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The ALX Foundations Module: Building a Strong Foundation in Tech
- 15 Nov 2023
- 6 min read
ALX Foundations is a module that all learners participate in before starting their chosen specialisation. Throughout Foundations, you will learn basic hard and soft skills that will help you succeed in your ALX programme and that you can carry with you throughout your career. Building a strong foundation is the key to success in tech, and our learners can attest that this module is what makes ALX an exceptional learning experience. Register for our January cohort today!
The Importance of Skills Development
Having a successful tech career requires more than just technical knowledge. There are important professional skills that are important to learn as well.
Technical knowledge, often called hard skills, refers to things you learn. As an example, software engineers know how to code and program and can build software with those skills. The things they’ve learnt through study are hard skills that create a software engineer’s specific expertise.
Professional knowledge, often called soft skills, refers to interpersonal skills that become part of your behaviour patterns. Soft skills include communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and leadership which define how you interact with others in a professional space. The software engineer who knows how to code and program, for example, must also understand how to communicate their work to their team, too.
Learning both hard and soft skills will make you a well-rounded worker and learner. When going for interviews, it is the soft skills that you learn in Foundations that will help you stand out as an exceptional candidate above the rest.
The ALX Foundations Module
Whether you decide to specialise in our Cloud Computing, Salesforce, Data Analytics, Front-End Development, Back-End Development, or Data Science programme, you will start your coursework with Foundations. The Foundations module is meant to help you build a strong base of professional skills to help you tackle any challenges that lie ahead. This includes your programme, but these skills extend their usefulness all the way through to your future career.
To give you an idea of exactly what soft skills you will learn in Foundations, here is a brief look at the syllabus for the module:
ALX Foundations Syllabus
The first part of Foundations is all about your own self-awareness. After being loaded into our online systems, you’ll meet your peers and participate in workshops that help you articulate your own growth. In order to be successful, you need to understand where you are and where you’re going. This first part is dedicated to helping you figure that out.
The second part of the programme shifts its focus to teamwork. You’ll be put into teams where you will work together on entrepreneurial projects, wireframing, and building prototypes. This will teach you critical teamwork, management, and communication skills that you’ll carry with you in your studies and your career.
In part three, there is a major emphasis on your chosen specialisation. During this phase, you will spend time looking at different career paths you could take in your area of interest and understand what you need to do to find success.
This all culminates in the end with your own personal portfolio and personal website that showcases your skills. As you go about your programme afterwards, you can add projects to your portfolio so that you are ready to apply for jobs once you’ve finished.
During your specialisation, you will be able to access all Foundations information as part of your professional developmental toolkit. With skills like how to interview, how to build your resume, and how to update your portfolio, this toolkit will be invaluable during your tech specialisation and beyond.
8 Meta Skills You’ll Learn
Throughout the course of Foundations, you will learn several critical skills listed below in the order you focus on them:
- Leading self – Understanding who you are by figuring out what you want to guide yourself toward your goals.
- Leading others – How to be a proper leader with good communication and management skills.
- Critical thinking – Learning how to tackle complex problems in creative ways, or analyse situations to gain important insights.
- Entrepreneurial thinking – You will learn how to find opportunities, create solutions, develop unique and creative ideas, in order to create innovations and become an entrepreneur.
- Quantitative reasoning – How to use maths, logical thinking, and statistics to gain insights from data and learn new information.
- Communicating for impact – Learn to communicate with co-workers, clients, and managers to effectively get your message across.
- Managing complex tasks – Time management is key to completing your programme tasks on time and is crucial to your job performance, too.
- Navigating tech ecosystems – The key to success in tech is adapting to changes in the market. Knowing how to do this successfully will help you in the long-run.
Why Foundations?
Our goal with Foundations is to make our learners truly future-proof. This means that they are equipped with malleable tools and knowledge to be able to adapt to whatever changes might happen as tech advances or the job market changes.
When applying for a job in tech, you will likely be competing with a pool full of technical talent. What many of those applicants may not have, however, are the proper soft skills to really stand out.
For employers, going through a module like Foundations proves that you are someone who has learnt how to learn. They see someone who is adaptable and who can give and receive feedback effectively. Those 8 meta skills you learn in Foundations are additive. They enhance and expand on the technical skills you might have mastered, making you even more desirable as an employee and worker.
By combining world-class tech education with important communication, teamwork, and leadership skills, you position yourself as a well-rounded professional, ready to take on any challenge.
Summary
By the admission of some industry experts, soft skills may be more important than hard skills these days. As the world of tech continues to change, building a proper foundation for your knowledge prepares you for whatever gets thrown your way.
The ALX Foundations module prepares you for your specialisation by teaching you exceptional soft skills that you can carry with you throughout your career. Our next cohort starts again in February, where you will have the opportunity to build your foundation nice and strong. Register your interest today!
FAQs
1. What is ALX Foundations?
ALX Foundations is a module that all learners participate in before starting their chosen specialisation. We call it “Foundations” because it helps build a strong base of soft and hard skills that will help you in your programme and in your future career.
2. What will I learn during Foundations?
You will learn a combination of soft and hard skills that apply to your specialisation directly after and that you can use in your future career. Some important skills you’ll learn include: Google Suite, research, test-taking skills, career-readiness skills, and how to create your portfolio.
3. Is Foundations required?
Yes, all ALX learners are required to take the Foundations module before starting their chosen specialisation.