As a computer science student at TMU, I took two courses where I got to learn the C programming language. However, I always felt like I was missing out on C++, as I constantly see it as a top language used by software engineers in industry.

Before starting this course, I had a solid grasp of computer science fundamentals such as object-oriented programming (OOP) and data structures thanks to my Java and Python experience.

After taking Codecademy’s C++ for Programmers course, I got the opportunity to learn C++ syntax and code small projects. While concepts like classes, loops, and variables felt familiar, learning about the hash-map data structure (map and unordered_map) made me realize that it had its unique behaviour under-the-hood. Additionally, subtle syntax differences with classes, methods, and objects took me some time to get used to. It’s wild how expressive C++ can be once you get the hang of its quirks.

Below is my progress and a few badges I achieved after the completion of the 3 hour course.

I also got to build a fun variation of Rock, Paper, Scissors based on The Big Bang Theory show. In this project, I learned how to use switch statements in C++ to handle multi-case game logic cleanly.