I am currently taking the JavaScript course and going through it, but to be honest, nothing is sticking. I am going through the course mindlessly in the sense that I feel like I’m just guessing about what to do versus actually understanding what is going on. Not sure if that makes sense. I read the instructions on what to do and sort of just guess what to do instead of understanding what or why I am doing something.
I’d like to know if anybody else feels this way, almost feel like a fraud to be honest.
After you have completed a project you should look back through it to understand it better. This is not a theoretical course but a practical one in which you learn by doing. You could try to modify some projects that interest you for your own purposes. If you can do that you are a programmer. Most coding is copy/paste/edit to suit your purposes rather that writing from scratch so the key is to understand what is wriiten.
I appreciate the response. it does make sense to modify and projects to my liking/interests. I guess it’s somewhat hard when you’re sticking to the curriculum and just getting lost at some areas since they’re not of interest. I will try my best to find some projects that interest me and apply what has stuck so far.
I’m always making notes, either on Notepad or physical sticky notes and 4X6 cards with example syntax that I hang on my wall around my computer. For me it helps to remember how things are coded. I promise, it will start to stick when you least expect it to. You’ll be making a topic on the forum and go ‘Wait a minute, didn’t i just look that up and write something down about it?’ Then you end up solving your own problem and have to delete a post, lol!
I’ve been a developer for a number of years now and I remember very well how you are feeling now. This is often the make or break moment. Either you quit because you “don’t get it” or you stick with it and it will eventually come. For most developers I know there is a moment where the penny drops. It’s at this point that it suddenly clicks and all of a sudden things start to make sense.
The hard part after that is when you suddenly become aware of the sheer amount of stuff you don’t know, but thats when the adventure really starts. My advice would be to stick with it. If it’s not quite sinking in, try a couple of YouTube videos, watch a course on Udemy or read some blog posts. Another perspective will often help explain things in a different way that helps get you to the penny drop moment.
I might suggest you do a JavaScript only course. The intermingling of html with programming concepts adds a degree of complexity that I think most beginners struggle with. I think the previous version of the JavaScript course was just concepts in JavaScript. You might also try the free JavaScript prep course at galvanize.com.
can definitely relate to this, have a Notion page solely dedicated to JavaScript alone, here’s to my future “I finally get it now post”, lol. Thank you!
Another resource which may be worth checking out is Scrimba. They have a bunch of JavaScript courses for free.
The great thing about Scrimba is that it has videos where you watch coding on the screen but you can pause the video at any point any directly mess with the code as it is at that exact moment. Then when you are finished, you just press ‘play’ and the video will continue on from where you originally paused it.
It’s great for when you just want to tinker with an idea being discussed in the video and check your understanding. You can just play with the code without having to type it all out and I found it so useful to really grasp some key concepts.
update:
I would HIGHLY recommend codecademy’s Learn Basic Java course and then coming back here to do the projects so that can get a better understanding of what is being taught and why you are doing certain things. I can proudly say I finished the course and got my certificate(unfortunately only with PRO) and do understand more of what is going on and why I am doing certain things.
You can also do the legacy version of the JS curriculum. It is focused purely on JS as a programming language and has no DOM manipulation.
I would however suggest jumping into project-based learning as soon as possible. But I do think some basic JS fundamentals are a valuable first step. I wouldn’t mind if the new curriculum had just a bit of the old curriculum at the start.
@lasjorg will definitely be taking a look at this after I finish the section I am on. I didn’t even realize the legacy stuff still existed. thank you very much!
