My brain is too dumb

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As many people here has told you, please, don’t call yourself nor your brain dumb, stupid, nor anything similar.
Allow me to talk you my “story” in a nutshell.
I’m from Venezuela, and as you may know, we are having a bad time here. But three years ago things weren’t like this; they weren’t perfect, but it wasn’t like now. So, three years ago i started computer engineering, with my - not clear at all - goal of being a game programmer. But i was just so unorganized, not willing to find some help and without knowing that it just takes time to learn. So i was just reading and reading about different programming languages, changing courses constantly in CodeCademy, thinking that the programming language was the only thing that matters, and only thinking about making videogames but not investing not even one second in actually doing so.
I spent some time quite depressed, i don’t know if it was depression but i was sad. Finally i found calm and happiness in music, so i changed my major to music, i had a period of doubt, but this time without sadness then i felt that music was what i absolutely wanted, but i was feeling quite like you with code, with plenty of time, a good guitar, but i was just stuck.
As i mentioned before, situation in my country is going bad, and among other things, most universities aren’t working, so i have had plenty of free time. This is awfully wrong, but i found it positive, because it was time to practice with my music. But one day i got so desperate about finding online jobs to leave the country to study music abroad that the less i was doing was practicing music. Suddenly i noticed that web development is a hot career now, and i thought well i used to want to be a programmer, so i’m going to learn it just for the money.
It was something like 2 or 3 months ago. I started just for the money, and guess what? It totally hooked me! And suddenly i was “easily” understanding things that three years ago were quite confusing for me. Now the reason for that, i don’t really know, i think one key factor is because i’m a little bit more patient now, maybe because i’m older. But the former is more important, patient, that’s key. And trust me, i’m also quite frustrated, i finally found something that i LOVE to do (learning - and eventually working on - web development), but my country is just suffocating me, actually and so lucky, i have food, good food, a good computer, i don’t have to work 8 hours a day for an awful salary, i’m so lucky, but still, this is terrible and what i want the most is leaving, but i need something like 1k or more dollars to leave, and the only way for me is working as a freelancer, but in order to do that, i need experience, i need more knowledge. And you know what? This is almost the first time in which i don’t care about having to spend the next year learning, because i’m enjoying this so much, of course i’ll keep having some anxiety because of the country, but i can handle.
I apologize if my point is not clear. What i meant here is that patient is key, i also get frustrated if i don’t know how to do something, god i feel awfully bad, but dude, how could i know to do something i’ve never done before?
So, if you really, really, REALLY feel that you cannot figure out what to do, look for the answer and not just copy and paste it, but try to understand it and don’t feel bad about it. But also remember that looking for a certain function is stackoverflow or any other place is not looking for the answer, that’s actually a really important skill for any programmer and FCC encourages all of us to do it as well.

So there’s something important to take into account about learning here in FCC. This is probably THE place for learning web development, but remember that the approach here is almost entirely project-base, so don’t expect many explanations on many topics. And this is not at all something bad. The thing is that you can, and sometimes you even should learn from other resources as well. There are paid and free resources. All of them quite great, and some quite bad for sure.
What i’m doing is, i bought some udemy courses about web development because they have a crazy sale and they are selling every course for 15 bucks. Apart from that i also want to read this two books:
http://interactivepython.org/runestone/static/thinkcspy/index.html
http://interactivepython.org/runestone/static/pythonds/index.html
And please, i highly encourage you to check the free courses from www.rithmschool.com They are great, and don’t worry if you don’t understand something, that’s ok.
So i want to finish the udemy courses, read those books, finish the rithm school free courses and even try to finish eloquent javascript. That last book is for free and is great, but it’s quite hard, at least that’s what i think, so it’s definitely not for beginners. So i hope to being able to read it soon. And then, i’ll totally go through the entire FCC program.

Right now, i’ve been able to do some basic but nice webpages, specially with the course and currently doing which is called The complete web developer course 2.0 by Rob Percival on Udemy. But if you can only afford one, i would tell you to buy The Web Development Bootcamp by Colt Steele also on Udemy. Even if i haven’t started that one yet, it’s very popular and it teaches basically the technologies that FCC teaches, which are also very in demand nowadays.

