- Why learn code?
Why, I mean, why are you here right now?
There's a million other
things you could be doing.
I'm competing with your
Netflix account right now,
I get that.
But why are you here?
I taught myself how to code.
I was a music major back in college
and I had no desire to
ever become a developer.
I looked at the computer science
department and I was like
I don't know what kind of voodoo weird,
coding is not for me.
But I had a problem I needed to solve.
I needed a website for my band.
Specifically I wanted to put
an MP3, bare with me here.
Just put an MP3 on the internet,
like have my album on the internet.
This was like a little
bit before SoundCloud
and all those tools so
I had to do it myself.
And I taught myself how to do it.
I read a lot of books,
I talked to some people.
I figured it out and I
found that it wasn't as hard
as everybody made it seem.
Like there were some really clear paths
to figuring this out.
And a lot of what took
me months to figure out,
I'm gonna bring to you
now in this one week.
And I'm telling you this
story because I have a hunch
that there's a reason
you're here learning to code
that has more to do with
just learning to code.
And if you could find that purpose
of what you can apply it
to, for me, it was just
getting my band's website
up on the internet
so people will download my music.
I was so excited about that.
If you could find something
you're excited about,
this is gonna be really,
really great for you.
Just a few words about me and
setting you up for success.
Me, my name is Chris Castig, Castiglione,
but everybody calls me Castig.
I'm the Co-founder and
Dean here at One Month.
I also teach at Columbia
University here in New York City.
I have a YouTube channel
and a On Books Podcast.
You can check out all those
and stalk the hell out of me
if you want @castig, I put that up there.
In the past, I was a
developer and consultant
for companies like DonorsChoose.
I worked with the CEO for over a year
while I'm doing tutoring with him
and then consulting with him.
As well as American Express
and General Assembly.
I was the first teacher
there, here in New York
in 2011, 12 and 13.
Right before I started One Month.
So that's a little bit
about where I'm coming from.
I've worked on sites and
made sites for Toyota,
Black Eyed Peas and I don't
know, about 100 startups
over my 10 years as a developer.
And I'm super excited
because I wanna bring
these skills to you and
get you building stuff.
Here's what you need to know
to be successful in this course.
Courses at One Month follow a method
and here's how it works.
The first thing you need to
know is that a new assignment
will be given to you every Monday.
Now if you're here for this week,
you will get your assignment
right now on Monday,
so you have your assignment.
This is what you're doing.
The next thing you need to know
is every week at One Month,
your homework is due on Sunday.
So at the end of this
week, you will submit
your homework by 11:59
p.m. Eastern Standard Time,
that's here in New York City time.
And you will submit it
and you will get a grade out of 20.
20 out of 20 would be
awesome, and personal feedback
from either myself or
the TA on your homework.
So that is what your
assignment is for the week.
Well the assignment itself is comin' up,
that's what you need to know.
Now to be successful you need
to put two to three hours
of work on the calendar
this week for this project.
Make the time to do it.
You need to do that and
get it in by Sunday.
That's all you need to do.
You can do it.
And share your work in Slack throughout
and at the end, and help others.
If you get this and I get
this, we all get this.
We all need to help each other
so that we can all be successful.
And that's the best way to be.
I've learned so much teaching
and I hope that I can
inspire you to teach and
help other students as well.
So we all 100% succeed at
the end of this course.
Right now you are in the first week
of our four week HTML track.
And if you like the ability
of being able to make
a project in one week,
you can do three more HTML projects
and advance your skills right after this.
Also we have this full-stack bootcamp.
So after HTML, you will do
Javascript, Rails and Ruby,
if that interests you.
If you like the ability
to build up your portfolio
with this body of work.
If you don't know what any
of this means right now,
it's also fine, you'll know
by the end of this course.
So just keep going with it.