## Unit 0 - Orientation

### Overview
This unit is all about getting acquainted with the course and building community with your Tech Fellows and peers. First, you'll meet your Tech Fellows, the leaders of the course on your campus. They'll be your in-person guides and first line of technical support when you're working though projects in-class. Next, we'll spend a moment introducing you to us, CODEPATH\*ORG 👋 and talk about our mission, what this course is all about and how to get the most out of your experience.

### Session 1: Agenda (90 min)
1. [Course Orientation - Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oC8MYeZ9eTFAQKPFY0c1Dy5yyWXyAueTm54WBPoessY/edit?usp=sharing) & [Course Orientation - Video](https://youtu.be/JxaTvYEvPIo) *30 min*
1. Icebreaker *20 min*
1. **[For-credit & New signups]** Sign up for the course at **[codepath.org](https://codepath.org)** *20min*
1. Wrap up *20 min*

### [FOR-CREDIT COURSES ONLY] Session 2: Agenda (90 min)
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**NON-CREDIT Courses do not meet for session 2 of this week only.**
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1. Session Intro (15 min)
1. Pre-work project working session (60 min)
1. Wrap up (15 min)

### LEARN, BUILD, TEACH...CHANGE THE WORLD!
That's been our motto since we got our start training professional engineers in Silicon Valley and now those engineers are giving back by helping us build industry relevant courses like this--in fact, you'll meet some of those engineers in instructional videos as you build the projects in this course.

You'll do a lot of *learning* and *building* in this course, but to really get the most out of it, we challenge you to try *teaching* your peers as well. When you teach, you engage a different part of your brain, deepening your understanding of the concepts as well as empowering those around you. It's important to note that when you interview for an internship or job, companies aren't just assessing you on your individual skills, but how you'll will work with their team. Think of this classroom as your collaborative engineering team and you only win if the team wins!

### How to Approach Your Journey - Watch Out for Rabbit Holes!
There will be all kinds of new and seemingly complex stuff we'll need to do along the way to accomplish our mission. Some of it will be important to understand at a deep level, and some of it will be important to ignore and come back to later. Choosing what to gloss over is, frankly just as important as choosing what to really dive deep into. The goal of this course is to give you a breadth of skills and experiences to empower you to design and build any mobile app--except games--you can dream up. To do this, we've created a very deliberate path for your learning journey.
- >If you don’t know where you are going any road can take you there. – The Cheshire Cat 😸

### How to Get Help - Leveraging the Support Network
You are not alone in this journey. This course at your campus is part of a larger cohort, running at colleges and universities across the nation, and we're all in this together! This means there is a network of 100's of students all going through the same projects and course material, and we've created two systems to bring everyone together for the purpose of providing an unparalleled support experience.

**[CodePath Slack Support System](https://codepath.slack.com)**

Our Slack community is one of the best ways to receive help instantly. Not only are you able to receive help but also build your community with other students through the beauty of solving technical problems.

Here are some links to show you how to get help through Slack

1. Video Tutorial on Asking Questions through Slack: https://youtu.be/6YysLdU86vU
1. Written tutorial through Slack: [Asking questions on Slack Walkthrough](https://docs.google.com/document/d/14RUcn-kZoIVBV92ehvMvOjZUgRKqyxBBW-AaqFXsBM8/edit)

:::danger
We recommend you download slack on your computer for better performance and efficiency --> **[Download Slack](https://slack.com/downloads/)**
:::

**[CodePath Discussions Forum](https://discussions.codepath.org)**.

Think of the Discussions Forum like a Stack Overflow or Piazza built by us specifically for this course. This should be your go-to place to get support for anything that can't be answered in class, and **our promise to you is that we will work with you until we squash that bug and get your project back on track!**

Here's how the Discussions Forum works:
1. **[Visit the Discussions Forum](https://discussions.codepath.org)** anytime you have a question, bug, crash, curiosity or anything else related to coursework. ☝️ Just click the link in the blue box at the top of the Course Portal.
1. **Browse and search** any question ever asked throughout all runs of this course. You can search by tag, project or keyword.
1. **Post a question** of your own, providing a description of the issue, screenshots, tags and repo link to help CodePath staff and the entire cohort network quickly get to the bottom of your problem. We'll even download and run your project ourselves to help debug if needed.
1. **Answer questions** posted by other students. Remember what we said about the importance of *teaching*? It's one thing to build a project and work though your own bugs, but solving someone else's issues is next level. Everyone in the cohort is encouraged to try their hand and answering questions, students, Tech Fellows and CodePath staff alike. You'll even earn a spot on our **[leaderboard](https://discussions.codepath.org/profile/leaderboards)**.