Self-Made Coding Pro. How to Turn “I Will Learn How to Code Online” Idea Into Success?

These days almost no one is arguing with the fact that you can totally learn programming from scratch online and get a coding job. And even with the fact that learning online is one of the most effective methods to become a professional coder. Most people agree that the Internet offers more than enough information making it possible literally for anyone to learn to code. Yet, the reality is, not so many actually manage to do this. Why? There is nothing wrong with online courses and other ways meant to teach them. It’s just that studying online implies you are doing this on your own. The sad truth is: not everyone can be a self-learner. It seems like not a big deal at first, but everyone who has tried to master a skill or a craft solo knows there will be obstacles on the way, often insurmountable for the majority of self-learners. They are the real reason you may fail. Let’s take a quick look at the main problems a solo learner of programming (or other skill) would normally face.

Self-learning obstacles

• Not clear where to start.

The main problem with learning something from scratch, especially if you are just entering a totally new field, is the absence of a clear understanding of where you should be starting. This is particularly true for programming if your intent is to learn how to code without any knowledge or experience whatsoever.

• Hard to come up with a study plan.

Consequently, if you don’t understand where to start, you will have a hard time coming up with a proper study plan, especially if you are going to combine several different tools and sources of information in your learning process. Combining different tools (for example, an online course with YouTube lectures and a couple of textbooks) is definitely a good way to achieve success, but it could easily end up being a waste of time if you will focus on the wrong things, or learn them in the wrong order. Which is what typically happens to the majority of beginners.

• Difficult to get practical experience.

As we here at CodeGym said many times before (and will never get tired of saying this) in any learning process, practice is the key. In order to learn, you need to practice, but finding the right way to practice normally requires having some experience and practical knowledge already. A real Catch 22 for many solo learners, which sometimes is quite hard to overcome.

• Impossible to balance the learning process in the right way.

Of course, giving yourself just the right amount of workload, enough to progress and improve on a regular basis, but not more than you can realistically process, is also a task, which you will almost inevitably fail, at least at first. Nothing to be afraid of, as only the one who does nothing makes no mistakes. Just remember that you are paying for these mistakes with your time, energy, and motivation (to keep going).

• Nowhere to get help.

Obviously, solo learning implies you have no one to ask for help, advice, or support when studying. This may be a big problem if you are stuck somewhere, or not progressing as fast as you expected to.

• Failing to mix theory with practice in a balanced way.

Theory/practice balance is one of the most important keys to success in self-learning, and getting it right from the first shot is really difficult, almost impossible really. The balance would normally come with time and effort, but not everyone will last enough to get there.

How CodeGym overcomes the self-learning obstacles?

If only there would be a way to get around all these major disadvantages of online learning, eh? Well, let us tell you a little secret: we, at CodeGym, found a way to overcome each of these obstacles when teaching Java online to CodeGym students. We examined each of these problems and designed the whole course, from the very beginning to the final level, in a way to minimize the weaknesses of online learning and maximize its benefits.

• Carefully crafted course structure perfect for newbies.

The course structure was designed having people with absolutely no coding experience or knowledge in mind. This means that the course and all the starting tasks were structured in the best way possible to create a valuable theory foundation for fresh Java learners, without overloading them with too much lecturing.

• Lots of practical tasks throughout the whole course.

We really can’t stress this enough: learning how to code professionally (or semi-professionally) is primarily about practice. Luckily for our users, we have lots of it to offer. Literally hundreds of tasks (more than 1200 of those to be precise) of varying difficulty, with the complexity of tasks increasing gradually with each level.

• The course is divided into levels with perfect balance.

Structuring information that you learn into logical chapters is another important issue that may get in the way of a solo learner. We thought about it as well, and divided the course into levels, with each level representing a separate piece of theoretical knowledge about Java, which is structured in the most logical and convenient way possible.

• You can always ask for help — CodeGym has a super friendly Help section.

In our case, even being a self-learner, you won’t be left on your own, especially in a time of trouble. At CodeGym, we have a designated Help section where you can ask for help and get it, in the friendliest way possible. In our Help section, you can get a tip or advice from CodeGym’s own Java experts. Or from one of our current and former students, who are also helping each other all the time, sharing knowledge and supporting one another.

• You can easily find Java learning mates and socialize in our Forum and Chat sections.

Forum and Chat are there to completely terminate and destroy the feeling of going through this on your own if you still have some of it left. There you can easily find students who have around the same level of knowledge as you are, to be friends and study buddies. Just being part of a community is in fact a pretty strong motivational factor for many of our students, with the community supporting and encouraging them to keep going all the way till the end. With the end being the final level of our course or finding a full-time Java Junior job, which will be the start of your career in coding.

Conclusion

As you can see, all the major weaknesses of self-learning online can be minimized or even turned into strengths. All you need is to be aware of what kind of obstacles to expect and know the way to deal with them. Well, CodeGym does it for you, and this is one of the main reasons why our course is so effective (check some success stories if you’re not convinced yet). Even if you’ll end up choosing another way of learning how to code, hopefully, this information will be useful, helping you to understand how to get maximum out of learning anything online, for free or at a small cost.