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Matt

Self-Learning: How I Learned to Learn

November 23, 2020 by Matt Leave a Comment

self-learning stack of books

Introduction to self-learning

Years ago, before I started self-learning, I remember wishing I could learn cool things rather than dull Math, English, and Social Studies. In school we learn these boring, albeit (OK I’ll admit it) necessary, subjects…

But we’re seldom taught what we WANT to know. Like, “how do I fix a car?”, “how do I read an electrical schematic?”, or “how do I make Excel calculations?” I know because I had to learn all these myself as an adult.

Some never get started self-learning.

Just like in a programming language (pick one), there are so many variables in life. Work, family, formal education, fitness… The list goes on.

Each variable holds a different value.

For example, in the morning when a person wakes up from a deep night’s slumber, the following variables might exist:

today = “Friday”
workDay = true
hadCoffee = false;
…

There is no end to the amount of tasks we as humans complete each day. Each human makes an insurmountable number of brain calculations per second without even realizing it. In fact, it’s been said that the human brain is so uniquely powerful that even the “superest” super computer ever designed can’t catch up to how fast the brain processes data in relation to how much data is being processed.

And we still want to take on MORE tasks?! Insanity or no?

We have a lot of unique ideas and thought processes. We all have the opportunity to make choices concerning our futures. Therefore, we can’t possibly be machines.

We all have so many things going on around us each day, making it difficult to desire to take on new tasks.

So much to do, see, play with…

Believe me–I am a human too and I have a list of childhood projects I still have yet to complete. (ask me about my songwriting to-do list).

It’s difficult to get started with self-learning. It takes motivation and a lot of dedication. Therefore, some never get started.

Remember: You don’t learn Mandarin Chinese in one day. It takes a motivated, driven attitude to stick with it and learn the language to become fluent. As with anything, you have to want to learn whatever subject you choose.

Difficulty self-learning programming.

scared of self learning
Just like learning a second language, when it comes to programming, a lot of people are turned away from the complexity of learning a new “language.” This is common.

I’ve started (and stopped) learning programming more times than I can count!

There is so much to learn when it comes to programming. Even basic concepts (for example: variables) may be enough to turn away newbies. I get it. It’s not for the impatient folks.

Even when you do begin to grasp your programming language of choice, there is always still the looming questions of “What will I build?” “How will I design it?” “How will I retain the knowledge?” These are all questions I’ve asked myself at one time or another.

It all comes down to self-motivation.

How I managed to develop a daily self-learning habit

It’s good to have a daily routine. A few years ago I remember feeling like I was wasting my life away. I felt like I had no motivation, no drive, no future.

I remember feeling depressed; like there was a big gaping hole in my gut that desperately needed to be filled.

Developing a new routine

I remember at that time, I had tried hard to incorporate my learning goals into my nightly routine. No matter how hard I tried, I always failed. It wasn’t going to happen! I felt dumb.

The one thing I had going for me: I knew I needed to change in order to learn.

One night I decided that once and for all I was going to make some adjustments. I decided I would devote a certain amount of time each morning to learning a specific writing course on Udemy. No matter what. I decided to wake up just thirty minutes earlier in the morning and devote those thirty minutes to my learning.

I’ll admit, at first it was pretty difficult to drag myself out of bed. Up until that I considered myself a die-hard night owl. I would stay awake well into the midnight, playing video games and rotting my mind with Facebook and random Youtube videos. It truly felt as though I was wasting my life away.

My current routine

I now wake up three hours early each morning.

I find that waking up early to get right to learning and other personal goals helps a lot. At 3:00am my mind is a lot fresher than at 8:00pm. Who wants to get all their daily goals out of the way after a hard day’s work?

Been there, done that. It’s difficult, it’s tiresome, it’s grueling! Wouldn’t recommend it (unless you absolutely have to).

I highly recommend becoming an “early-bird!”

Over time, I have found that, for me, the early morning is my most productive time of the day. I tend to get all my learning and most important tasks done in the wee hours of the morning when it’s still dark out and everyone else is still in bed.

But…I’m too busy!

