will be very valuable in the industry.

The jQuery class with Mike Smotherman (@codeinfused) made me realize why I had fallen in love with the web (and not applications) in the first place, and get a glimpse at the power of the DOM.

Follow Olivier @olivierlacan

Kent Lassen

What did you think of Full Sail University?

It was an amazing experience. I couldn’t have asked for a better school. It has brought me from my days of coding HTML in tables to today, where I know plenty of languages and how to create amazing websites.

What is your Final Project?

Lightning Owl. It is a web app that allows a person to write and share notes. It is a writer’s management tool.

Why did you build it, and how did you do it?

I built this as my final project. It was an idea that I had been thinking about because I was getting into blogging.

Which teachers and courses really stood out to you, and why?

Jason Madsen, who was one of my flash teachers was amazing. His class was extremely helpful to me when it came to programming. I also think that all of the final project teachers were amazing and helped greatly. Without them, I wouldn’t have been inspired.

Follow Kent @kentlassen

Tyler Matthews

What did you think of Full Sail University?

Full Sail has provided me with an incredible education experience. The curriculum is designed to teach the latest technologies used in various areas of the web, including user interface design, server-side development, as well as production and deployment. The program is also accelerated, which is essential when you consider the fast paced nature of the web, with its ever expanding list of technologies and trends. The most beneficial part of Full Sail was the people I interacted with during the time I spent there. The community of web students and teachers come from a diverse range of technical backgrounds, which provide everyone with various perspectives, methods and techniques.

What is your Final Project?

For my final project, Anthony Colangelo and I built a social network for the web program here at Full Sail. Our site WDD Social (wddsocial.com) is a community for students and teachers to interact and share industry related information. Members can also share projects with the community, which are displayed on their public profile and visible to prospective employers. We also created a job board for current students and alumni, where positions could be posted by community and non-community members. 

Why did you build it, and how did you do it?

Early in the program, Anthony and I realized that it was difficult to interact with students throughout the degree. Full Sail has an accelerated approach to education, where classes are typically taken at the rate of two per month. This makes it difficult to meet others throughout the degree, especially those who are more than a few months ahead or behind our group. We realized that a community site could benefit students, while utilizing the technologies we learned during our 21 months here at Full Sail. 

Which teachers and courses really stood out to you, and why?

I’ve always been fascinated by server-side languages, and feel as if that part of the degree was most beneficial to me. The topics covered provided me with an in-depth understanding of what it takes to develop practical applications in PHP and Coldfusion. The server side courses also covered database topics such as relational database systems, MySQL optimization, and even experience with NoSQL database technologies.

Follow Tyler @tmatthewsdev