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MindMap

Contents

  1. Resources
    1. Courses
      1. Full Bachelor
      2. CS Fundamentals
      3. Sub-fields
      4. Big N SE Roadmap
      5. Roadmaps Comparison
    2. Essential
    3. Career Resources
    4. Career Advancement
    5. Networking Resources
  2. Community
    1. Members
    2. Services
      1. Academia
      2. Career
      3. Sub Communities
      4. Networking
      5. Mentorship
      6. Mutual Mentorship, Coaching and Tutoring
      7. Events
  3. ACU Comparison
    1. Background
    2. Courses Comparison

Resources

  • Students are free to choose whichever course they like, but some benefits are studying from the same source as others as follows:
    • This is the servers' purpose (mentoring each other as our questions will be around the same course, and it will be easier to find an answer); Otherwise, Won't be any different from Coursera's Discussion forum which doesn't help much and takes time for your question to be answered.
    • Collected efforts (for picking a specific course objectively) will cover blind spots that each one has, and it will be likely better than each one picking his course & wasting efforts on course comparison.

Courses

  • Briefly, ACU provides:
    • Two road maps for computer science; Full Bachelor and CS-Fundamentals. Both:
      • Follow OSSU courses guidelines which is IEEE CS2013 Guidelines.
      • Are free and interactive (autograder for assignments and final project/exam).
    • Roadmaps for CS-Minors.
    • Fast Roadmap for working at Big Tech.

Full Bachelor

  • Fully reliable and independent road maps.
  1. OSSU.

CS Fundamentals

  • Essential knowledge for all subfields (career paths). Similar to Gen-Ed.
  1. Background Info:
    1. Designed & backed up by:
      1. Prof. Mostafa Saad Ibrahim's Videos (Arabic): Roadmap 1 & 2, Why to follow roadmap.
      2. SRE Mohamed Moshrif's Video (Arabic):Roadmap & Old Roadmap & Very old Roadmap, Why to follow roadmap, Miscellaneous Info 1 & 2.
      3. Teach Yourself CS.
      4. Note: They say same thing. They are not alternatives.
    2. Community provides courses, materials & tutoring for the roadmap in real-time in addition to group studying.
  2. Courses:
    1. Programming Languages (PL).
    2. Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA).
    3. Problem-Solving (PS).
    4. Operating Systems (OS).
    5. Data Bases (DB).
    6. Networks.
    7. Discrete Mathematics.

Sub-fields

  • Sub-Fields or CS-Minor is the different career paths.
  1. Software Engineering.
  2. Artificial Intelligence (Machine Learning Engineer, Deep Vision...).
  3. Quantitative Engineer.
  4. Embedded Software Engineer.
  5. DevOps Engineer.

Big N SE Roadmap

  1. They are reliable roadmaps and educational content provided by professionals working at those companies as a fast route to work at them.
  2. Each roadmap mentions the author and his active record. Additionally, you can ask members for their opinions.
  3. Unfortunately, courses do not always support the aforementioned IEEE CS2013 Guidelines.

Although only "Coding Interview University" is mentioned, ACU will add more resources soon.

Roadmaps Comparison

Aspect/Roadmap OSSU CS-Fundamentals Big N SE Roadmaps Note
Duration 3-5 Years 9-12 Months 4-6 Months. Low and high estimated completion time for fresh students with no CS background.
Resources Restricted to provided courses in README. Most courses are the best MOOCs. Some courses are provided supervisionally and were not tested for quality. Resources are your own choice. It is advised for courses to follow OSSU's guidelines, which have been reviewed by other students. They are not courses, so there are no restrictions, and the learning depends on solving problems, despite where you learned from. OSSU provides the best courses from the start (python for everybody) until (Programming Languages Course), and some courses start to degrade in quality, like Alberta's courses, so it is better to study them from NPTEL or other good quality courses. For the Stanford Algorithms course, the comparison is left for everyone between it and Princeton Algorithms: either theoretical-based or practical-based, as Stanford is language-agnostic, but Princeton is in Java. A lot of courses are similar, like OSTEP.
Outcome It does not require further CS learning but requires intensive Job Preparation. It gets you hired fast without any compromises, but if you want to advance in your career, you must continue the OSSU or real college route. It gets you hired fast without any compromises, but if you want to advance in your career, you must continue the OSSU or real college route. It is the fastest way to get hired in Big Tech, but it teaches the bare minimum of everything. If you want to advance in your career, you must continue the OSSU or real college route. No one in the community has taken this route so far to conclude everything.

