Your Students Should be Using GitHub

In this digital era, having a professional online presence is vital. Applicant research by hiring managers is standard; providing proof to a resume’s claims online is highly recommended. Having an online portfolio is doubly important for industries closely tied with the internet (namely, coding!).

If you want your students to succeed as developers, it’s imperative that they build industry-recognized portfolios. To build impressive project showcases, your students should be using GitHub. Here’s why:

What is GitHub?

What is Git?

Git is a type of source control software. Source Control is a development practice in which coders track and manage their changes to their software projects.

With Git, developers can see every change they and their team members have made to software projects. That means that if a software project ever has a severe bug, developers can use Git to rewind to an older iteration of their project.

Git makes it so that users can work in parallel on the same project without worrying about losing work or overwriting another’s code. Users can easily synchronize all changes. With Git, projects have a single source of truth in storage that can be reviewed in any version and shared with anyone who has access.

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a hosting platform for Git repositories. Whereas Git is the software developers use to create a project, GitHub is a software container that houses millions of projects that developers use Git to manage.

On top of being cloud storage for git projects, GitHub has also become a social media site in its own right. Developers use the platform to network, discuss software projects , and share open-source code.

Since its creation, GitHub has evolved into a tool that professional developers use to show off their projects and coding prowess. A glance at a developer’s GitHub profile will reveal how often they code, what proficiencies they have, and coding languages they use the most.

As a result, GitHub has become the world’s largest open-source software development platform. With increasing popularity, it has become a resource for hiring managers and recruiters who use the platform to find new talent in software development.

5 Reasons Why Your Students Should Be Using GitHub:

1. Stellar Support
2. GitHub’s collection of support materials is robust. From extensive documentation to in-depth tutorials to active communities and virtual assistants, newcomers of all learning styles can find the answers they seek. Plus, with a community as broad as GitHub’s, external support and tutorials are also rampant.
3. Change-Tracking and Version Reversion
4. GitHub makes it easy for students to visually track code changes across different versions of a project. This feature helps mitigate the damage of potential committed bugs, deletions, and other mistakes! If a project ever suddenly goes awry, students can look at the changes in their repository to narrow down the cause of the issue and even restore the project to the last bug-free version!
5. Open-Source Inspiration
6. One of GitHub’s best features is its explore feature. Through the platform, users can browse trending open-source projects for both education and inspiration. Once students discover projects aligned with their interests, they can fork and modify other users’ open source repositories. With GitHub, students can collaborate with professional open-source projects.
7. A+ Community Engagement
8. Posting projects to GitHub allows students to receive feedback from both their peers and from industry professionals. The platform makes it easy to work with other developers, and the open-source community culture loves to share, aid, and collaborate. If your students are searching for a virtual maker space, look no further than GitHub.
9. Industry-Recognized Portfolios
10. Most importantly, GitHub lets students showcase their work online. In this modern era, having a professional online presence is imperative. With an active GitHub account, your students will establish themselves as engaged members of the open-source community of coders.
11. Hiring managers seeking developers will often look at users’ heatmaps to see if applicants code regularly. GitHub often functions as a source of proof for aspiring developers' claims on their resumes and in job applications and interviews.

Provide Your Students with Industry-Recognized GitHub Portfolios:

We at Mastery Coding know the value of setting students up for industry success. With both our Game Development and Web Development Pathways, students build up their development portfolios with GitHub!

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