My Experience With Debug Academy’s 3-month Drupal Course

May 18, 2021
Lynda Santiago

One of the best learning experience in a short amount of time

Why Am I Writing This Article?

In the past few days, I have received many questions from people eager to know about my experience learning Drupal at Debug Academy and projects I have worked on and also get tons of questions from people wanting me to do a comparison with the 10+ Month Lambda School Full Stack Web Development Bootcamp experience v.s Debug Academy’s 3-month Drupal Web Development Course. I got really inspired to write this article in hopes of helping many people who are undecided on making a decision on getting their foot on the door into tech or they just want to add Drupal as an addition to their current tech background and experience. Well, put a smile on your face because this will be worth reading!

Before I Started Debug Academy

So about a few months ago, I was looking to find my very first job role as a Web Developer specifically as a “React.js/JavaScript Web Developer”. It was very frustrating for me because of the countless times I kept getting rejected. For every “React Web Developer” job I came across, I remember seeing (200+ Applicants). I thought to myself “Now how in the world can I compete with that”.

For days I just kept on and on applying for jobs and days passed and still rejections after rejections. It got so bad that I even had thoughts of learning a different tech stack because I realized that the number of “React Web Developers” exceeds the number of jobs for that tech stack.

When I Was First Introduced To Debug Academy

One day a really good friend of mine Salah notified me about a company by the name of Debug Academy that was hiring. I did some research on my own after he mentioned the company name and became curious about the fact that the CEO of that company is the actual Instructor who teaches the Drupal Course. Also learned that Debug Academy is a certified Acquia Training Partner and A certified Acquia Development Partner. I thought to myself wow this all sounds truly amazing and a place I would love to be in.

So I remember a few days later I received my very first message from the CEO Ashraf Abed. He spoke to me about a job opportunity within his company and explained to me the tech stack that he teaches and that is used. I remember one of them being “Drupal”. Immediately I became fearful lol because I didn’t know what Drupal was but I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for me to learn something new besides just knowing “React.js”.

Trying To Learn Drupal On My Own Before Starting Debug Academy

So after my conversation with Ashraf Abed we got off the phone. I remember googling ‘Drupal’. I Learned how it was a CMS. I remember thinking to myself “Hmmm…CMS? I love to code though since that’s the type of environment I come from using React.js/JavaScript/SASS/Node.js. I have touched a bit of WordPress before which is another CMS, I remember not liking it that much”.

I ended up researching into Drupal even deeper and realized Drupal is nothing like WordPress. Drupal is more than a CMS. You’ll still be able to use the Command Line Interface, manage packages and dependencies. Although different tools of course compared to React/JavaScript still they carry very similar concepts. You can still set up a local development environment, use Git Commands, write HTML5, SASS, CSS. You can use programming languages like PHP, JavaScript, etc.

Overall there is so much more to Drupal that makes it very flexible and I thought wow this is truly amazing how you can still do the job of a Coder/Programmer and I swear that’s what really really sold me lol.

So the first place I went to try and learn Drupal was youtube. I saw a few videos from different YouTubers explaining bits of Drupal and it scared me. I’m not going to lie it really did. After a few videos, I was like “Ok I legit am not understanding anything and I just don’t know what I should be learning first”.

I found myself hopping around from one Youtuber to another to see who I could end up understanding better. I gave up on youtube and just started googling so many things about Drupal and it still didn’t help me.

I tried setting up my local environment to start a Drupal project & that was a failure lol. I was so frustrated. The point I am trying to make is, I literally felt out of place and I felt like my brain was everywhere.

Learning Drupal At Debug Academy

The beginning of the semester started and after my experience trying to learn Drupal on my own, I was in so much doubt. I thought honestly I wasn’t going to survive learning Drupal anywhere. && guess what??? That was a total lie my brain came up with!!

When people ask me was Debug Academy worth it. YES! IT WAS! & from my experience trying to learn it on my own as you guys read above was a total failure and I’m not saying everyone will possibly experience failure learning on their own BUT if you are a person like me, who needs to follow a structured curriculum that teaches you from A to Z in baby steps and need that guidance from an experienced teacher who you can ask questions to and get very informative answers from then all I can say is that you will benefit so much taking Debug Academy’s Drupal Course!

And I’m not saying it's going to be super duper easy, of course learning any new tech stack is hard at first. But I much rather go through a structured curriculum step by step through the process instead of not knowing where to start! You’ll experience working in a team contributing to a project like how you would in a real-world Drupal job & so much more. When you are done with the course you get added to an alumni slack channel that includes over 100 Drupal developers working all over the industry. Which is an excellent way to network and for receiving support on your projects.

My 10-Month Lambda School Bootcamp Experience V.S Debug Academy’s 3-Month Drupal Web Development Course

I was getting asked by so many people to do this comparison and it was tough especially when people ask me “Are you just saying all this because you work at Debug Academy. Ok, so what I am about to write is based on my experience from both schools.

I learned a lot in Lambda School specifically React.js is what I enjoyed and felt like I learned the most but the end results after graduation made me realize as I mention above, it seems like so many people are on the “React.js” train which makes it a bit harder to land a job.

If you are someone who would like to stand out from the crowd of “React.js” and you want to expedite your journey to a web development career by specializing in Drupal & PHP, I would highly recommend for you to take Debug Academy’s 3-month course, You’ll learn so much in those 3-months and after you complete it you’ll stand out from the crowd of “React.js”. You can of course always switch to learning React.js later but getting your foot in the door as I did is always the most important.

The Drupal Website I Created After completing Debug Academy’s 3-Month Drupal Course

So what you are about to see is proof that you can build something similar to this or much more than this after just 3-months of taking Debug Academy’s 3-month Drupal Course. This website I created -> Medical App isn't fully responsive yet, only best viewable on a computer but it's enough to showcase to you all. (DISCLAIMER: I don’t own any of the images you see on there. This website I created is a clone of a website I found online and I just coded it up on my own and Integrated it with Drupal & I don’t plan on using this website to make any types of profits, just created it for showcase purposes).

Coming into Debug Academy I already knew HTML/CSS/SASS, but if you are totally new to HTML/CSS/SASS, No worries you will have a chance to get hands-on learning experience with those mark-up languages along with Drupal. It’s truly such a fun amazing experience!

Who To Reach For Questions About Debug Academy’s 3-Month Drupal Course?

I hope you found all this information beneficial. If you are that person trying to learn Drupal on your own & it's not working out or you just don’t know where to start to get your foot in the door, Feel free to message -> Ashraf Abed for any questions. To read the course page you can click here -> Course Page.

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