Passing D335: Introduction to programming in Python at WGU
One-pager on how I passed D335 - Introduction to programming in Python.
This course felt like it would make or break my term. I left myself about 2 months prior to the term's end date to begin and pass the OA for this course. My start date for this course was September 22, 2023 and I finished the 4 hour long OA on November 16, 2023 with 14 days to spare.
Resources I used to learn the content and pass:
Zybooks (the official course content)
Zybooks often gets a significant amount of negative attention for the teaching methods used and the way the content is presented. While Zybooks can feel like a fire hose of information, all of the content from Chapter 1 through 14 (Focus extra on chapter 14). The easiest way to understand the PA and the OA for this class is to understand Zybooks and how it works.
* Take note of all whitespace
* Watch all outputs for case, spelling, punctuation, and structure to match the stated formatting requirements
* Test your code with MANY different inputs (Zybooks test cases are tough)
* Complete ALL Additional Labs
* Focus heavily on Chapter 34 (Practice test 2) until you can complete these questions without needing to reference
* Learn how to use the help command.
Giraffe Academy (Freecodecamp.org)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfscVS0vtbw&vl=en
Giraffe Academy felt like a lifeboat for learning Python. The video is cut and dry with about every topic needed to pass this class talked out over about a 4 and a half hour video.
* Watch every chapter in the video
* Follow along and complete all of the content on your own IDE
Download and use an IDE
* Pycharm community is FREE. I chose this IDE because its fully featured and costs nothing. https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/download/other.html
* Do NOT to rely on auto-complete. While incredibly convenient in an IDE, auto-complete does not exist in Zybooks. Knowing and understanding the syntax and terms is vital to passing this course.
Pass the PA
* Passing the PA is crutial to passing this course.
* Do not pass the PA through memorization. This course requires functional knowledge to pass the OA.
* Note down any chapters that are weak. Go over the Zybooks and work through practice questions in an IDE.
* Schedule to meet with one of the course instructors prior to taking the OA. Go over your strong and weak points to get extra direction.
Overall this course was tricky for someone who had not worked with any programming languages prior to Python. Learning the content fully is the easiest method to pass without too much of a struggle.