Essential

  1. They are for everyone ($0\rightarrow \infty$ years of experience) to boost their productivity 10x-50x!
  2. They are divided into 3 categories as follows:
    1. Essential skills: (How to ask?), (How to search?), (How to study?), (How to pick your road map?).
    2. Essential tools: Git & GitHub, Linux, IDEs$\dots$.
    3. Knowledge Base: Stackoverflow-like for resources.
      1. It is a way for new people to catch up with old resources & discussions.
      2. It is searchable, tag-able and amendable.
      3. They do not contain educational resources, as these are included in README Courses.

Career Resources

  • It is the knowledge base (Stackoverflow-like) for Career.
  • Limited to @Trusted. For further explanation for @Trusted, check pinned messages in Discord.
  • Explanation of each channel is in "About Channel".
  1. Portfolio: Pinned messages or forums for advice and resources regarding resumes, LinkedIn, and GitHub. Other members resumes were tagged by the opportunities they were applying for.
  2. Interview Questions: Questions tagged by each company, role, and place.
  3. Job Search & Application:
    1. Searching & Application Techniques: Curated list of places and techniques to search & apply for jobs.
    2. Vacancies:
      1. Commit Type: Intern, Full-Time, Contract.
      2. Commute Type: On-site & Relocation, Remote, Hybrid.
      3. Role Type: Software Engineer, Quantitative Engineer, and so on.
      4. Company Type (Size, Product type, ...). (E.g., FAANG, FAANG+, Fortune 100, Fortune 500, Startups)

Career Advancement

Curated resources for each CS-Minor path by pioneers.

Networking Resources

Tailored tips and feedback for how to interact with others, find other communities and gain connections.

Community

Members

  1. Community is built on a single principle "Reciprocity". "Those Who want help, give help". It is a two-way road where beneficiaries from services are obligated to support and contribute back to the community.
  2. This is the reason for "why most of the services in the Mind Map are limited to @Trusted and above?".

Services

  • They are interactive 1-1 help not some hanging resources on the internet.
  • People here are accountable for each & every word they provide. They do not mislead, misinform or be stubborn about with their thoughts. If one is not reliable to give an opinion, he will recite you from a reliable source and back his words with the source itself.

Academia

Academia is equivalent to Academic Advisory in universities where a person (usually, Maters or PhD holder/student) offering help in the academic career path from educational field, CV, Thesis to Post grad. Briefly, anything in the below services:

  1. Academic Advisory. (Currently limited to a single person)
  2. Graduation Project Help: Project Proposal (What good/solid project that will support you when you graduate as a Software Engineer or a Machine Learning Engineer), projects to pick, project overview and guidelines, best practices and quite more.
  3. Academic Writing: Thesis help, Research Publishing help, Learning $\LaTeX$, Word.
  4. CV Review. (Can get help from other members other than Academic advisory)
  5. Post graduation help: Choosing academic path, Finding professor, pairing with professor, finding opportunities.

Career

  • Services and tailored help for Alumnus, Seniors and Undergrads similar to real universities.
  • All resources are in Career Resources.
  1. Profile Review: Personal Review, Feedback & Tips for:
    1. Resumes.
    2. LinkedIn.
    3. GitHub profiles and READMEs.
  2. Interview Preparation: Resources (stored in Career Resources in Interview Questions) and personal help for all companies and interview types, ranging from problem-solving training, mock interviews or real interviews, experience exchange, and interview resources.
  3. Jobs Search & Application: Tailored help, tips and techniques in job searching & applying based on your preferences (check them from vacancies in Career Resources).
    1. Search & Application Help: A member asks a direct question or can let other experienced members infer the problem and the question themselves (e.g., the member didn't receive any interview chances for a month which might indicate a bad resume)
    2. Open Source Programs: Dedicated community for open source paid internships hunting. (Explained in Sub-Communities)
    3. New Grads (One of ACU special communities): Dedicated community for jobs hunts. (Explained in [Sub-Communities])
  4. Discussions: Career topics of interest such as Networking, Job Application, Compensation and Offer Negotiation, Miscellaneous Career topics, Self-finance.
  5. Career advancement: level up in company, learn more, and earn more.
  6. Discussions: Miscellaneous Career topics.