I apologize for the length of this, but i just don’t want you to quit programming if you really like this. Even if i won’t probably keep pursuing a career on music, i wouldn’t be so motivated to keep learning if it wasn’t for music. Reading about different jazz musicians, all of them having practiced like crazies. From 5 to even 15 hours a day! Everyday during years. That only tell us that everyone who has been successful in anything, worked on that. Maybe some people are just more “logical”, but if they don’t practice, you or me can become better programmers than them.

Good luck! Please start from the basics, take a look at udemy and the resources i mentioned above, keep practicing, try to break down problems into smaller pieces and enjoy. You’ll do it, probably not in one month, but you’ll get there.

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Man, it’s totally ok, my mind is dumb as well :rofl: Because of it I work for hours, ask lots of stupid questions and google one thing many times.
The outcome’s what’s important, and we can get it, even if it takes us a bit more time.

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You’re brain is just learning. A brain that’s learning isn’t a brain that is dumb. Maybe a deep a breath and reminder to take small steps and focus on small successes. It’s proven that continued practice and exposure to new concepts fosters improvement and learning, so work on being gentle with yourself and maybe adjusting the expectation that this will come quickly. This article helps me shape my perspective- Maybe it can help you too-

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I feel dumb too. I have read posts on here, and it is inspiring. Like one poster says if you are learning every day, then every day is a win.

I am not that great at design, my strengths lie in logical coding. That is my strength. I am working now for a job for the future.

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I joined codewars - its a pretty cool site with lots of potential. But today i looked at a suggested kata, and thought wtf?? I know you need to get in the zone tho,.

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You are not dumb, for not understand. You would be dumb, for give up.

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If you take action by coding each and every day, you will reach your goals.

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Coding is hard! Feel free to give me a shout if you’re ever having trouble. I’m still learning concepts too, but I think I could be of help. Be persistent, be positive!

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Thank you everyone for replies and support. I’m learning to code and I know that in the future I will be better, it will be tough but possible.

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Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m started out learning code too, taking a combination of programs and challenges I can find online. No doubt there are gonna be bumps in the road but don’t give up if this is something you want to keep doing! Good Luck! :grinning:

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The kind of answer i’ve been looking for. Thank you so much!

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Hi there… well, I have a separate (genuine question although out of topic so please don’t flag me. I saw the Title of this post and figured it’s perfect for me :slight_smile:

So I’ll first answer the question and then I have my own “dumb” question.

Learning to code:
It isn’t easy! If coding would be easy, everybody would do it.

We all learn differently. One thing that has helped me over time (not just in coding) is write your own “guide”. Get a word documents (or excel) ready, and start typing everything you’ve learned.

For example, I have a Topic called “Arrays” and in it, I have subtopics of everything that I’ve learned about Arrays. An example of a subtopic I made is “.push()”. And then I wrote what the method push does to arrays, and then I provided one or two examples on how to use it.

In my guide, I have Strings, if/else, Loops, Arrays, Objects, etc, etc. Not only does making a guide help you figure out what to do given your problem, but as you’re writing the guide you’re effectively studying how to code.

The second thing I would advise is NOT googling the challenge and copying the code. Why are you doing that? You’re lying to yourself. What you should do (if it’s not already in your guide), is Google how to do a specific thing. Remember, BEFORE you start coding a solution you need to write a pseudo code. i.e. you need to write the steps on how you’re going to solve the problem. You might not know how to do a specific step and so that’s specifically what you’re going to be googling… you shouldn’t Google the answer to the whole problem because otherwise you’re not learning anything.

So here’s my question, How the heck do I post new topics?? The system is just letting me reply to posts. I wonder if it has to do with being a “new” member.

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Of course , its not going well in the beginning. You must teach yourself to think in a logical way first and that comes by trial and error.

Read a lot, practice a lot and you will gain confidence.

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power response, i needed this