Earned my Responsive Web Design Certification after giving up twice before!

You Can Do This!
#1

The first time I gave up was during the ‘flexbox’ lessons. Everything went over my head and it felt like I was a fool to even believe this is something I could have done.

The second time I gave up was during the ‘survey form’ project. Radio buttons and checkboxes looked simple enough during the lessons but I just couldn’t seem to get them right. Frustration led to procrastination led to never coming back to it.

I gave up twice in the last three years but the optimist in me managed to come back with a new account.

I went through all the lessons again (didn’t take notes - mistake) and started on the projects quickly. The tribute page took a while but wasn’t frustrating. I posted it on the forums to get some feedback and frankly because I was feeling great about this small achievement and wanted to share it with someone. I got valuable feedback from @Roma and more members of the community. Going back to the project and changing things felt too overwhelming so I didn’t, but I kept the feedback in mind for future projects. I understand that as a professional you need to make sure all the details are perfect and work on things as many times as needed to make it right but I knew if I keep pushing myself more than I could handle, I was surely going to give up for the third time. So I figured it’s better to do something than nothing.

The survey form project went fairly smoothly.

The product landing page though! It felt so exhausting to even think about it. I tried to just get the project over with and did the very bare minimum. No HTML or CSS more than what the user stories required. Needless to say, it did not look good. I passed the test and by then I felt so drained by the whole process that I didn’t even look at the next project. However, I learned one very obvious thing that everyone probably already knew. That it’s easier to work with all your HTML elements in place first and then put the content in.

I didn’t log in to camp for over a month after the product landing project. All it took to change that was a friend asking me over mail “hey, how’s the coding thing going?” An hour later I was back at camp, fixing the product landing page.

Technical Documentation the next day and Personal Portfolio page for the two days after.

Here’s my final project:

And, here’s my certificate:

I know I’ve still got a long way to go but I’m very happy with how far I’ve come. I stuck to the course and I can see how much I’ve improved between the last and first project.

I guess what I’m saying is don’t beat yourself up for not learning things immediately or for not making perfect projects. Just do what you can at the moment, there will always be room to improve later.

Taking it slow is okay too :slight_smile:

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#2

I think your portfolio looks great.

I am a beginner as well who just hit the 3 month mark into my coding journey. I have definitely been there when things got tough with Javascript but now certain concepts are starting to make more sense now.

Thanks for sharing your story!

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#3

Thanks for your input, @jwilkins.oboe. I was wondering, did the concepts start making more sense with practice, or did you take additional courses or some combination of both?

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#4

Congratulations @s_kosaria! Happy for your progress.

There’s always time to go back and revisit your past projects and improve on them. Or start a new one and see how much better it comes out.

Enjoy the rest of your journey.
Happy coding!

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#5

Definitely with more practice. That’s the key. Practice, practice practice.

Go through the FCC curriculum slowly and when certain concepts give you trouble it is ok repeat the lesson. I also use outside resources for more practice on concepts that are a little tricky for me.

MDN docs is a good reference https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript

You could also try w3Schools https://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp

Just don’t try to jump around to dozens of different sources all at once. I did that and it confused me more than it helped me. Use FCC as your guide and use outside sources for extra practice on trickier concepts.

Hope that helps!

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#6

Congrats!! This post gives a newbie like me a lot of hope.

I just started my coding journey. And when I say I just started, I literally mean “just started” as in, today. lol

If you could go back to 3 years ago when you first began coding, and give yourself some advice or tidbits for success, what would that be?

Thanks in advance and congrats again! :smiley:

#7

I’m a beginner myself doing it for 4 months now. Although I also gave up before because of my non programming work. My advise is don’t push yourself too much learn the course by your pace or don’t learn in a hurry or learning so many things at the same time. Everytime you learn something new build 2 - 3 projects with the lesson that your learned after that move to the next lesson.

