At the moment I can not get 2.80RC1 to startup on my computer, however 2.79b works just fine. I would still like to follow along, but not sure just how much of this course will be items found only in 2.80. Is there anything where I'm going to hit a wall and be stopped because it will only be able to be done within 2.8 or should I be able to work around enough to arrive at a similar result in the end?
Most of this can be followed with 2.79, but there are certainly a few places where you might bump into a wall. There are always ways around it though -- the course doesn't use any 2.80 features that can't be replicated in 2.79 in some manner.
If you do run into some issues you can't solve though, feel free to leave a question and I (or someone from the CGC Crew) will get you a fix ASAP!
Grant, personally I found it interesting/awkward that the Blender Basics course was all based on the 2.79 UI. When I saw that 2.8 was being used for this build, I went ahead and removed 2.79 and downloaded/installed 2.8. When I opened it, I found the UI different in many aspects, including the lack of the toolbar on the left side of the viewport, and all the tools under the viewport had been reorganized in other places. Is it possible or is a revamp of the Blender Basics course to address the changes in 2.8 on the agenda to be redone and updated?
We're working on an update to the Blender Basics course as we speak! We'll have it done as soon as possible :)