Introduction to Rust Programming and Core Concepts

Course Overview

Updated in May 2025. This course now features Coursera Coach! A smarter way to learn with interactive, real-time conversations that help you test your knowledge, challenge assumptions, and deepen your understanding as you progress through the course. Begin your journey into Rust programming with this all-encompassing course designed for developers looking to grasp the power and efficiency of Rust. Start with the essentials, including setting up your development environment and running your first program. As you progress, delve into basic programming constructs such as variables, data types, and functions, building a strong foundation for more complex concepts. The heart of Rust lies in its unique ownership model, which ensures memory safety and concurrency. This course provides a thorough exploration of ownership, including heap and stack memory management, and the intricacies of mutable and immutable references. You'll gain a deep understanding of how Rust handles memory, helping you write robust and efficient code. As you advance, the course introduces control structures, allowing you to write more flexible and powerful programs. Learn through hands-on projects, like implementing a stack, which reinforce the theoretical knowledge with practical application. Finally, tackle advanced topics like lifetimes, closures, and iterators, rounding out your expertise in Rust and preparing you for real-world programming challenges. This course is ideal for developers with basic programming knowledge who want to learn Rust. No prior Rust experience is required, but familiarity with programming concepts will be beneficial.