I’m in the same boat! I’ve been stuck on the basic algorithm section for a couple weeks now. Took some time off of them to take this excellent JavaScript course on edX. I’ve learned so much so far and it’s really helping me get a grasp at using JavaScript within a project.
Here’s a link to the class:
It’s a free class and everything is laid out in an easy to understand way with projects to help solidify what you’re learning.
Hang in there! Coding is tough, especially at just 2 months in. Keep your head up and remember to take breaks. You got this!!
I started reading this thread when I got up to the ‘build yourself a portfolio page’ project and hit a major wall. For background I’ve done a little programming before - self taught html WAAAAAAAY back in the late 90’s (dating myself there…), Turbo Pascal at school and a brief stint with Java at university while doing a Bachelor of Computer Science. Turns out uni isn’t for me so I dropped out. Like yourself, I am also a woman.
I wandered through a few jobs/careers after that before moving from Australia to the USA late 2015. I had to wait a while before I could look for work and when I started looking and applying in my field … well, I decided a change of career was in order.
So here I am and wow, hasn’t html changed a lot. css is something I knew existed but I’d never played with it because it didn’t exist in my dabbling days.
After I hit the wall I started to diversify my training a bit. I went through the html/css basics over at Code Academy and that filled in a few gaps for me. Then, courtesy of @geekysmurf, I decided to do the web developer bootcamp over at udemy.
DO THIS COURSE.
It has helped me enormously. I’m a couple of lessons in to the Bootstrap section at the moment and everything is making so much more sense. The hands on coding along suits my learning style and all of the html/css/Bootstrap concepts are starting to come together for me.
I’m expecting to have issues when I hit the Java section of FCC and based on what I’ve seen and learned in the udemy course I think it will really help me there too.
All the best, stick at it and I look forward to seeing some of your work out there
@Aeryndis In my opinion, you shouldn’t bother with Java unless you have to. It has lost a lot of popularity, has security issues, and I believe it is on its way out. You should either learn Python or Ruby. It really depends on what you are going to do with it.
Both can make web apps. Ruby is geared for web development and apps. Python can do the same but actually works better with academic and scientific programming. Ruby is loosely coded where Python is pretty strict.
Ruby can run into a lot of errors because of its loosely coded nature, but that also allows you to get creative with it. Plus, it has Gems, which are libraries that help you streamline development. Python tends to be more stable with updates and you run into less errors because of its strict coding.
My vote is for Ruby simply because of the development libraries and that you can get really creative with it and add your own flair to it.
So although you may perceive it’s mostly “guys”, there are lots of women (see https://medium.com/chingu/in-honor-of-international-womens-day-7b3f41df8c36) they just don’t see the need to self-identify their gender. Just like people don’t feel the need to publicize other physical characteristics like height, religion, weight, age or shoe size here, what gender one identifies as is absolutely not important when it comes to things like coding, education or much any other part of existence.
As for the multitasking stereotype, it is absolutely outdated. The research has shown that although children are treated differently based on perceived gender, and thus encouraged to pursue different strengths (boys are stereotyped to be better at math and are thus pushed and supported to be more successful in STEM fields while girls are encouraged to pursue “soft” skills like language and arts…), it’s not reflective of clear, accurate divisions between genders and only serves to exclude and diminish contributions of both genders. Even if there are differences, immediately assuming any such difference is true for any individual here is still stereotyping and does no good for anyone.
There will be people that site gendered differences in tech (If anything, there is support that women may be better at coding… https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/12/women-considered-better-coders-hide-gender-github), but even if those stats are true (and not biased samples), it has absolutely nothing to do with if anyone who is or will learn or practice coding will be successful, skilled, intelligent, enjoy it, or be helpful on these forums.
Grace Hopper - first person to create a compiler for a programming language
Adele Goldberg - one of the seven programmers that developed one of the first object-oriented programming languages (Smalltalk), the base of the graphic user interface we use now
Rosalind Franklin - the credit she was due for photographing and modeling DNA was given to Watson and Crick
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi - identified HIV virus and its responsibility for AIDS
Jocelyn Bell Burnell - discovered evidence for the first known radio pulsar, her supervisor got the Nobel Prize for it
Sally Ride - astronaut who was asked by male colleges if 100 tampons would be enough for her 1 week mission to space
Hedy Lamarr - actress who invented a device that lead to the development of GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology
Joan Clarke - her work on decoding WW2 transmissions and saving innumerable lives was given to Alan Turning while she was paid essentially as a secretary because the other men wouldn’t stand for a woman as an equal
Ada Lovelace, Marie Curie, Jane Goodall!, Maria Montessori, Harriet Zuckerman, Emmy Noether, P1xt…
The list goes on from there - but clearly shows that women’s brains are in no way inferior to men’s. The next time you’re feeling frustrated, maybe look up a few of these women, see some of the struggles they encountered and how their contributions LITERALLY changed the world…
A bit more about Ada Lovelace… I just found out yesterday that she was a mathematician who is credited for being the first ever computer programmer… She came up with the first computer algorithm, which was for looping. And also came up with what is basically an app to win at gambling…hah! And this was back in the 1800’s… beyond forward thinking eh?