Sub-Communities

  • ACU special communities below intentionally do not include or explain what makes them special. You will be briefed about them only if you are a member.
  1. Open Source Programs: Special group dedicated to discussing, mutually searching and applying to Open Source Paid Internships (Mainly Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and MLH).
  2. New Grads (One of ACU special communities): Special group dedicated to Jobs Search & Application by teaming with other members who are targeting the same companies.
    1. They resume-review, practice, prepare, search and apply together. This makes job hunting more tailored and efficient.
    2. Sometimes you can get help from older members who applied for the same companies and roles.
    3. Consider a group of 10 applying to FAANG. On average, you will prepare for an interview with 5 people, who got interviewed before you, leveraging your chances!
  3. Alumnus: Community of members with 2+ years of experience. It is designated for networking outside of work with people mostly of mutual interest (check "Alumni Fairs/Gathering" in Events). It imitates the alumni communities of real universities. (Currently unavailable. Soon, ACU will introduce it)
  4. Competitive Programming. (Currently unavailable. Soon, ACU will introduce it)
  5. Open Source. (Currently unavailable. Soon, ACU will introduce it)
  6. Contests/Hackathons. (Currently unavailable. Soon, ACU will introduce it)

Networking

Networking is the ultimate skill in your career path by far. You cannot reach far in your career without extensive knowledge and experience. But the unknown unknowns (what you do not know that you do not know) and known unknowns (what you know that you do not know) is quite much greater than known knowns (what you know that you know).

So, your only way is either by learning and experiencing everything by yourself or simply by having enough connection that covers all aforementioned unknowns.

  1. Networking in ACU is composed of two parts:
    1. Networking Resources: Curated tips & resources for "How to Network" mostly written by members. They are for networking in ACU and Outside ACU.
    2. Networking with Members: Discussed in the next step.
  2. Networking with ACU members: achieved in 5 places:
    1. Graduation & Career: life-after-grad channel.
    2. SPECIAL CATEGORIES.
    3. Educational: From CORE PROGRAMMING to STACK & TECHNOLOGIES categories.
    4. Career: CAREER category.
    5. Mentors: MENTORSHIP category.
      1. Find help in Career Advancement, Self-Finance and the entire Mind Map above.
    6. Sub-Communities
  3. Benefits from networking in ACU:
    1. Your only way to access services part in ACU.
    2. Learn to network outside ACU (with other mentors and colleagues or coworkers).
    3. Referrals Help: Connect with people in the server that can, directly or indirectly, lead you to a referral.

Networking benefits mentioned are just an example. In fact, the examples are drops in the ocean. Networking is not like educational paths because life itself is undetermined, so you can't actually predict the rewards or calculate its ROI. Maybe you cannot see now the benefits from your peers or your mentee, but over time you will. They will eventually work for big companies and gain different experiences; your mentee will eventually grow into seniors and tech leads. By that time, your interests and goals will differ. You might want to open a startup or a consulting company where you need to consult or hire people.

Networking has two shapes: trading and friendship. Trading is just an immediate favor exchange, and you only get what you can give now. Trading will not serve you when you are weak or at the beginning. Friendship is like a loan with interest. If you pick the right person, the X you give now, especially when he cannot pay back the favor, will return 10X at least. Friendship will serve you when you are weak. Unfortunately, this is not a blog about friendship, but this is for the people who never understood friendship or failed to retain friends for years.

Mentorship

A @Mentor who can help you advance in your career who is willing to help in the server but on his own terms within his own time. No obligations or strings attached.

Mutual Mentorship, Coaching and Tutoring

  1. Find & provide mentorship from & to peers ($\triangle 0-4$ YoE) in the entire Mind Map.
    1. Students typically get 1-3 answers within 5 minutes of their questions.
    2. Students provide reviews and good resources after finishing a topic in an iterative manner, leading to a curated educational resource after some time.
    3. Students evade mistakes as others will guide them. For example, studying without taking notes and studying from interactive courses.

