Feels like I skipped a challenge or two in Responsive Web Design

Hello. So I’ve completed the challenges of the Responsive Web Design portion and was doing the challenges, and was immediately intimidated. I eventually realized that you don’t have to match the webpages 1 to 1 to pass, so I thought I was in the clear.

Until I got to the Survey Form, and realized that I was missing knowledge that I don’t think the challenges taught me. Sure, there were a few that ended up being there all along or could maybe be intuited at best (email being a notable example), but there were quite a few user stories that I felt like this course didn’t prepare me for in the slightest.

Two notable examples are the numbers user story and the dropdown menu user story. Both of them had me scrambling to find the right syntax to figure out how to even set them up in the first place, as the challenges provided no information on them whatsoever.

I have to ask: Was this intentional? Were we meant to find information on our own that wasn’t covered in the curriculum in order to pass the projects? If so, this wasn’t explicitly clear, and I do feel a bit upset by this development.

Thanks in advance.

I’m not sure if it was intentional. I personally feel as though a lot of content is being overlooked, to much use of “etc” rather then just giving the lengthy full explanation. I’m actually just doing the whole course for the second time now but actually researching each topic a bit further on their own. I don’t really have faith that these hand held “challenges” really are going to teach me to the degree I am seeking. That said its a free course and the best way to learn is through trial and error and research… in my opinion at least.

Welcome to the forums @HiddenUnknownEnigma.

FreeCodeCamp uses the Read-Search-Ask approach to teaching. It is not possible to teach everything you’ll need to know for each of the languages and frameworks that are covered throughout the curriculum.
Could the RWD projects be written so that you’d only use those HTML elements that were covered in the course? Yes. Would you learn how to search and find information for something new that you would encounter as a dev? No.
Dev’s spend the major part of their day searching. No one can remember everything and no one can be taught how to search/research.

The survey form project is a good example. The dropdown was not covered in the lessons. A camper could take the easy way out and look at the sample project. Would they learn much? Probably not except to see how to code it.
If the camper did a search on html dropdown they’d find more information about that element and about its attributes.
A more advanced search, something that happens over time, would be html form elements to see all the elements that are valid to be used when creating a form.

HTML and CSS are markup languages. There is quite a bit to learn, understand, grasp. Flexbox and Grid, I still have to look things up.

When you get to it, Javascript is a programming language. Again, no course can touch on everything. Don’t feel as though you’ve been slighted because you have to research something.

The good thing is the forums. If you come across a lesson, or are working on a project, and there’s something you don’t understand you’ll be able to ask a question for clarification.
I’ll reiterate that FCC uses the Read-Search-Ask method. That means don’t ask a question like “hey the survey form project says I have to have a dropdown, what is that?” because the response may be “show us what you have tried”. We try not to give direct answers but rather try to help guide you to a solution.

Hope that helps.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 182 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.