I need help from those that found success in completing the FreeCodeCamp courses. Not necessarily success in getting a job, just success in learning the concepts well enough in order to internalize the concepts in order to create your own webpages using the principles you’ve learned in the course.
I started the program earlier this week, and am almost done with the first 300 hour segment (html, css, etc). I still got a bit more to go, but I’m moving at a speed in which I should be done with it over the next day or so and ready to start the projects for the certification. But I feel like only some of it is sticking with me. I’ll be able to follow instructions without a problem, but I notice that I feel like I’m more following a tutorial than actually learning enough to do anything on my own.
Any advice on what you did or how you studied or what I can do in order to ensure that I’m ready for the projects that lay ahead of me?
To give some context of how I studied initially was I would have Evernote open on one side of the screen and the FreeCodeCamp open in the other side. Then I’d do a problem, and before clicking submit, screenshot the newest part of the code I learned into Evernote so I can review it later. This was very time consuming to me, so I changed it up to just doing the tutorial without copying the notes into Evernote. But doing both ways, I still don’t feel like I can recall the material I covered already on my own in a text editor and create my own simple webpages. Am I approaching it wrong?
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I am also hoping for a good answers here. Maybe when you do projects your own you revise all the concepts.
Hi, just thought I would give you a couple of thoughts about this.
I don’t think that there is anything else that you will need to do get ready for the projects.
The projects can be difficult and take a long time, but it is through doing the projects that you will really learn to program/code. Learning to program is not necessarily linear (i.e from start to beginning) and you will want to go back and look over things more deeply once you have more advance skills and knowhow.
Remember the read, search ask philosophy from the forum and you will eventually get there. The challenges you have done so far are not there to teach you everything you need to know for the projects, but rather give you enough background so that you can then fill in any gaps that you find you have (This is my opinion btw).
Good luck and hope this helps 
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@oliverdudman I couldn’t agree more. freeCodeCamp helps exposes you to new concepts, but you really learn them when you use them.
The projects are really where you’ll be challenged and where you’ll grow because it requires that you put all your knowledge together.
If you feel like you’re not really putting concepts into long-term memory, then in addition to taking notes, you may want to open up CodePen and just demo and play around with the concept after you learn it.
For example, if you were trying to learn CSS layout using Flexbox, I would open up CodePen and write basic HTML to set it up. Then I’d challenge myself to create a 2-column, then 3-column, then 3-row layout, etc.
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I learnt to learn while at university
Not in programming of course, but learning how to learn generally. It wouldn’t surprise me if you already have serious learning skills, especially given how you’d been using notes!
Like all learning, learning to program is an interative process - you do a little here and there, and it accumulates over time at different rates. There’s nothing stopping you going over the challenges again, just like there’s nothing stopping you reading over your notes again.
Don’t sweat it, just redo some challenges later! The more difficult ones will force your brain to recount earlier information, and there’s nothing wrong with getting stuck, going back, and coming back at it stronger with a fresher mind.
So my advice is to not rush, don’t panic, keep plodding on even if it feels slow, and don’t overwork yourself. You already know much more than you realise.
As a side note I’ve seen many talented and capable people here express that frustration. I suspect it’s because people subconsciously think that what they know is trivial because they’ve already learnt it and don’t realise there’s a hoarde of beginners out there that don’t know it
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