The course is great overall, except that some of the questions' instructions don't align with what the 'grader' expects. It looks like some of the instructions in the questions are outdated.

Some of the assignments specifically the coding assessments are missing the code sections on the instructions page. Otherwise this is a very good course would be a 5.

It would be ideal if the course were in other languages. In addition, there are some errors in the statements that are clearly left over from previous versions.

The Overall Course was absolutely great. But the testcases for final assessment were not clearly mentioned.

Information was helpful and mostly clear, the grading on the the final lab is a bit finicky.

Need subtitles on spanish!!, but all ok

The instructor was incredible and explained everything clearly and with a lot of examples. My problem with the course was how unpleasant the experience with the lab exercises were. The environment was slow and the projects sometimes repetitive and dull.

A lot of typos, even in quiz exams... Also at one point some important syntaxes are skipped, while sometimes the narrative in videos are so childish. Had to google myself a lot and read Oracle's documentation.

(Note that this is an online course that is months old at the time of review and that it may be updated)

 Easily the worst learning material I've encountered (free or paid) on the subject of programming. These complaints extend to the second course in the Amazon Junior Software Developer specialization up to the first module (where I've decided to quit after seeing the syllabus and content don’t line up). As someone who has explored a number of object-oriented languages, learning Java should not be challenging. The actual difficulties come from tolerating this low quality course as someone pressed for time and presumably paying for quality. Consistency feels like the root of the problem. 

Trying to bear in mind that someone with no programming experience will likely take this course, I commend Amazon for belaboring every concept to - the point of absurdity. That’s consistent. There should be a world record awarded for how many permutations of “what is polymorphism” they could pack into a single course without actually adding anything substantial. To do this with Easy-Bake oven style labs that in no way resemble a real-world, useful program is unavoidable in beginner material. That’s fine per se. A solid foundation is key.

 However, couple this very low expectation of the novice’s ability to comprehend a concept with the apparent requirement that the novice will wander through hundreds of pages of dense language and virtual machine specifications as well as APIs to pick up on random nuances of the language they will be graded on without warning. That’s not consistent. Videos, labs, and reading assignment don’t feel like they’re mapped to graded tests and quizzes properly. To make it worse: there are no satisfying wins that motivate you to keep going which should be the hallmark of exemplary educational material….and you will need some serious motivation given all the faults I’ve encountered. 

Other courses I’ve taken on similar languages have you create full blown, networked, multimedia applications within a very short time with good pacing and supplementary materials. You will still be producing basic print statements* in labs of the second course after this one. 

The labs are the worst part. Every new lab will induce increasing dread whether or not you’re a total novice. 

The environment is pretty nice, but the content will haunt you. How does carefully going over the instructions only to find out the explicitly expected text across the entire program is counted as incorrect sound? Symbol names patterns? They’re not consistent in the instructions nor do they match what is expected when the lab is graded. The resulting errors you should look to for guidance? They’re truncated and verbose output from a bespoke automated grader which issues random tests, meaning you’ll spend an hour retesting and fixing punctuation requirements you can’t anticipate. 

*Whether every beginner’s educational Java program should be restricted to outputting print statements in an emulation of a terminal emulatior is a moot point. How does the lab introducing a code instruction that only make sense in a vague graphical context sound? You weren’t shown any APIs related to graphics. A no point were GUIs mentioned, but the lab is going to insist that you think hard about how the obviously graphics-related code fits into the final lab solution….which doesn’t even utilize the code in question. With the lab scenarios being as comically contrived as they are, the complete lab code is exceedingly sparse. For there to then be extraneous, irrelevant code is a problem and inconsistent. By the time I encountered this error, I was already conditioned to poor lab quality and just assumed there would actually be graphics added to the lab in a module that isn’t about graphics and hasn’t been preceded by anything graphics related. That tracks.

 Okay, you’ve learned a concept, applied the concept, have be tested on the concept, and then did basically same thing with minor grains of novelty for 4 modules straight. Good job! You’re pretty robust and resourceful making it through all that. Take a look at the syllabus for the second course. Error handing and file handling starting in module 2. Nice! New content! Wait, it's actually another 4 modules that rehash the last 4 modules of the previous class because we have to be sure you haven’t forgotten what an object in Java is. (Update: at the time of posting, it looks like they updated the second course to actually reflect the syllabus but I’m not sticking around and paying for it. Never should have been an issue to begin with considering I’ve paid for a complete course, not a half finished one that's being revised actively).

You can sign up for the courses but you're unable to earn the certifications, despite paying, because there are always errors and you cannot submit your assignments.

unable to submit lab assignment