Write down the gotchas on a notepad like errors or warnings or tricks that you learned or stumbled so you can always look back on the solution that you made. I also write down all the lessons I learned on the notepad so I can review it everytime i forgot something. I use notion for my task management or todos and important notes so I can be organized. It’ free.

Someone gave me an advise before because I was so overwhelmed with the libraries and frameworks on javascript (javascript fatigue). You don’t have to learn everything especially the tools like GraphQL and some of the frameworks/libaries just learn it when there is a need to use it. Just specialize on 1 tool like React once you get familiar with it then you can try using other tools.

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#8

Great advice. Thanks!

#9

Hello congrats on passing. I’m glad you didn’t give up, I am a noob my self I’m starting my journey I want to become a pen tester, i got a long way to go but like i have seen from other comments practice is the key.

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#10

This made me smile. I’ve started camp a month ago and just finished the Survey project. So hard, and the next project is likely harder! It is comforting to know other people struggle too but they still finished. I will be in your place soon enough!!!

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#11

Congratulations - Keep going… All the Best :slightly_smiling_face:

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#12

OMG this is my exact experience! Every bit of it. I didn’t necessarily quit, I just went to another platform hoping to learn it from a different perspective. Still a little stuck on it, but I am glad I read this. As much I want to quit every day, I am going to keep pushing.

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#13

Congratulations! Just finished mine too!

Also, I was on the same boat as you, for a long time I kept getting frustrated with flexbox and always trying to guess what some properties did. This month I set my challenge to finish the fcc course for responsiveness, that was my deadline.

I think we always need to understant our dificulties, and never try to rush, sometimes I put myself down for not understanding something, then I went to bed and the other day everything suddenly makes sense, maybe this is how learning is about, or maybe this is just me.

Anyhow, let’s keep this vibe going, and achieve much more!!

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#14

Your Personal Portfolio project looks better than my actual portfolio website XD
The thought of giving ran through my mind several times, there has been self-doubts a lot more than that but thankfully I managed to not give up yet.
I too didn’t take any notes while doing HTML & CSS Coding challenges & when I’d to do the project, I had to go through almost all the coding challenges again.
I started taking notes since then.
But I guess still you’d need to go back to the coding challenges once in a while.
The more you code, the more familiar it’ll look, till then think of it as an open book exam, its always an open book exam though.
All the best for your coding journey

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#15

One thing I regret doing is going through the lessons quickly without getting an in-depth knowledge of the concept. In the Responsive Web Design course at least the lessons are well guided and you can complete them simply by following the instructions even if you don’t understand what you’re doing. Which I did, a lot. This way I’d sail through many of the lessons in a single day which why I got stuck with the projects in the first place.

Also, like I said, I quit twice before. And I keep thinking if I gave this even as little as 15 minutes a day in the past 3 years, I would probably know a lot more than I do now.

Other camp members have already given you great advice so I’ll leave it at that :slight_smile:

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#16

Thank you everyone for your words of encouragement and sharing your own journeys :relaxed:

Like @CezarVasconcelos said, let’s keep this vibe going and achieve much more :clinking_glasses:

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#17

Congrats on finishing. One of the most important lessons I learned in my own pursuit of a software development degree was that you will not always understand what is going on and that being a developer is more about knowing how to overcome technical knowledge gaps than it is about having that knowledge in the first place. There will always be stuff you don’t know or understand as technology is always evolving but as you embrace this as a fundamental truth and remain tenacious it will eventually come to you. Sometimes when we are thrown in a completely new situation where we don’t understand anything its best to view it as an initial exposure and not to get down on yourself. Even if you don’t understand everything or even anything your brain is still hard at work and will start to integrate the vocabulary and other information subconsciously over time so that when you come back to it the next time it will become a little easier. Taking breaks when you’re learning something completely new is normal but its truly only giving up if you decide not to come back to it. Again congrats, I hope you remember that the next time you stumble upon the next technology stack or framework that seems like a foreign language.

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#18