The Vefþróun course is aimed at students who want to learn front-end development at a professional level and enter the industry in a short period of time. There are no special technical skills required for the program, we will guide you through all you need to know. Nonetheless, it is very helpful to be ready to do a good amount of self-learning and to be comfortable with group work.
This diploma program uses a project-based approach. It’s divided into Modules, each consisting of a few Learning Guides and one Group project. The ~40 guides are individual projects that you develop to gain skills and knowledge on the guide's topic.
During this study, students book lots of one-on-one meetings with instructors, which is where the big learning happens. We take a look at what you've been up to, help solve problems and point ways things could be done better. This is a hands-on course, most of the time is used for creating things. There are few classes aside from live coding sessions and workshops with guest teachers.
The assignments you return using the guides are reviewed by your peers and you also review your peers’ work. A grade is given for each of the reviews. This is one of the ways we build a culture of constructive, useful feedback, as well as practice doing code reviews and mimic a real workplace environment.
During the time the students are working on the guides (as opposed to group work time) we offer coding sessions and online workshops, which are recorded and available for later use. Also, we help you with any problems you might encounter while you are working on the guides, through one-on-one calls.
After you have finished all the guides for any given module you can start the group project with other students that have also finished all those guides. The group project is presented to the teachers or in a seminar where people from the industry come and give feedback to the projects. Each participant receives an individual grade for the project based on the group’s grade in combination with jafningjamat (another type of peer-evaluation system that helps to keep the grade fair since sometimes members cannot participate as much in the group work as others, for some reason).
The presentation seminars are scheduled to specific dates, and you will get the most out of the program if you keep up with them. It is easier to form groups, and most of the discussions are about the current topics, for example. But since the sessions are all recorded and the instructors are available, you can still continue with the course and even catch up if you need to go slower at some point.
After each module we have a "retrospective meeting" where everyone can share how things went and what could be improved. By imitating the process that software companies use to continuously improve their software, we are constantly improving our program.
You can see the study topics here: guides.