I started FCC on March 3rd, skeptically and experimentally and I think I tapped into something I love that I didn’t know was there. I have no prior programming experience but I have always been a creative and logical thinker(I love Philosophy as an academic subject). I am enjoying this.
So I have been on my laptop for under an hour now doing the JS course here. I’m still on the basics section but towards the end(I took a break and went on SoloLearn for JS). .
I spend about 2hr+ a day on coding, hoping that maybe by the end of the year I will have some sell-able skills to show for it. The first hour and half is spent with me learning something, then I spend the 40mins+ building something or trying to solve a problem on one of my projects.
I think I love coding because it is all I think about since I started, and I like creating things and continually learning and I think coding is a good career option for someone who likes learning new skills and thinking creatively about problems. JS was strange at the beginning like I couldn’t think of a way I could use it in real life, although I got the logic, then one night I had dream(coding dream). Then I saw how I could use it, woke up and wrote simple code to achieve that end and it worked. lol It is like there was an explosion and suddenly my mind ran with possibilities of what this could do(suddenly JS went from strange to fun). Considering I know so little now I think it is only going to get better the more I know.
But today, I just feel like my head is spinning a bit. I can grasp the concepts well and work with them, it is not that. I don’t what it is, but it feels like a lot.
Do you guys ever get that feeling? Is it normal to feel like this?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: it involves a complex set of skills, it could take a very long time before you feel confident. Even then, there is generally a peak of confidence where you think you know a lot of stuff. This feeling is quickly replaced with the realisation that in fact, you don’t know very much, and you have to deal with that – the more you learn, the less you know. The more you dig into a subject, the more you realise that there are almost inifinite depths to it. As an analogy, think about learning to play a musical instrument. You’re gonna feel pretty good being able to play chopsticks on the piano after a few days; that feeling will quite quickly be replaced by a realisation of how that is actually trivially basic, and how much there is to learn. Focus on the small things in front of you, the knowledge will keep building up. You’ve been learning for a month and a bit, be prepared for the fact getting good will take years. The things that are overwhelming you now will seem trivial in a few months, and will have been replaced with other things.
I think you are right, DanCouper. It is certainly what has always happened to me when I learned something in depth.
The exciting part about it is that you can see yourself grow, and precisely that there is a lot you do not know and that it will remain that way.Perfection is monotonous. Possibilities are always exciting.
Thank you, Dan.
Have very similar feeling sometimes, didn’t know how to explain them
Thank so much, This was very helpful. Invaluable indeed.
Glad to know I’m not alone.