Polkadot Blockchain Academy: A Survival Guide

“So you wanna be a blockchain developer huh?”

If you’re on your way to the Polkadot Blockchain Academy or thinking about applying, here are some tips from an alumnus to help maximise your chances of graduating.

Brush up on your Rust

The academy content is extremely Rust heavy so you would be wise to make sure you feel extremely comfortable reading and writing it. Substrate, the blockchain development SDK is written in Rust and additionally, Ink!, the main smart contract programming language you will be using is a Rust eDSL. The Rust ecosystem is expanding and there are plenty of great educational resources out there. Other than the official The Rust Programming Language book there are a few other texts I’d recommend to help shore up your Rust knowledge.

“Programming Rust — by Jim Blandy, Jason Orendorff, Leonora F. S. Tindall”

“Beginning Rust — by Carlo Milanesi”

I found both books really useful while I was first learning Rust and later on as a reference. They both provide lots of example code and offer great explanations for some of the more technical nuances of the language. If you’re feeling like you want a deeper dive into the language then I’d recommend “Rust for Rustaceans — by Jon Gjengset”

If you learn best in a more visual and auditory style then I can also recommend some great YouTube channels. Again, there is a lot of great content out there but here are a few channels I’ve watched personally

Let’s Get Rusty — Great for byte sized (pun intended) refreshers on specific concepts

Code to the Moon — Another great channel which covers lots of Rust concepts.

If you’re feeling more comfortable and are looking for more in depth information then Jon Gjengset has channel called “The Crust of Rust” where he really gets into the weeds.

Discuss edge cases with other students

While you’re not allowed to share code at the academy, talking through problems and discussing edge cases with your peers is encouraged. Engage with others to make sure you’ve covered every angle. Don’t be the person scrambling to refactor your code an hour before an assignment deadline because you finally started chatting with other students and realised you had missed something.

Get plenty of sleep, drink plenty of water

You will be absorbing highly dense information on a daily basis, and attempting to burn the candle at both ends could seriously impact your chances of success. Ensuring you are well-rested and hydrated should definitely factor into your list of priorities. Remember, the academy is a marathon, not a sprint, so try and keep a steady pace and avoid burning out.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you don’t understand something in a lecture

If you don’t understand something in a lecture, it’s great to clarify then and there. Immediately solidifying the information is definitely the way to go, especially as it’s likely that the concepts introduced later down the line will build upon this previous knowledge. Also, while your instructors usually are available for chats after lectures, their time can quickly be eaten up by forty other students who also didn’t quite get the concept and would like it explained again. These one-to-many clarifications in class have the added benefit of helping other students and preventing instructor burnout.

Don’t go overboard with the extra-curricular activities

You will likely not be in your home country and will have a once in a lifetime chance to explore new places and try new things. While I definitely encourage you to do explore the local area with your peers, it’s important to remember why you’re there. It’s about finding a healthy equilibrium between seizing these unique opportunities for cultural exploration and immersion, and staying focused on your primary goal of excelling in the academy’s rigorous program.

Frequently push your code

Continuously push your code and don’t wait until the last minute to submit your assignments. Once the deadline has passed, submissions will not be accepted. Stay sane by making sure everything is pushed and avoid unnecessary stress and panic. Regularly pushing your code helps in maintaining a steady pace and allows for time to refine and test your work thoroughly.

Test, Test, Test

The ability to write good tests for the code you create is an invaluable skill that every developer should seek to strengthen. One good comparison I recently heard made about blockchain and DeFi is to simply consider it as hardware, not software. If you’re a manufacturer and you ship some hardware with a critical bug, then it’s tough luck, because you just shipped to 20 000 customers and there’s no easy way to recall those products. When you think of the blockchain applications you write as hardware you really begin to understand why testing is so important. You must catch the bugs before they ship and writing good tests will help you do just that.

Simple and Solid > Sexy and Sloppy

Some of the assignments allow you to have a bit of freedom in how you design your solution. My advice to you is to go with a simple but extremely well tested and solid design. You won’t be marked down for not creating the next new killer blockchain application but you will be marked down if the idea you create has a ton of glaringly obvious exploits. The people marking the assignments are very smart and very thorough, in some cases the assignments will even marked by an automatic test suite. They WILL find the bugs if they are there. Don’t push buggy code to try and pull off something extraordinary. It’s much better to write solid, well tested code, which gets the job done.

Final thoughts

For me, the academy was a pivotal moment in my web3 journey, it was more than just educational — it was a gateway to meaningful collaborations. Alongside two fellow alumni, I’m now working on Kudos, a project born from our shared academy experiences. Kudos is a unique platform that integrates with GitHub, designed to onboard new contributors to the Substrate, Polkadot, and Kusama ecosystems. We aim to make it easy for new developers to find interesting things to work while earning rewards at the same time. This project is not just a career milestone for us; it’s a tribute to the academy’s spirit of innovation and collaboration.