I apologize if this has been asked before but I need some personal answers.
I’m about 20 modules in and don’t really know what I am doing. I am copying the sample text to make my own code. It reminds me of monkey see, monkey do.
Probably, for the last module I just completed, if you were to ask me to recreate it tomorrow, I’d have no clue. I have no prior coding experience/knowledge or anything. How do I go about this? How do I study each module so that I understand what is going on and also retain it? Because right now I’m neither understanding nor retaining, just going through modules.
And no, I don’t rush. I take my time and read everything; I just feel so confused and lost. I don’t want to remain in this state of despair. Please help.
What technology are you currently trying to learn? In any case, it’s always hard at the beginning and especially when you are learning on your own, however I can assure you that you are not the only to ever feel like that, most of us have been in the exact position that you are right now.
My advice, after you read and try to understand something, go and build something. Practice is everything and that’s ultimately the only way you will finally end up understanding new concepts.
“The best teacher, failure is”
There’s a difference in doing, and learning. I think the difference lies is how much you failed before completion. If you failed 0 times, I’m sure you learned nothing. If you failed 500 times, then you learned 500 ways to fail, where I’m sure you will retain some of it, and the next time it may take you 50 times, or hell 5 times until you succeed. Eventually it becomes a non-issue, another tool in your toolbox, or something to build off of to learn something else, where you fail 500 more times.
Its a process, a process that does not come easy, but is very rewarding.
Now you might find your self spinning your wheels being unable to even get started, or find your self stuck reading the prompt over and over. Here’s some steps to consider when in one of these situations.
- Going off what you already know
- you have some knowledge in your brain, use what you have and see if you can apply anything to the current problem. Maybe changing the problem into something more realistic (like sorting) or smaller parts that you solve one at a time.
- Knowing what you dont know
- maybe you split up your problem into different smaller problems, maybe you already know how to solve one of these smaller problems, but other parts you have no clue. Try to split it up, or brainstorm the smaller part.
- Finding answers to what you need to know
- maybe you just can’t figure it out, then maybe you should try to generalize your problem to make it easier to find a solution. Google is your friend here.
The key parts are being able to lean on what you know, breaking problems down, generalizing and knowing how to ask questions (to other people or to google hehe) can help you expand your realm of knowledge. But the most important aspect of it all is failing within the process, as if you just look for answers to problems without expanding on what you know (or memorizing full solutions) you can only get as far as what you can memorize in your head.