I'm a big fan of CompTIA and the rigor of their certifications. I wanted freeCodeCamp's new Full Stack Developer cert to be similarly rigorous.
But I made one major miscalculation.
I underestimated people's desire to earn certifications within less than a year of study.
With our old curriculum, you could earn your first cert in as little as 300 hours of coursework.
With our new curriculum, it takes around 1,800 hours of coursework to earn the Full Stack Developer capstone cert.
The result is that a ton of people are still choosing to study our outdated legacy cert coursework, rather than studying our new and vastly-improved full stack coursework.
I'm kind of embarrassed that it took me months to understand this.
And to be clear, there are a few other reasons that not everybody has moved over to our new full stack curriculum:
The curriculum is still in beta.
The Back End JavaScript coursework isn't live yet.
Our exam environment isn't live yet. So you can't sit for exams yet.
The good news is that the freeCodeCamp community is working hard to finish these three items.
We're steadily shipping the remaining coursework and finishing our exam environment. And we're hoping to get the new curriculum out of beta as early as summer.
Still, this won't address the problem I mentioned at the beginning: it takes way longer to earn the full stack cert than it takes to earn our old certs.
Well I'm happy to say we've found a solution for that.
Introducing 6 Additional, More Granular Certifications
As you may remember, for the first 9 years of freeCodeCamp's existence, we had tons of shorter certs: Responsive Web Design, Front End Libraries, Relational Databases and more.
We're going back to this model by breaking the Full Stack Development curriculum down into a series of smaller certs. You can earn these new certs along the way as you progress toward earning our Certified Full Stack Developer capstone cert.
Here's the full list of certs you'll be able to earn along the way:
Responsive Web Design
JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures
Front End Libraries
Python Programming
Relational Databases
Back End Development and APIs
The full progression will look something like this:
Each of these certs will require you to build certification projects and sit for an exam. They'll each involve around 300 hours of coursework, like our old legacy certs did.
The main difference: as you earn these certs, you'll progress toward earning our capstone cert: the Certified Full Stack Developer certification.
The finished curriculum will look something like this:
We're working to finish our exam environment so that you can sit for exams and earn our new Responsive Web Design cert and JavaScript cert as early as Halloween.
We'll release subsequent certs as we finish them, with the goal of having all six of these new certs live by summer.
So in conclusion: I underestimated people's desire for smaller, more specific certs that they could put on their résumé, CV, personal website, and LinkedIn.
I'm working hard with the freeCodeCamp community to get these new certs live and out of beta as quickly as we can.
As has always been the case, these will be FREE verified certifications with verification links and QR codes, that will live on freeCodeCamp's servers forever.
Over the past 11 years, people have earned more than 300,000 of these certifications. These represent millions of hours of learning by the global developer community.
I'm proud of our certification program, the rigor it communicates to employers, and the access it extends to anyone willing to put in the time and effort to learn.
These certs will remain a central part of our community and our mission.
FAQ
So instead of earning just one cert for completing the full stack cert curriculum, I'll earn 7?
That's correct. There will be 6 300-hour blocks of coursework (like with the old curriculum), each with their own projects and exam. After all this, you'll build a final capstone project and sit for a comprehensive final exam.
What will happen to the legacy versions of these certs?
They'll eventually expire and you'll want to earn the new version. The soonest they will expire will be 2028, and we may push that date back a bit to ensure people have time to earn the updated version of these certs.
What if I already earned a legacy version of one of these certs?
Great. You've probably learned most of the concepts that you need to earn the updated version. You'll just need to build the required final projects for that cert and sit for the exam. Then you can earn the updated cert.
Tell me about the exam environment
It's a desktop app you can use to securely take the exam for each certification. Instead of needing to go to a testing center, you can take exams at your convenience.
Our app strikes a balance between respecting people's privacy while also flagging for human review anyone who may be cheating.
Are there any other changes to the plans for the full stack cert that you haven't talked about here?
No. We're still proceeding with everything I talked about in my Christmas community update. We're making steady forward progress. The freeCodeCamp open source community is more locked-in and more productive than ever.
When should I switch from the legacy cert curriculum to the new full stack curriculum?
Immediately. If you start now, you can be one of the first people to sit for the Responsive Web Design and JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures exams once they go live.
Again, the new coursework is WAY better than the old coursework. It's more granular, more interactive, and includes more theory and more practice.
So the only change is that you're adding these new certifications along the Certified Full Stack Developer path?
That's right.
Cool. Don't you usually sign off with your catch phrase? Say the line, Bart.
Happy coding.