I just “completed” the coded correspondence project. I feel quite defeated after needing to look at the solution for almost every answer. I barely understood the answer to the final question, much less being able to solve it myself.
I’m new to coding but it felt like what I was exposed to during the lesson vastly underprepared me for this project.
I’m going through the Data Scientist: Analytics Specialist path. That is all the exposure I’ve had to coding… am I alone or someone that is a little further in the program maybe give me some thoughts on whether I need to revisit or do some other path to get prerequisite skills?
I can definitely tell you that you’re not alone. I just had the exact same experience. I felt like I studied for a test in 8th grade algebra and was met with Calculus exam. I am here in the forums immediately after finishing to try to see if anyone on here can break all of that down for me.
I completed the lessons twice and got to npm run where the frontend started nice but experience many errors with the back end. How do I resolve the many errors?
I’m not sure if I can answer your questions. BUT, if you check the file download of Jupter files there is one with the solutions you can use to check your code (or see the answers )
You are defenitley not alone! I’ve been struggling with the course in general, mostly because I’m only able to study for 2-3hrs top/3-4 days a week. Seeing that the users that started this course (data scientist) around the same time I did and have nearly completed the course if not finished, has been very frustrating. But I kept a positive head space and kept pushing forward thinking I was truly getting everything that was thrown at me during the course. All great until this project… from the very first task I felt utterly defeated. I felt like a failure for having to look at the solution so early on and still not understand all of the code.
My experience with coding is the same as yours, none. But I will say this, because I know nothing I should not feel bad for struggling so hard when thrown into the water without a lifeline. Having to look into the solution sheet cheat gave me insight into coding ideas i hadn’t thought of or didn’t think the code could be used /function in that manner. It forced me to really dive into the concepts that have been taught up until this point, research beyond the lessons.
I hope that I will keep growing my understanding on coding in Python until i reach the point of little to no help with the sheet cheats. So know you are not alone! Every experience is in it’s essence a learning curve.
I’m struggling in the same way, I feel like I’m barely being equipped to solve these problems. So I’m doing my best to understand what the code is doing in the solutions I’m seeing, and repeating them and testing them out in different ways. It’s a lot slower but I’m starting to grasp more from differing from the courses.
Since I made this post, I have made some progress. I will say that I think the difficulty difference between lessons and some of the projects was steep. While I was able to understand the solutions, at the time I would not have been able to solve them.
After I finished the course and worked on some ‘for fun’ projects by pulling free data and working to visualize it, I returned back to some of the projects and was pleased to see I could get further on them than I could before.
My advice to my own question: Don’t stress about the projects. Do your best to understand the solutions provided and solve them where you can. Complete the course and do some self-guided practice with concepts from the lessons.
Hey Bradley! This post is incredibly helpful! I’ve been looking for something like this. I’m currently taking the Python 3 course and got stuck on the coded correspondence project, haha. I ended up checking the answers but was able to grasp the logic behind it. As someone new to coding, it’s challenging to come up with these solutions on my own, but seeing your post and knowing that others are also struggling makes me feel more confident that I’ll improve over time.
Okay, now forget that you saw a working solution, and reset the exercise. Do it from scratch using what you’ve learned, but on your own steam. Then you’ll know you have learned something.
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