Become a Drupal 8 developer (& contributor!) Live, accessible, project-based course taught by Acquia Certified Drupal Grand Master

I took this class in the Fall of 2018, and that was the best decision I made. First, the instructor is very knowledgable and always ready to answer any questions or comments from the class. In addition, he is a certified Drupal Grand Master, a highly acclaimed and respected credential in the Drupal sphere. He also worked with Acquia (co-founded by the founder of Drupal), so what I learned was the industry best practices and standards. But most of all, he is very approachable, friendly, treats everybody with respect regardless of their technical background, and makes himself available even after class through slack to respond to any inquiries or requests for assistance with homework assignments or further clarification of classwork topics.

Second, the class size is smaller than similar courses. I take that as a big plus because you will receive individual attention from the instructor, the TA, and classmates who are willing to share their knowledge and the resources they use to complete the assignments or tasks. It is a very friendly atmosphere. There is no way you will receive such attention if you were to enroll in a bootcamp with 60 other students.
And speaking of friendliness, when you post a question or inquiry on slack, you might get assistance not only from the instructor, TA, or fellow classmates, but also from the extended Debug Academy community: the alumni (people you never met or knew before!).

Third, the classes meet twice a week with one session online, and the other session in-person and it is Metro accessible. However if you decide to attend the entire course strictly online, that option is available. Talk about convenience :)

But here is what students learn in addition to Drupal: Command line, Git, HTML/CSS, SASS, Twig, Composer, Drush, Drupal Console, PHP, etc. If you search for any of those terms, you will see how much in demand they are. I didn't know half of them, but now I feel comfortable using them on daily basis.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of this course is that you learning is not confined to a boring classroom lecture in an ideal computer lab environment. Instead, all the skills taught will be directly applied by collaborating with fellow classmates to build a REAL website. So the class is not only teaching Drupal development, but also trains students how to work in a team environment, and that’s basically how real-life projects are handled.

The aim of the class, in the end, is to teach students the skills and techniques the will most certainly use in a real job.

As for me, I feel so happy to have taken the class, and I feel even happier to have met very nice classmates with whom I am still collaborating in a real project to launch a website that I can always point to and proudly say: I was one of the developers of that site.

Last semester ended just yesterday, and we've received some unprompted feedback from a couple of students today. I'm the type of person to read reviews on Amazon before purchasing anything, so I thought I'd share the 'reviews' we just received (for those who are considering enrolling in next semester's class):

Alumni 1:

"It has been a great learning experience and I enjoyed it very much:grinning:. Thank you for making the course more enjoyable and helpful. I have learned a lot by doing it working as a team in real development environment. That's what I was exactly missing out on learning on my own. I am willing to invest more time for [the class project], as long as it needs. Since we started this project we can finish it with great product that we are all proud of. I can take [another] task :grinning:. Let me know what is available."

Alumni 2:
"Hey Ashraf, just wanted to say thanks for teaching a kick-ass class. It really did a good job of explaining how Drupal is wired up - which was most important for me.
Still have a lot to learn, which will come with time but I feel like I am off to a good start.

I think that [continued learning/research] is beauty of Drupal - you leverage the strength of the open source community. Plus you taught us a lot of the best practices to follow, so that should make for successful projects."

If you're interested in the upcoming part-time thorough Drupal 8 course, either apply on our website or reach out to me directly:
- https://debugacademy.com/apply
- ashraf.abed@debugacademy.com
- 571-215-0563

And I did remove the class project from one of the testimonials because it's a surprise for the community. We're really excited about releasing it in the next few weeks!

For anyone interested in our part-time thorough Drupal 8 development course which kicks off in 2 weeks (Jan 27):

We have a few free info sessions/trainings coming up ( https://debugacademy.com/course-registration ):
- Online tomorrow (Sunday) @10am
- Online Weds night @ 7:30pm
- In-person next Sunday @ 10:30am

And here's some additional information about our course:

We have 3 full time employees dedicated to a group of around 12 students:
- A Certified Drupal 8 "Grand master" as the lead instructor
- A PHD from GW as the assistant instructor and class TA
- A Drupal developer & instructor to develop more advanced project assignments

Why? Because we're focused on projects that have a high return in terms of personal development and reputation.

Last semester's students built and launched what has now been embraced as the official Drupal conference video website, https://drupal.tv . As part of next semester, we will be building a new website, contributing an open source theme to Drupal.org, and building out support for Drupal conferences on the drupal.tv website.

Students will receive invaluable skills, contribution credit on drupal.org, and valuable portfolio items they can use for the rest of their careers.

In short, I don't think there's a better way to kick off a career in Drupal or Web development than in our part-time Drupal 8 course, which kicks off in only 2 weeks, on January 27th.

If you're interested, sign up for the course or one of our free info sessions here, before they fill up: https://debugacademy.com/apply

Generally speaking, a phone call is the best way to determine if the course is what you're looking for. Give me a call at (571) 215-0563 or e-mail at ashraf.abed@debugacademy.com with any questions.

Thanks for your time - enjoy your weekend!