Now, obviously not everyone works the same hours as me or has the same life circumstances as me. My exact routine will not work for everyone. But it’s what works for me.

I have full faith that you–no matter your life circumstances– can form a learning habit that works for YOU. If you simply put your mind to it you can learn it. Many people never even get started on their dreams. It’s easy to give up. It’s hard to take the first steps and keep at it.

Make time, keep at it, and don’t give up!

Filed Under: Other Tagged With: programming, self-learning

My Journey Using Treehouse to Learn Coding

November 20, 2020 by Matt Leave a Comment

My Journey Thus Far

While researching paths to take to start learning JavaScript I stumbled upon Treehouse. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Treehouse, it is a paid learning platform that teaches a number web development and programming skills. Anyways, I first enrolled on the Treehouse platform in September, 2020. I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about my journey (thus far) using Treehouse to learn coding.

With Treehouse you take different paths, or “tracks” as they call them. I decided to start down the Full Stack JavaScript track.

When I started I was quite impressed by the quality of the instructors and videos. I literally felt as if I couldn’t “put it down” for the first couple days because there was so much to soak in. Sure, a lot of it I already knew from the past, but I still felt hungry enough for the whole helping. With each step, each course, I began learning new concepts, as well as, earning points and badges for each task completed.

Very nice!

Challenges on My Journey

The biggest challenges I’ve had with Treehouse are that some of the courses I’ve taken present challenges with a weak set of instructions for designing the solution. As one would figure, this makes things super challenging. While challenges are not a bad thing in and of themselves, I have found that some (few) of the course solutions on Treehouse have left me scratching my head wondering what I’d just learned.

Highlights

Looking back at my project files since I began down the Full Stack JS track, I find that I have completed quite a number of accomplishments–things I never thought I’d have the patience to learn.

Honestly though, I feel my greatest JS achievements haven’t come from completing challenges on Treehouse or viewing my various badges (which are cool)… But rather I feel my biggest achievements have come from completing challenges in other (non-Treehouse) courses after learning on the Treehouse platform.

For example, recently I completed a challenge on a web development course hosted on the Udemy platform. The challenge presented was clear and concise. I was able to complete the challenge successfully from scratch, fairly quickly in just 15 lines of code. When the course instructor’s solution was shown, the instructor had completed the challenge using 22 lines of code. Now, I understand that there is a different solution to every problem, but the key was that I used template literals–something I learned about early on while using Treehouse. This gave me a nice boost of confidence, showing me that I was “getting it.”

code displaying template literals

More Information About Treehouse

You can find all of this information on their website, but I figured I would go ahead and break it down here for ease. As of November, 2020 (and before) Treehouse has a few different subscription-based plans to choose from:

  • Courses ($25/mo) – This is the basic plan where you can learn most everything included in the other plans, but you can’t download videos.
  • Courses Plus ($49/mo) – Offers downloadable videos for offline viewing as well as some exclusive bonus content.
  • Techdegree ($199/mo) – Essentially, the Treehouse Techdegree program is an online bootcamp for a number of different plans, including:
    • Front End Web Development
    • Full Stack JavaScript
    • PHP Development
    • UX Design
    • Python Development

Final Thoughts About My Journey Using Treehouse to Learn Coding

With all but five courses remaining to date in the Full Stack JS track, I can look back and see all the many things I’ve learned and crammed into my brain. I enjoy using the platform because the instructors, for the most part, present the material in such a way that a simpleton such as myself can grasp the knowledge quickly and easily.

I’ve been using their services for a few months now and I do recommend treehouse for learning coding.

Filed Under: Programming Tagged With: javascript, treehouse

Hello World.

November 9, 2020 by Matt Leave a Comment

Or should I say,

1
2
3
4
int main() {
   std::cout << "Hello, World!";
   return 0;
}

or

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console.log("Hello World!");

or, perhaps:

1
print("Hello, World!")

No matter how you say it in your preferred language, it’s a phrase that can (and should) be understood by programmers, young and old. It’s the phrase that starts it all, including this website.

Welcome to my first post. I hope you gain valuable information from this site’s content.

Filed Under: Programming Tagged With: hello world

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