Events

  • Only "Third Parties" are available.
  1. They are composed of:
    1. Alumni Fairs/Gathering: A great networking opportunities for old and new graduates and students.
      1. Old graduates are mentors/coaches for the new graduates and chain goes on for students.
      2. It is one of the ultimate networking techniques in different industrial or academic disciplines and levels. New Alumnus, in IVY-League Universities, have the opportunity to meet with entrepreneurs, seniors, startup or business owners; Imagine having the opportunity to meet with Jeff Bezos in his early stages.
    2. Job Fairs: Most graduates are happy and willing to offer vacancies to others especially their connections.
    3. Third Parties: Events organized by others (University, Company, and so on).

ACU Comparison

Background

As a student or graduate, you mostly studied introductory courses with not-so-good content. Even some people study just to pass the exam, which defeats the purpose of learning.

In cases where the student missed important topics such as programming languages, DSA, OS, DB, and so on, he will pay the debt after 7-9 years when he is promoted and has responsibilities, yet he misses crucial knowledge. The debt is unlearning the false knowledge and learning the correct one when you have a ton of responsibilities that cannot wait for you, unlike in college. The person must choose between paying the debt, mostly by taking an unpaid leave until he learns, telling his employer that he is incapable, or getting fired.

This is when one concludes that he must learn from MOOCs to advance in his career.

Learning alternatives are limited to paid education (real colleges, notable Boot Camps) and MOOCs.

Studying MOOCs means inevitably facing concepts or coding problems that take days. Meanwhile, it could have taken 5 minutes if you asked the right person. A lot of students leave MOOCs when they get stuck for too many or too long! This leaves them with either the paid option -to get answers when you need them-, if they can afford it, or simply giving up on learning at all! So why not study MOOCs in communities such as ACU? Unfortunately, a lot of good communities provide such help, but they do not provide it for all MOOCs, and this is when ACU comes to hand.

Courses Comparison

Topic/Option ACU Paid options
Price $0 Good options start at $1000 for bootcamps and can go up to $50k for Ivy League colleges, not including living expenses. You pay for the course you failed.
Educational Commitment At your own chosen pace. Can pause anytime. Deadlines-restricted. Can never pause.
Personal Commitment No deadline can push procrastination if one is not dedicated and disciplined enough. Deadlines, projects, midterms and finals can panic some people to not even enrol.
Commute 0 Time all year 15-30 minutes per travel not including getting ready or the exhaustion.
Content Of ones' choice based on reviews. Forced and if it is not good, you now will study the forced and the MOOC option.
Help If you study known topics, you will typically receive a great answer in ~3 minutes from other student You will receive answers from TA within hours to days, but answers from colleagues are like in ACU.
Degree Courses can never be used as viable credit hours when applying to real colleges. Yes, which might open a lot of internship options or training in country. Can be used also to proceed in the academic field.
Grading Autograder which is greater than any TA or Professor. Check it out in Princeton Algorithms or Programming Languages Course Theoretical Pen & Paper style.
Admission - You might be rejected or required to pay some fees especially for placement tests.
Topic/Option ACU Free Options
Resources Multiple options tailored to one's goals (scientific, industry, country...). All options have active people studying that can help you. Restricted to only one option, and it might not be active. Mostly not tailored to one's goals.
Services Provides Career, Academic and Networking services similar to or better than paid options because, in a lot of cases, we will also depend on them (e.g., in resume feedback, we will reference MIT, Stanford, etc.,). At most, you will get 2 or 3 help from anonymous or accountable people (thought to say that they are, in rare cases, great). The help is mostly resume and job applications, which is a fraction of ACU Career Services.
Community You make connections or friendship with members; a lot of us has met personally multiple times. Rarely one can gain connections from them. No friendship beyond online one.
Networking Allows knowing and connecting with people who will be seniors in a lot of different companies in 3-5 years. Does not enforce human connection. Mostly, people interact with each other a few times, and that is it.
Feedback Externally find out your mistakes via your peers without you asking; Slow studying, over studying, wrong course selection, communication mistake with manager/peer, and so on. This is because most people know each other and can easily detect such mistake. Unless you ask, you will not get feedback. When you ask, you rarely get an answer, and rarely an accurate one.