- What's the best way to take an online programming course?
Let's talk about that in today's video.
(upbeat electronic music)
Welcome back my name is Tim Buchalka,
with another programming tip of the day.
The question again was,
what is the best way to take an online programming course?
Now this is the question
that I get quite often from students
and in my opinion the best way to take a course,
is just basically to go through each video
from start to finish,
watch the videos fully,
follow along with the instructor
and actually type in the examples.
Now that's if you have never had
any programming experience before but
if you have had some programming experience,
that's in the sense of taking another video course
you know the basics like you know things like
what a variable is for example,
then you might decide to skip some aspects of a course
or perhaps skip to some of the sections
that are of interest to you.
For example, if you've taken a basic course in computing,
and then you're taking a Java course
you might decide to skip to
the Object-oriented programming section of the course,
if you wanted to learn about that.
But be careful when you do that.
And the reason for that is often the course
is designed based on previous sections.
So in other words if you've got section 6,
section 6 of the course will probably assume
that you've learnt the material in section 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
So if you're skipping straight to section 6,
you might find that you're missing key principles.
So for that reason I suggest that
even if you've got some experience,
to still go through the videos but you might decide
to maybe play them a little bit faster
than the normal speed, play them at 25% faster.
And just try and see whether there's anything there.
And you might decide also,
in the case of having existing experience,
that you can avoid having to type in the code for that
for those basic introductory lectures such as
what is a variable.
And just skip straight to those other parts.
One other thing I would point out that
it's very important to take the challenges,
in my course I've got challenges which is basically
a way for you to solve a particular challenge
which confirms that you've understood the material.
But doing that that's really your way to your benchmark
to know that you've learnt the material,
the materials made sense,
and to actually start using that, and by doing that
you find that you can basically get a better understanding.
Just the process of doing rather than watching,
is where you will really learn and so for that reason
I'm gonna wanna make it clear that
you should definitely be typing along
with the instructor's code.
So don't just watch a video,
unless you've had some experience and you're just
trying to fast-forward to another section,
If you are starting out and you really
wanting to understand programming,
in my opinion what you need to do is
you need to watch the videos, and type along.
Type along with what the instructor is typing,
because that process of doing again,
rather than just watching will be where
the experience will really come in,
and you really sort of solidify your understanding.
And again with the code exercises,
the challenges and so forth, if you're doing those as well,
that will stand you in good stead.
Now just another quick point I wanna make is that,
it is normal to get frustrated and
to be you know stuck in particular points in time.
And if you think back to any
worthwhile skill that you've learnt in the past,
It hasn't always been a breeze.
I've used this analogy in videos before,
but learning to drive a car,
the first time you get in the car, it's overwhelming.
Now you've gotta understand where the accelerator is,
if it's a manual you need to understand
where the gear stick is,
you know, you have to work out,
you need to look in your mirrors,
you need to know where the indicator is,
you need to know where the brake pedal is,
and it's all really hard to get together and consequently,
particularly if you're driving a manual car
it's very common to stall the car.
And that's because you haven't put enough acceleration on
or you let the car, basically stall.
So and that's really because you don't really understand
how to use all the components, because it's too much,
it's just it's too overwhelming.
The same is true in programming.
Stick to that and keep going,
and basically the more you work with programming,
the better you'll be.
So I've got a whole video on that
so check this video up here on the best,
or the number one skill you need to succeed as a programmer.
This is something that is really important
so watch that video up there after this one.
Because that will really help you out as well,
but basically again,
the best way is to just go through a course,
from video 1 to video 2, your last video in the course,
try not to skip anything,
and it will ultimately make you learn the material better,
and of course that will then mean
that you'll be a better programmer.
Alrighty so I hoped that helped.
If you've got any questions feel free to leave a comment,
and I'll get back to you,
if you're ready to look at the next tip,
click on up here, and you can check that out.
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and I'll see you soon.