I think I haven't made any progress even after investing the time. Give some advice

You Can Do This!
1

Disclaimer: It’s my first time posting on the fcc forum so if I am posting this under wrong tag , pardon me.
My background
I am 19 and I did study computer science in high school -they taught us all the programming paradigms and the main language used in high school was visual basic
Now let me explain where I am facing the issue . I am aiming to become a full stack developer by the end of 2021 and to achieve this goal I started learning python in the mid of November than I moved on to flask but because I didn’t have a grip on the front end it became way too complex for me with all the Html/Css . To solve this issue I spent the month of December on html and css but I feel like I still haven’t mastered it. I created a website using bootstrap (http://mubashirwaheed.000webhostapp.com/) and a relatively better one by following youtube tutorials with html/css - which I didn’t hosted but I put the code on github 2nd website ; in order to go one step further in web development now I am learning vanilla Javascript on fcc. After all this I still feel like I am not making any significant progress and at times I question myself whether I am even learning anything because I can’t make any useful product out of it .

If anyone have been in a similar situation I would really appreciate it if they can communicate to me how to deal with this

2

Hi @mubashir3080!

Welcome to the forum!

Well, if this stuff was meant to be mastered in a short timeframe than everyone would be developers and it would pay $10 per hour.

Give it time.

So the main problem is that because you have a strict deadline of becoming a developer in a year you are placing extra stress on yourself to immediately understand this stuff and create perfect projects.

The reality is it takes years to get really good at anything.
That is a skill that takes practice and time.

With that said, it is possible to get a job in a year but it won’t be easy.
I suggest continue to study and research like crazy on the best ways to gain employment. Because filling out a few applications online won’t be enough.

You have done a lot in a short timeframe and should be proud of that. You just have to recognize that it won’t be an easy road to get that first job.

Keep learning and keep building.

2 Likes
3

These are insanely short timescales to have any reasonable expectation of being anywhere close to good.

I did maths at school. If I had started reading some books on maths a few weeks ago with the intention of understanding and getting halfway decent at maths this coming year, do you think it would be likely or unlikely I would have much in the way of skills at this point in time?

4

You are making significant progress though! You’ve described 4 different languages, each with unique syntaxes, and been picking up 2 different frameworks.

That is a lot.

It’s hard to retain all that, too - people spend years developing the understanding and muscle memory to get really productive at this stuff.

You’ve come this far and discovered that there is further to go, but don’t be discouraged - you can do this.

1 Like
5

I also want to mention the popular narrative of “I got a job in X months”

Whether that be 3 months, 6 months, 9 months.
So that is probably also contributing to this stress you are going through trying to learn all of this stuff in a short timeframe.

There is nothing wrong with those individuals who get jobs after 4, 5, 6 months of learning.

But it is important to note that it is not the norm.

That’s like saying, “I make millions of dollars on youtube and so can you”
Sure, it is totally possible but not the norm.

So, like I said before, you are doing fine.
You have accomplished a lot in a short time and it just takes time to get good.

2 Likes
6

I should have been more descriptive of what exactly I meant with becoming a “Fullstack developer” by the end of 2021. I want to have good understanding of html/css, vanilla javascript and react for front end and python, flask along with mongodb for backend.
Ps It’s a self imposed deadline to in minimum timeframe so that I can create a comple product from scratch.

7

Thank you so much . I really needed those kind words to keep me going .

1 Like
8

Yeah you are right. I sometimes hop on to YouTube and watch people getting high paying jobs in 4,5 months and that really stresses me out . Thanks for helping me identify the problem.

9

I’m not saying that doesn’t happen every once in a while but if it was realistic then everyone would be doing it. Don’t believe the hype.

10

Hello @mubashir3080 welcome to the freeCodeCamp forums :smiley:

This is a good goal, as long as you can define what being a “full stack developer” is. If you mean getting a job within that time frame, that’s going to be a tough deadline. If its just to know enough to build a full-stack app, then you have some leeway. If you want to be a 100% master of all things full-stack, then its impossible.

Another consideration is if you start breaking down what it takes to be full-stack using specific technologies (lets say just the MERN stack, which is what fCC teaches) you have to learn at least 4 different technologies, each gives you ~3 months, not including soft skills, or indirect skills like using git or underlying technologies and concepts like JavaScript/HTML/CSS (which technically all fall under just React).

