How can I know if I’m actually making progress in my coding journey?

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Hi everyone, long time no see :eyes:

I recently started asking myself the question in the title: how can I know if I’m actually making progress in my coding journey?
I’m the kind of person who starts a course, then sees a new, interesting one and leaves everything to start that course.

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(hehe)

I know that’s not good though. I should finish one course before jumping to the next one. I think that’s one way of actually making progress with your coding journey.

But, progress. Progress means you are closer to some specific goal. Does that mean I have to know exactly what I want to learn about, and stick to that instead of exploring every course there is to find what interests me? I think it should be a balance between both…what would you recommend?

Also I think you should track your coding progress in bigger spans of time. Because, you might spend one whole day trying to grasp your head around a single concept, and then feel like you should have done more. But believe me, spending time getting your basic concepts right will always be worth it. You can’t construct new coding knowledge on top of crumbling, weak knowledge.

And I think that testing your knowledge every now and then is really good. If you can’t use the knowledge you acquired in a real project…then what are you learning for? Exercise your skills every day, and every now and then (maybe every month?), challenge yourself with a project of your interest. It will show you your weak spots, but it also encourage you. I mean, isn’t in amazing to feel like you built something cool, that actually works, with the knowledge you acquired?
If it doesn’t work though, take a deep breath, a break, and keep learning. Research the topics you don’t quite understand yet. If you keep on going and don’t give up, you will eventually get there.
Failing is also making progress.

In a summary, I would say these things are essential to making good progress on your coding journey:

  • Have a goal
  • Work consistently towards it
  • Don’t rush it
  • Do what you couldn’t do before
  • Learn from failures
  • Love what you do, and do what you love.

Please feel free to add to these. And I would love to know how you work: work consistently in one course until you finish it, or explore all your available options until you find what you like? (Please tell me I’m not the only one who does the second one :sweat_smile:). And how can you find a healthy balance between both?

Hope you have an amazing day :yum:

(have you seen my profile picture closely? isn’t that THE CUTEST AND MOST PHOTOGENIC CHEETAH OF ALL TIME?!? alright goodbye.)

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I agree with some of the things you said. What are your goals? Why are you learning to code?

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This is actually gonna be really contradictory to what I just said…

I don’t have coding goals.

I started coding because of my Dad. He told me that coding is like the new reading. If you don’t know how to read…well, your possibilities get reduced a lot.
I’ve spent the past month working on one coding project that, to be honest, I don’t really like. But it’s a really important project I just have to do. It’s eating up my time for the things I like to do, cause if I don’t focus on it completely I’m just not gonna make it.
What I’m trying to say is that right now I’m a bit sick of coding.
I do like coding, don’t get me wrong. That feeling of looking at something you made like “Wow…I made this.” Does that count as a goal? Just to create cool stuff? And is it wrong if I don’t have a coding goal?

Someone I love said that it’s ok not to have a dream. He said to live your life your own way.

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This is me. :rofl:

I find some of these courses go too in depth with the theory and i like working quite practically- doing quizzes, problem solving, answering questions- building. Thats what keeps me engaged when it actually boils down to the learning. i started around 10 months ago and look back at where i was and where i am now- suddenly it doesn’t seem like an impossible feat for me to chase a career in tech. what helped me is focusing on one language at a time- javascript for me… then react. (assuming you’ve breezed through html and css). javascript is where i was really letting myself down… im so used to picking u most things without much thought but learning js has taught me to be a patient person :sweat_smile:

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I agree, you should do review also, it can really help.

How to get to the review page

When you are on the course page (where you would be to start the course or check your progress), click on one of the chapters of the course. There should be a button that says “Practice Pack”, click on it, and review the flashcards and take the quiz at the end!

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CONSISTENCY matters guys, no matter what keep revising that you learned a week ago or a month ago best to do this is by working on projects.

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I agree with this, consistency does matter, but I also find out that editing prior projects with my newfound knowledge can also help me remember.

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