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In many industries, the best tools of the trade are often outside of the reach of students. But, software engineering isnât one of them. Students enrolled in a university/college can apply for the Github Student Pack which contains subscriptions to some of the best tools, cloud services and SaaS apps that most developers dream of using.
Whatâs included ?
Thereâs basically a tool offered for every job that youâd have to do as a dev. From deploying websites, monitoring servers, managing repositories, getting a domain to learning how to code in the first place, everything is covered.
While I could not find a use for everything that the pack has to offer, here are my thoughts on the tools that I did end up using.
AWS educate
Cloud skills are essential for every developer. AWS educate is Amazonâs program for teaching cloud-related skills. The student pack provides you free credits that you can spend on AWS. These can be used to try out the services, deploy websites, set up some serious infrastructure or just play around. Out of all the offerings, AWS credits would definitely make into the top 3 in the pack.
Bitnami
Bitnami helps you with packaging applications for the cloud. Services like AWS have a pretty high barrier to entry for beginner developers. Bitnami eases the process by providing one-click install images/packages for every major cloud platform. For example, if youâre building a Django app, youâd just have to click on a a couple of buttons and Bitnami will set up a complete Django stack (Python, MYSQL, Apache) for you on any of the major cloud platforms you choose (AWS, AZURE, GCP).
Digital Ocean
Digital Ocean is another great cloud services provider. Compared to AWS, itâs more focused towards developers. Digital Oceanâs platform abstracts away a lot of the setup procedure and helps you get your app running as fast as possible. The student pack gets you $50 in credits.
Flatiron School
The student pack provides access to Flatiron Schoolâs online coding boot-camp for a month. This is a great option to learn full-stack web application development if youâre just starting out. Although, one month is a really short time.
Github
With the student pack, Github also bumps your account up to give you access to unlimited private repositories. This was a great deal when I started out, but Microsoft already gave unlimited private repositories to everyone after acquiring Github.
Gitkraken
Git is tough.And, for a beginner, Git is really tough.Gitkraken is a graphical tool for working with Git. Not only will it work as (an awesome!) git client, it will also help you to understand Git better. For me, this is the star of the pack (Github desktop does not work on Linux, therefore it wasnât considered!).
Glo Boards
Gitkraken Glo is an issue tracker / project board service. I couldnât figure out how a student could use it other than as a to-do list.
Heroku
Heroku is a PaaS cloud offering for hosting web apps. A really great service if you donât want the hassle of managing servers. Deploying an app is as simple as a pushing to a remote repository. While Heroku has a free tier option, the student pack gives you a higher-spec machine to run your app on, for an year.
Jetbrains
Another top 3 contender. Jetbrains produces the best IDEs in the world. Pycharm (for python apps) and Webstorm (for Js/node/web projects) are simply brilliant. You just install the IDE and open up your project. No setup required, no extra plugins need to be installed. These IDEs literally have everything you could ask for integrated in them.
Namecheap
Namecheap gets you a free domain and SSL certificate for one year. You can use it for your developer portfolio.
Sendgrid
Sendgrid is a service for sending email programmatically from your app. With the app that I was building, I used it a lot. The service is pretty easy to set up and works like a charm. The student pack lands you a plan with a higher daily email limit which is useful if you have an app which has a lot of users already.
Sentry
Sentry is a service for error tracking. Sentryâs SDK plugs right inside your code and whenever an error occurs in production, logs it to Sentryâs servers. Sentryâs service is a great option for error monitoring if youâre building a serious app.
Thinkful
The student plan gets you access to an HTML/CSS/JS course by Thinkful for a month. This is the best JS course I have done till date, and I have done many. I recommend this course to all of my friends.
Travis
Travis CI is a popular CI service used by several open source projects. While integration with public repositories is free, with the student pack you get the same for your private repositories as well.
Summing it up
Thereâs a lot more that the pack has to offer. I could not try out every service. But, even with the services Iâve listed above, you could build an entire CI/CD pipeline.
If youâre a student and planning on a startup, this pack will cover a lot of your initial costs. Most of the services offered work till youâre a student, some however have a (very generous) spend limit.
How do I get it ?
Follow this link to the Github Education website. You will need to sign in with your Github account. You will need an email address provided by your college/university. If you have one, the application process will be a breeze. In case you donât, instructions are provided on the page itself.
Oh, a pack so good I feel like Prometheus giving fire to mortals.
Happy Hacking !
Github Student Pack: The best scholarship for a budding developer was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.