I feel weird. Almost done with the Responsive Web Design Certification (300 hours)

Hello fellow campers,

Sorry to bother you with this.

I’m almost done with Responsive Web Design Certification (300 hours). In fact, I only have the five final projects left.

And I have a few questions:

  1. Is it normal that I have trouble memorizing ? I feel like I don’t remember MUCH from all of those challenges and tell me if I’m wrong but pratice with make my understanding and memorizing better. That’s why I’m considering jumping into the projects RIGHT NOW even thought I feel like it will be a complete FAILURE.

  2. At what point I am ‘‘good’’ at HTML and CSS? And at what point am I master? Just so I know as well, assuming that I know JS as well, at what point I can get a frontend dev job?

Thanks a lot.

  • Tech.
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Hi @Tech
Congratulations on getting this far.

I understand how you feel. I’ll try to answer your questions as they relate to myself .

  1. Yes, it is normal to have problems memorizing. We’re learning a lot of rules, syntax and possibilities. That’s ok. What works best for me is to copy my responses into a word doc. I originally tried to write into a notebook but my handwriting isn’t the best - I can’t read my own notes.

In the word document, type the title of the challenge and what type it is: Number, Array, Filter, Map, etc.
Add anything else that you need to help you grasp it easily when you see it again.

Then save it to your computer. You can always return to review.

  1. This seems to actually require two answers:
    I believe that I am “good” when I can do the work without relying on other resources, but can do it by myself. I believe I am best when I can help someone else by sharing what I know.

As to when you are qualified to get a front-end dev job, it totally depends on how you feel about your work.
Does your portfolio reflect your best challenge projects? If you have the certificate, and a responsive portfolio that reflects your best work, send out a link to the portfolio.

Sign-up with your local career sites and temp agencies who specialize in tech positions.

You may start at the entry level, and rise according to each new skill you learn. I would just remind you that there are a few more certs to go before you have the Front-End Developer cert, and each step will help you grow in your career as well as the industry.

I’m working on the Front-End Libraries right now, and each day is a new journey for me.

Happy Coding and Best of Success.

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Hello @KoniKodes,

THANKS A LOT for your response.

Now, I know that I’m not alone plus your response makes sense to me.

About the Word Doc method, I will try my best to pratice it form now on and why not go back on the curriculium and note down what lessons I should re-do ? :smiley:

Now, about the job. It’s no emergency but I was willing to know the level that I need and according to your response, it’s a question of what I have personnaly accomplished and what I will have to work on.

  • Tech.

P.S : Congratz on being on Front Libraries, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

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Hi @Tech,
I’m glad to help. No, you are not alone - that’s why the forums and chatrooms are so important.

It’s a good idea to track the curriculum map. Just don’t get bogged down by how much is still left to do. Look back at what you have passed since you first began.

You could paste in anything that you can access in the future. Word is best for me…

Thanks, Front Libraries are definitely a challenge :slight_smile:

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Started using the Word-Document technique too.
And I am already in love with it.

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Great! I’m glad it helps.

@KoniKodes @Tchoukoualeu By the way, about the Word Doc idea you can use google docs and share if you work with a friend. But learning is best alone. Google docs might be better if you do a project with someone :D! Thanks again Koni!

I’ve been programming for a number of years although I haven’t done much on web development which is why I’m here :slight_smile:

What I’ve experienced after all that time is that it’s less important to know the exact syntax of things and more important to know what’s possible, understand the principles, and how to be able to research what you want to do. Even on projects I’m doing right now, I still have to look up how to do specific things, but I know they can be done and I might only remember half the syntax. It’s perfectly normal.

Even in some of the coding interviews I’ve been in, the interview often has told me “don’t worry too much about syntax as long as it makes sense and I can follow”. It’s good to know the syntax, but that more often than not is cemented in your mind as you do more projects.

I think @KoniKodes has a great answer about the jobs. I would also add, don’t worry if you feel like you don’t meet every requirement a job posting lists. Sometimes they’re just not realistic. They might say “required skills”, but sometimes they’re more “nice to have skills”.

