# NCD - tl;dr

Hello and welcome to tldr with me, Ben

Today we will be covering the NEAR Certified Developer course, or NCD.

What is it?

How does it work?

Can I use my NCD as a drivers license?
- ofcourse not. why would you ask that??

## Overview

NEAR University offers a variety of free, self-paced learning resources with the NEAR Certified Developer course being the most prominent.

This intermediate course is an opportunity for web developers to earn a Certificate of Completion
that represents their ability to design, develop,
test, and deploy smart contracts on the NEAR platform.

## What Does This Mean?

One of the steepest learning curves in web3 is understanding how smart contracts work.

Smart contracts are the programs that allow us to do things with boockchain technology like send and receive funds and messages, play games - pretty much anything you touch in web3 is using smart contracts.

And they can be really difficult to understand at first even if you are a senior developer.

That's where the NCD program fits in.

## How Does This Work?

NCD is a self-paced course, and it's evolving and improving all the time.

Currently, you simply sign up on the near.university website, and you will receive hours and hours worth of learning resources to help you practice:

- perceiving web 3 in the context of human history

- reading contract code in Rust and AssemblyScript

- writing contracts using Rust and AssemblyScript

- testing contracts using unit and simulation tests

- deploying contracts and a sensible user interface

In addition, NEAR University offers free NCD orientation sessions as well

- these are live webinars in which an experienced guide answers any questions you may have about getting certified, and helps demistify various blockchain concepts.

Then when you're ready, you write your own application, and submit a demo of it.

There's a review process that can take a few weeks,

and if your demo is approved, you will receive your certification in the form of an NFT,
which verifies that you are prepared for real world projects built on the NEAR platform.

## How long will it take?

If you are a senior developer, it may only take a day or two for you to review the resources and complete your demo project.

If you are more junior, then it might take a week or so.

There's no time limit on completing your demo. Just make sure you're submitting quality work.

- It must be original work.

- It's okay to be inspired by something and build upon it, but don't just clone a project, and call it a day.

- Your poroject must include:
- Contracts written in Rust, AssemblyScript, or Javascript
- Unit Tests
- Documentation
- like how to build it locally
- and how your tests work

- The Ultimate measure of success is “Can we learn from it?”

## Prerequisites

Please make sure you have a decent grasp of the following before you start:

- Basic JavaScript client and server-side development

- Familiarity with the Rust Programming Language

- Basic terminal control

- and Basic git commands

Although you don't need to be an expert in these technologies,

you should have no problem reading sourcecode, cloning a NodeJS or Rust project, downloading its dependencies and running a few scripts.
<!--
## Working Agreement

- Support each other online and offline
- Join the NEAR University Discord Server and help eachother on your NCD journeys
- Complete all activities to the best of our ability
- make sure your demo meets all of the NCD criterie before submitting it.
- We agree to work on building a demo as soon as possible
- Take your time to understand the material, but don't push off completing your demo for too long. Use this as an opportunity to push yourself, ask for help when you need it, and help push the open web with us. -->

## Conclusions

Getting certified is a great way to connect with other opportunities in the NEAR ecosystem, so if you are a developer looking to break into web3, then start your NCD journey today.

Thanks for watching.

Until next time, I'll see you on chain!

###### tags: `tldr` `content`