Each specific technology can be broken down into different concepts and things to learn in itself, all of which may take time to learn, digest, and play around with. Again, you don’t need to know all that stuff, but only know it exists and how to go out and learn it if you need it.

Don’t look for mastery, look to learn specifics of what you need, keep note of what you can learn further and move onto the next thing you need.

Its better to understand what you know, and don’t know rather than try to know everything. The idea being, if your aware of your strengths and weaknesses, you can be flexible in what you can do, learn and adapt to a given situations. Where as if you aim for mastery, you will never find it. Tech moves too fast and there are to many things to learn to feel like a 100% master.

Keep up what your learning, keep up the pace, good luck :+1: your doing fine!

4 Likes
11

I was blunt, but it’s very good that you have a target and a timescale. You’re just not really looking at this objectively and you’re possibly setting yourself unrealistic goals. It’s literally six weeks you’re talking about – as a beginner, you cannot reasonably expect to have a handle on things after such a short amount of time. HTML is pretty simple, and yes you can have a handle on that, probably, you can get to a point where you know where to look things up that are useful. CSS, the absolute basics. JS is a programming language, it will likely take a significant amount of time to get anywhere close to productive.

You’re doing really well, but just don’t assume that you can master a set of highly complex skills in a tiny amount of time. It will get easier the more you do, but six weeks is nothing at all.

This is just staggeringly unlikely, ignore them. They are [at the very least] likely to be omitting highly pertinent information regarding their existing skills and situation. This is not a get rich quick scheme you’re undertaking, buy a lottery ticket if you want that.

2 Likes
12

When I first started 6 months ago there were tons of those videos all over youtube.

My first thought was

“Wait, I am supposed to learn all of this stuff in 4 months? Are they crazy”

A lot of what you see online is complete BS.

I will never forget when I saw a video of a guy claiming he went from 0 to google engineer in 6 months. He said he had never programmed before and his ivy league math degree did not help him.

Like what?
Is this guy delusional? :laughing:

My advice is to keep learning and growing.
After a year of self learning, you can share your progress with the forum and ask for suggestions on what to do next as a game plan.

2 Likes
13

This still sounds like it’s overly ambitious to do in 1 year.

I don’t mean to offend you in any way, but the skill set needed to “create a complete product from scratch” (assuming you mean an actual “product” that a startup might want to create) is often achieved through a minimum of several years of industry experience. There’s really no set number of years of experience there, as it varies for everyone, but a common cited figure for such experienced developers tends to be 7-10 years. And most startups don’t even hire only one very experienced developer either, but usually at least a few, because even the most senior developers working on a startup’s new product often need help.

You can definitely get to being able to build a simple full-stack project in 1 year. But an employable developer able to create new software products for startups is extremely unrealistic, if that’s your goal. It’s unclear if that’s what you meant.

And no further offense intended, but assuming you get to that point of creating a full-stack project in a year doesn’t necessarily make you an employable developer either. Sure you can technically build a full-stack application/project on your own. But being an employable developer is something entirely different, and you actually have to know more than just knowing how to code in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript - a handful of other things you need to learn in 1 year include: Git/GitHub, webpack, Node.js/NPM, Chrome devtools, and potentially AWS. Trying to learn JavaScript and Python in 1 year (to be able to use Python on your back-end) is just not something you’re going to be able to do. I’d highly recommend skipping Python and just focusing on JavaScript for your back-end too. Also you need to understand JavaScript ES2015 really well to be able to understand things like React. If you try jumping into React first without a solid understanding of ES2015, along with OOP, you’ll likely get lost very quickly.

1 Like
14

Thanks for responding. I will reevaluate the the whole thing.
Ps I am not offended at all I will rather have someone say blunt truth to my face than keeping me in dark.

15

Don’t revaluate too much – it is good to have a target timescale. Just allow for a bit of flexibility, and don’t get disheartened by not understanding things at such an early stage. The more you learn across the areas you’ve chosen to focus on, the the more things will coalesce. All the things you want to learn feed into one another

1 Like