As for when you know you’re a master? I thought a lot about that as well over the last several years, but one day I found myself teaching people on my team about how to design and build their software. I still don’t think I’m a master, but I definitely noticed that I had reached a milestone in my progression. My advice here is to focus on the journey. Occasionally you’ll look back and be surprised and pleased with how far you’ve come. And keep challenging yourself. Even when you’re new to it, coding is fun :slight_smile:

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Thank you @morganda
It is fun to see what we can create.

@morganda Thanks for sharing! It reinforces what Koni said and that’s a good sign for me at least:)!

Do this!!! I can’t stress this enough! My first project (The tribute) page was SO BAD and doing it I felt totally incompetent and unprepared, and had to look up even the most trivial things. It probably took me 2 hours to do - but that’s because I was getting a lot out of it. By the time I got to the fifth project I was much, much better at using both languages. If you just study things in a sandbox you’ll never learn how it works in the context of a bigger picture. To really understand, you have to apply the concepts in a practical setting.

I found W3Schools reference very useful when completing these projects, because it gives examples of variants (eg. margin: 0 1em; vs margin: 0 1em 2em;) and various usage/syntax examples. Worry less about syntax and more about application.

And one other tip…once you’ve mastered Flexbox and Grid, you don’t need to waste time trying to float and margin things into the right spots. Once you understand the box model and the idea that divs are containers for the inside elements (takes a couple projects), then start learning flexbox…I had a lot of fun with Flexbox Zombies which is free, make sure to do the spaced repetition. Then once you are comfortable with Flexbox, grid is pretty easy to pick up from various tutorials, just make sure to have a reference of all the syntax/options explained in your own words.

To get an idea of how useful and powerful grid and flexbox are for aligning elements, check out this Google results clone I built yesterday. You can read about the project and view the source code, if you check out the CSS file do a ctrl+F for ‘flex’ to see what I mean about how important flexbox is.

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Wow. That Google results clone is beautiful! Thanks for sharing I’ll jump RIGHT INTO the first project tomorrow morning. Also, THANKS SO MUCH for the tip about the float and margin stuff. Tbh I don’t understand this little piece of CSS I might wanna review it :).

Hi, there! I know how you feel, I’ve been there.
Anyway, I strongly advise don’t rush into it. There’s a reason why they suggest 300 hours with each certification.
If you just jump from one exercise to the next, remembering concepts will become much more difficult.
I think it’s more important to focus on understanding how everything works, instead of thinking on doing enough as fast as you can so you get a job right away.
I also think that keeping a notebook is best practice. You will have less trouble remembering if you have written everything by your own hand, but that’s just a personal opinion.

You have to love the journey, not the destination!

P.S: Sorry about my english, guys.

I’ve felt the same way! Finishing a section, and then trying to remember what I just went through a few days later. I actually write some code of what the lesson is in my text editor and then add some comments about what it does, what parameters it takes, and so on. Really helps out, I don’t think it’s possible to remember all this by heart. Coding is just so massive that forgetting is going to happen. That’s why we have great documentation websites to help us out

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@LucasMRC It has been a moment since this post but thanks for the encouragement I’m struggling LOL.

I believe in cheat sheets, anyone else?

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@LucasMRC @Cody_Biggs Thanks for the tips I’ll save that and apply it beause you guys said things that I can remember going through ^^!

When I was new to HTML and CSS I had the same doubt, then I found out CSS has so many properties that it’s just impossible to remember half of it. But as you practice and build things, you will find yourself using some properties very often, those are gonna stick in your head simply because of repetition, the rest you can look it up.

What you should remember though is knowing how to do things (i.e., centering a div, etc.).

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I believe in:

  • spaced repetition
  • quizzing

Therefore I build things and use Anki for Quizzing

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Good idea. You could also just do a screenshot (CTRL ALT Printscreen) and save in an editing program like paint. Save the file with a descriptive name, such as the name of the challenge. I think you can rerun the challenges later for review.