I’ve gone through most of the Responsive Web Design Course but I struggle with the Certification Projects. I feel like I haven’t retained much and have to look up a lot. I know that doing it more and practicing will help, like it does for most things but I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions for practicing. Would it help to do the practice projects again or try to learn more from somewhere else? Any advice?
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What you’re experiencing is quite common and every person learning development has faced that at the beginning of their journey. I’ve been there too.
My advice to you would be to accept the fact that looking things up that you wanna implement in your project is quite normal and every developer does that (even the professional ones). And it is something that you need to get accustomed too. Cause there are way too many things in development to keep in your memory all at once.
So don’t stress it, just try to complete the certification projects even if you’ve to look up the source code of the projects to figure out how the features were implemented. Just make sure you understand the things you’re doing and you’re all good.
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Thank you for your encouragement and advice! I really appreciate it, especially the part about it being normal to look things up. You’re right that there are too many things to keep in memory all at once. It’s easy to get discouraged in the beginning because there’s just so much to learn but I think repetition and practice will help. It feels better hearing someone say it’s ok to look at the source code and use that for help as long as I understand what I’m doing. Thanks again! 
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Actually, at the beginning of this journey the amount of information you’re exposed to is way too much for a brain to consume.
And no one is there to tell you how to cope up with that. That also leads to feeling discouraged as well as the brain will have difficulties remembering all the things and implementing them right cause every skill takes time and we don’t want to believe that. And it also causes people to question their ability to learn to code and their capability to achieve the skill. It’s is just like any other skill, which gets easier with consistent exposure to it. The only thing is that it uses a good amount of your brain power. So, taking good care of your brain and having a positive outlook on the things should get you through the challenges you face.
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I would try Frontend Mentor. Some of the Newbie and Junior projects are smaller component style projects that aren’t as complicated as the Certification Projects.
Thank you! I appreciate the suggestion. It looks like they have a pretty decent selection of free challenges. The resource page is quite extensive as well. Again, thank you for the suggestion!
I would like to add up something that helps me a lot when developing a webpage, which is to make a simple prototype of what you want to make. You can even include all the details like text, color, spacing, and the whole design. You can use any of the available prototyping tools. It will act as a blue print or a reference when you start coding.
Good-luck
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Thank you! I like this suggestion a lot. I haven’t used an prototyping tools before but I’m open to trying new things.
Thank you for providing this! I’m definitely going to check out Frontend Mentors.
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I can understand you. I doing the Responsive Web Design too and the sometimes I struggle really hard with things. I’m graduating in System analysis and everyone says the same thing: “you can do it if you put enough time and practice your skills with patience”. DON’T GIVE UP!
Strive for daily progress, even if it’s a small one. One little block at the time. It’s worth it, at the end your efforts you pay up. One thing you have to remember is that everyone is different. My second project certification I created a tribute page for Leibniz and it took like 6 hours. My first HTML project was a cake recipe in HTML only. It took me 4hours to make. DON’T GIVE UP!
I got better with time. You can do it, I’M SUUUUUUUUUUUURE of that. If you wanna exchange any ideias or thoughts feel free to hit me up! DON’T GIVE UP!
Edit: Things you can do to improve as some people suggested:
- Don’t be afraid to look things up, on the internet of even in past projects you’ve created.
- Compare your skills today with your skills yesterday. Everyone has a different story and path. Try not to compare yourself with others too much or not at all.
- Look up simple projects on the internet. Like a login box, with email an password inputs, for example. Try adding just a little CSS to style it. Create a text with some paragraphs and change their font-styles etc.
- Don’t focus too much on creativity now, give more energy into learning the basics, so taking projects that already exists will help you more.
- Ask for help here or on other places, don’t be afraid to make posts or search things as i said in 1.
You can do it! God bless!
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Hihi! I started in march and am overwhelmed as well. But I found someone amongst my friends who actually needs a website and so I am coding it for free for them, they request evrything they want and I just try to realize what is possible right now. This is great, because you are facing real problems for real people for a website they need at a real hoster. And you can memorize your solution better, because it is a real case and not just academic.
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If you’re struggling with the basics, i would suggest to first go through one of the basic tutorial videos, so that you have a grasp of basic concepts. Freecodecamp has plenty of such videos on YouTube . First go through them, understand the basics, you can also read through the documentation of the topics.
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Don’t worry we all were in that phase at the start of learning and everyone has overcome that difficult period with consistency and hard work.
Below are the techniques which worked well for me and you should try as well
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Spaced repetition using Flash Cards
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Re-do same steps of tutorial next day before starting new steps, re-do after X days again till you’re super confident
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Find study aka accountability buddy / partner
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Try to look into other people’s problems wrt HTML, CSS and try to solve them.
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Once you’re fully comfortable with syntax then only jump into building projects from FCC, later start building projects from Frontend Mentor.
All the very best.
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Hey there, it’s very logical that the challenges feel overwhelming because it’s all new.
What helped me a lot is to start with the steps from the instructions that I knew how to do and to start from that.
That way you do make progress and you can add something new to the challenge every day and it feels less overwhelming.
For example I would start with the HTML boilerplate, then I’d add some paragraphs, then the first input tags etc.
Then the next day I would add the CSS that I knew how to do, such as the color, background-color, font-size etc.
Then the features I wouldn’t know how to do I’d look them up like the other members suggested. And also, sometimes sleeping on a challenge helps a lot as well.
Furthermore, I found it helpful to use other resources as well for some extra explanations such as Kevin Powell’s videos, the Mimo app or the Odin Project.
Hope this helps!
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I just want to thank everyone for being so kind and supportive and offering all kinds of suggestions and encouragement. This really is a great place that I found and I’m happy to be here! @wilsond_barbosa @bluescreen @chaurasiaji200 @vikramvi @llzeeuw @its_rawaa @brodiewebdt @rajtanuchakravarty
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Looking up things from google is totally allowed,I look up things whenever I’m working on my projects. Also,breaking down stuff helps me. If it’s a website,you check how to design the nav bar,then the content. Perfect your skill one by one,know how to use flex box,build some simple projects with it,when you’re certain about your skills go to grid,learn it. Try combining both… That type of progression.
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I hear you. You know, I am no code expert, but I think it is a really good idea to do the practice projects again.
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