After one year of learning, making mistakes, and growing my skill in programming, there are a few things, I’ve picked up along the way. Things I wish someone told me and things that you can only truly understand once you’ve gotten in the swing of things honestly. Experience is the best teacher but there are some things you don’t have to learn for yourself. Just listening to someone’s experience is enough.

Let’s go back in time a bit.

Intro to programming in C, I had already done my research and brushed off this language. It was deemed ancient and useless to modern programming so I wasn’t so jazzed to see that’s what I was learning as my first language but either way, the unit had to be done. Thinking back on that experience, there was nothing I understood in that class. I was green and unable to understand anything at all.

Like honestly nothing.

The next languages were C++ and JAVA, now this is when things started to make sense. I started to get the drift and the flow of the basics of programming.

This is the time I can confidently say I began to understand programming and what it entails.

 Sidebar

People argue that C is not a good language to start programming with, some would recommend Python. But I would have to object, procedural programming helped me understand the basics of programming, syntax, logic, and many other elements that make programming what it is.

And I think it weeds out the jokers “just my hot take”.

What are your thoughts, comment below.

What I’ve learned

Programming is hard

Not to scare you away but it’s the reality.

I’m just going to be honest, that’s the hard truth. Understanding how to think in a different logical flow is difficult. Before I started, I knew it was going to be tasking, but I didn’t know to what magnitude. The difficulty is something the internet is not so forth-telling about. Learn programming in 3 months, it’s simple. The truth of the matter only 30 people signed up for the course but only 10 people finished and only around 5 are going to get into the big Fang and Meta companies. This is not to discourage you but it’s just the truth. Programming is difficult and you need the patience to push through learning plateaus and code errors over and over and over again if you are to succeed.

I say all this to say you need to mentally prepare yourself for times when all you are doing is debugging and getting things wrong. People don’t just wake up and run a marathon they have to train and prepare. Use that same logic when it comes to learning programming.

I’m not saying this because I’m a professional and I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m saying this as a person in the training process. It’s difficult and tiresome but it’s all worth it. 

You’ll make so many mistakes

Mistakes will constantly be a pattern in your learning journey and experience. You will probably not get the concept on the first go, and that’s ok. This is from my own experience, some conspets are a bit dificult to catch on the first go, you mingt need to study it more than you would ohters. This does not take away from your capasity to understand and grow as a programmer. I learnd this earlier on, I would recommend for you to figure out your tempo. How do you understand and grasp information ? Once you have an understanding of yourself in tha way then you can create systems in your study routine that best suit your needs. This tremendously helped me transofrme my C grades to B+.

Everyone has their own way of learning so I wouldnt advice copying and pasting someone elses formula, I would suggest take a few consepets here and there and tweak them to best suit you.

ALSO half of the class is floating so no need to worry about your mistakes. This is not a cop out but something to just remember to reduce the pressure.

If you like being right all the time, this will be a space where your patience and forbearance will be tested constantly.

You’ll reach a plateau in your learning and that’s ok

There is a space where learning is almost the same, no new concepts, no new exciting things just a flat line. I like to take these times as a space to wait be patient and breathe. If you ask me this can even be a positive take this time to perfect your already gotten programming skills 

Platues sometimes have a negative connotation but for me, it is a time to cool down and reassess my studying revision and exam prep strategies. It’s like time to take stock and look at my track record. to see the areas that need improvement, adjustment, or change.

The learning never stops

This is a catch-22 that I was not aware of. Languages are always evolving, they are constantly growing and readjusting to the needs of our industries. This should not scare you really but it is like an unspoken rule to try to always be up to speed with the languages in your area of specialization to be on the safe side of the industry.

The nature of technology almost forces developers to constantly be learning, it is partly because of how new our current technology is to the world, its possibilities have not been exhausted and I’m not sure they ever will so that’s why we must always stay on top of our game. the thought of this might seem overwhelming but how I have been able to stop the spiral of feeling overwhelmed is by taking comfort in that I only have to learn about new and emerging technologies in the field I plan to specialize in. When you think about it like that you are less likely to feel super overwhelmed.

This does not mean we should live in a vacuum not exploring other areas of tech it just means it’s not the main priority of learning.

You might feel like you don’t know what you are doing for a bit of time

The feeling of not moving in any capacity is so real and I also still struggle with it from time to time here and there but I always try to remind myself that those are just the growing pains and this too shall pass.

This feeling begins to creep up as you enter spaces where there are many developers’ communities, online forums, etc. When you see the things people are getting up to you can immediately feel like you aren’t even moving, but that’s just your mind playing tricks on you. Everyone is on their race.

There are lots of satisfying moments

To end on a good note, the feeling of successfully building something is so beautiful. It’s like I can’t even explain the feeling. Seeing the fruits of your hard labor gives you an energy boost to build something else something bigger and better.

100 percent the best kind of intrinsic motivation.

Conclusion

This past year has been a roller coaster of learning, failure, success, and an ocean of emotions to the point of questioning my choices. But one thing I can say is all this was worth it and it built my ability to stay and see things through even when I am facing a bit of resistance.

The learning continues