I have been working through the FCC JS curriculum (and previously went through the HTML/CSS curriculums) but am thinking of jumping ahead to the Front End Libraries certification and am interested in people’s thoughts as to whether it’s a bad idea.
My initial goal is to get a front-end developer job (and then continue to learn JS more fully once I get that job). I went through the “Basic Javascript” curriculum in FCC (so it’s not that I haven’t done any JS- I just still a total beginner at it. I’ve got rough understanding of loops, functions, arrays etc. All the stuff in the basic JS curriculum). Anyway, as I’m working through the JS curriculum, I am constantly thinking “I am not going to remember any of this stuff”.
I know from learning lots of other things, you retain something 1000x better when it is solving a problem for you. So as I’m going through the JS curriculum, I am endlessly thinking “this is pointless, I barely understand it now, and I’ll never retain it”. I’m sure the exercises are very useful for someone else, or for me at a different point in my progression (because I don’t plan to stop learning, and I do want to eventually understand the JS more fully). But right now, I’m just learning these very concepts which I will never retain (because they aren’t solving any problems for me).
Even if there are JS concepts that I need to use React etc, I would learn those specific concepts better when I’m poised with that problem. Also, when I do get a job as a front-end dev, I don’t expect that many of these algorithmic exercises will really be part of my day-to-day expected responsibilities… (I’m aware these algorithms exercises are a big part of the interview process though)
Anyway, am I wrong/crazy/lazy in thinking about jumping from basic JS to the Front End Libraries certification? Any thoughts or other’s experiences would be appreciated! Thanks