Sooo yeah, I think its fair to say… any time anyone says women aren’t good at math, logic or computer sciences, Ada spins in her grave! lol
I heard they moved away from C now and it’s taught in JS. I’ve been meaning to do it, so I can’t confirm this, but I had thought a friend mentioned it had changed this year to that. I hope so because I only know (a pittance of) JS and don’t want to dip into other languages yet.
First, just like everyone else here has said, you can do it, you’re great, so show those negative thoughts to the door and kick them out of your brain house. The only thing that can hold you back from doing what you want to do is your own doubt. Make your brain a place of positivity!
I say this as someone who constantly feels like I’m not learning or progressing fast enough in any interest I have. But I’ve found that if I chill out and relax, have fun with my learning without putting extra pressure on myself, it’s much more enjoyable of a learning experience. Otherwise, I burn out fast.
Regarding learning to code, I’ve been trying for a while now to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and I’ve come to find that in order to learn some things, I need to come at the subject at kind of a slow pace and from different angles. This is how it’s been for me with coding. I’ve been trying various free intro courses on and off for about two years, and it’s just now clicking. For some reason, it’s taking a while for it to sink in, but that’s just my personal pace. Also, I didn’t complete all of these courses fully. Some I just completed portions of, and then burned myself out or hit a road black and abandoned the course. This used to make me feel guilty, as I don’t like leaving things unfinished, but I’m trying to be more honest with myself about my learning style. Sometimes if I’m not getting a concept, I need to find a different angle or approach on the same concept. This can be in the form of another online course, articles, books, forums, etc.
Anyway, here are the intro courses that have helped me:
Intro to Computer Science, edX (I partially completed)
This was mentioned above already, btw.
Intro to HTML & CSS, Udacity (completed)
This course really helped me start to understand the basic concepts of web coding.
Web Coding Fundamentals for Artists (partially completed)
After Udacity’s course, this one helped me understand coding concepts even more. Different instructors have different teaching styles, and they all explain things a little differently. When taking this course, I was starting to understand my learning style for coding too, as I liked both Udacity’s course and this course equally, though I was starting to understand things a little more clearly while taking this course.
You may want to explore Kadenze’s other courses too, as they are a MOOC platform specifically for arts classes. Many of the classes mix arts with technology in some way. Super cool!
Learn HTML & CSS, Codeacademy (completed)
Codeacademy was great for putting the info from previous courses into action. They have an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) just like freeCodeCamp does so you can see your work in action immediately. I would say that Codeacademy is pretty comparable to fCC, except:
Codeacademy doesn’t really have a community, and fCC’s community has been really helpful, especially when I got stuck on a few lessons in the beginning. Plus fCC’s community is just huge and on GitHub, Gitter, and all over social media platforms, so this is a major bonus.
Codeacademy’s lessons only go so far for free. I don’t know about their paid programs, but they seem nice. But fCC is free and you can get certificates while helping nonprofits, which is just wonderful.
I find fCC’s UI to be a little more inviting, and its lessons and dialogues are a lot more playful, which keeps me interested and plugging away.
Now that I’ve done some lessons and the first two projects, I’m also learning a lot by exploring Codepen. Also, just getting into Glitch. Here’s short snippet from their about page and their website:
With working example apps to remix, a code editor to modify them, instant hosting and deployment - anybody can build a web app on Glitch, for free.
It looks like there’s a bit of activity on the FreeCodeCamp Sydney Facebook page. Someone has set up a slack channel and there seems to be talk on there about organising a meetup.
I too am in the same position as the op even the same js challenge levels. Your advice is the best thing I have read all day. I pledge to take my time and enjoy the process.
Intro to Computer Science, edX (I partially completed)
Intro to HTML & CSS, Udacity (completed)