How did you learn how to code?? If you’re self taught, then, what websites or books did you use that were helpful? I’m trying to teach myself how to program, but I’m having lots of difficulty and I really want to learn some more. Thanks!!
First, I want to say there’s no shame in having difficulty learning computer science. When I took my first programming course, I understood nothing. It was at least a year before I thought I had any grasp over anything programming. My pal over at @delightedcrow told this story of his professor explaining just this: “When you start studying a new subject you’ve never been exposed to, it’s like jumping into a pool of new knowledge. When you first jump in after never setting foot into the pool, it’s going to be cold. Very cold. This is where people have trouble continuing because they were shocked by how cold it was and don’t want to jump back in. Instead, you need to take a small step and get comfortable with that before taking another.” With that said, when you learn a concept, try to code something outside of the examples you’re given using it to try to wrap your head around it. I don’t know who said it, but one motto I go by is “Code to learn, don’t learn to code.” I took an intro to Java course and learned a bit, but I got to where I am today because I wanted to see what I was able to do with the language and challenged myself to write larger and more complex programs.
There’s also nothing wrong with asking for help. I know some people think they should be embarrassed because they didn’t understand the material, so they don’t want to ask for help to avoid looking stupid. In reality, we’ve all been that person who struggled, and now that we’re in a better place, we want to help. If you ever have a program you’ve been struggling with and it doesn’t work no matter what you type or how many times you bang your head against your keyboard, ask for help. There are communities of programmers, like Stack Overflow and r/learnprogramming, that will be more than happy to help given that you’ve already scratched your head long enough.
I knew that I liked coding when I started studying computer science, but I didn’t know what I wanted to end up coding. It took me about three years of studying it to figure out what I even like. I don’t know if you’ve given this any thought, and it’s okay if you don’t know yet, but having an idea of what you want to do with coding helps. Here’s a few paths for you to consider:
Do you want to design websites? Learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Do you want to work with databases? Learn SQL (rather MySQL or NoSQL) and PHP
Do you like analyzing data and numbers? Learn Python and R
Do you enjoy statistics? Learn SAS and R
Do you enjoy mathematics? Learn Mathematica and MATLAB
Do you want to want to develop mobile apps? Learn Android (Java) and Swift.
Do you want to work on artificial intelligence? Learn Lisp or Prolog.
Do you want to make games? Learn Unity (C#) and C++
Do you want to make applications for the computer? Learn Java and C#
Do you like working with hardware? Learn Assembly and C.
Like I said, you don’t have to know what you want to do now, and you definitely don’t have to do all of them, but if you have an idea of what you want to do with coding, these are some languages to look into. There’s also no shame in trying one of these paths and figuring out that it’s not for you. While I currently only do two of these paths, I’ve dipped my foot into eight of them. One of my professors told me that most people spend their undergraduate degree in computer science figuring out what they don’t like so they can go to industry or grad school doing what they do like. If you know what you want to do, you can cater your studying more towards that and it would be more enjoyable.
Finally, study with the techniques that help you learn. I personally don’t like reading computer science books, but that’s not how I learn. When I learn something, I need to code an example of it to truly know how it works. Are you a visual learner? Watch a YouTube playlist on the language or topic you want to learn or take an online course on a site like edx. Do you want to follow an interactive tutorial where you learn step-by-step and do examples along the way? Try an online program like codecademy and sololearn. Do you like to test your knowledge on what you’ve learned? Take coding challenges on coderbyte and codechef. Do whatever you think will help you understand.
I hope this helps! Computer science is a hard field to get into, especially for those who are only interested in it for the prestige or money, but with the right amount of drive, passion, and determination, it is one of the most reward fields to get into.
janainaart
theartofmadeline
jacobvanloon
titsay
germansingergirl
gummygunk
dededos
