What's up guys?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
And today we're going to be talking about feeling lost after completing a programming
course.
Especially if you're new, you struggle with with feeling like you're not grasping it,
you're not getting it.
You don't know enough.
You have some imposter syndrome there.
Even experienced developers can experience this.
So I'm going to talk about this.
I'm going to read an email from someone who's just 17 years old, and just started learning
Java programming.
And we're going to help him out.
I'm John from simpleprogrammer.com, and on this channel we teach soft skills.
I teach you what you need to know to become not just a better developer, but a better
human being.
"I'm 17 years old and I just started learning Java programming a few months ago.
I took a Udemy course and I just completed it.
It was a good course as it provided me with a lot of concepts and practices.
However, I'm clueless of what to do next.
I opened an IDE and I am just lost."
I can help you, my friend.
"I don't know where to start to build an application or anything.
I feel like I wasted my time learning all these syntaxes and everything, and I'm scared
that programming is not for me."
Okay.
You did waste your time learning all those syntaxes and everything, but programming is
for you, my friend.
"And yes, I've been told from watching many different videos to just do... build small
applications, lots and lots of it.
But I don't get how I can expand my coding skills.
Please help.
I'm very scared as I don't know what to do right now."
Simple, simple, simple solution here.
You did the classic mistake.
And the biggest one is learning inefficiently.
And most developers do this is, they crack a book, or they watch a course on a technology
and just try to... they're not doing.
You always need to learn X so you can do Y.
If you're trying to learn Java, why?
And don't say, "So I can get a Java job."
Okay.
You need to have an idea of what you want to build in mind, a project.
Something you want to create.
That's going to help you to learn.
You can't learn something without having a reason why to learn it.
You're going to skydive.
I could get you books on skydiving, all right?
And be like, "Hey, learn how to skydive."
And you can read books and you could watch videos on skydiving.
You might absorb some of that information.
But if I'm like, "Hey, oh yeah, next week we're going to go skydiving.
It's not optional.
Here's a book and here's a video course.
You're going to fucking learn that.
All right?
You're going to know exactly what to do when you jump out of the plane.
When we're talking about programming here, figure out something.
Just figure out some small project.
All right?
If you're going to take a course, let's say you're going to take Udemy course, fine.
I don't have any problem with that.
But what you need to do is come up with something first.
What kind of Java application are you building?
It's going to influence what you learn.
Are you building a web app?
Do you need a webpage?
Are you building a console application?
Are you building a graphical user interface for a desktop application?
What are you building?
Is it going to interact with the database, or no?
Pick something and say, "I want to build this."
Now, when you're learning Java, now you can go through the book.
Now you can go through the video course, and you can start to figure out how you're going
to build your application.
Actually start working on it.
It's going to be frustrating.
You'll be like, "I don't even know what the fuck I'm doing.
This doesn't even make any sense to me.
Ah, I don't even know how I'm going to create this button."
But you're going to find that information.
You might even skim through the book.
You might even fast-forward through the video.
You might even jump around, till you find the stuff that you need.
And then you're going to probably watch it all the way through, or read it all the way
through.
But you're going to find the pieces that you need so you can move forward and advance.
That's going to build you confidence, as you're doing this thing, because you're actually
building something.
You're actually, solving something.
Now, there are some videos and some tutorials that will teach you how to build an application.
Like when I do Pluralsight courses, all my courses, you can check them out on Pluralsight.
I'm going to put a link below.
I usually go through and I teach you, I show you the application we're going to build.
I teach you the concepts, and how they fit into building that application.
And teach you step-by-step how to build that application.
If you're not going to build something on your own, I'd rather you do it that way.
Look for, at least if you're going to look for video tutorials, have one that's actually
building an application.
And build it along with them.
It's still not going to be as good, okay?
Because you need to be solving your own problems.
Okay?
So you could even create a similar application, and see how they're doing it.
Or you can go through it once and then you can create your own application.
But you need to create your own shit.
A lot of you are making the mistake of trying to learn stuff.
And you don't have a reason why.
You need to learn X so you can do Y.
So figure out what the project is.
There's a ton of projects.
You can look up a list of projects.
A simple one is a to-do list.
You can actually take the course, or read the book, and go step-by-step.
And say, "Okay, well this is what I need to do in order to do this.
All right, this is a..."
And it doesn't matter if it's a mess, it doesn't matter if it's just a whole bunch of hodgepodge
shit.
The point is that you're doing, okay?
It's not going to be perfect, it's going to be crappy, but you're figuring it out.
It's forcing you to think.
The way that you learn things, the way that things stick in your brain is by having questions.
You question, you say, "Hmm, I wonder how I do this."
You have these kind of questions.
And as you start to have those questions, what ends up happening is that as you find
the answers to those questions, that's what actually sticks in your brain.
If you are struggling with the same problem, leave a comment below.
Let me know how you got over this.
Go check out Simple Programmer as well, and I will talk to you next time.
Take care.