How do CodeGym Students Organize Their Studies? Results of Our Survey and Advice on How to Simplify The Learning Process

The most ​​challenging thing in self-paced training is to productively organize the process — to plan training and practice several times a week because no one is pushing you. Since our course is aimed specifically at individual training, we decided to find out how our students cope with the organizing of training, so recently, we have conducted a brief survey. Below, you’ll find the survey results and advice on how to eliminate problems with the organization.

Who Participated In This Survey?

Aiming to help our “fresh” students avoid issues concerning the organization of the training, we have conducted a brief survey among some of our “old-school” students. So, if you’re wondering what like-minded people “look like” and what problems they face during the learning process, let’s shed light on that. Below, you’ll find answers from CodeGym’s users who kindly agreed to devote their time to our survey.

Geography

As you may see, half of CodeGym’s users who took part in our survey are from European counties, whereas students from India are the minority.

Age

It’s never too late to learn Java. And our addicted students prove this. Not surprisingly, the majority of our users are 21 to 50 years old, with 15-20-year fellows slightly trailing behind. What is great, we can see that people aged 50 and more are also interested in our course and Java in general.

The Background

And here comes the biggest surprise! Though our course is intended for everyone (including students with ZERO tech background), it proves itself as a great “helper” for people who have a complete/non-complete academic degree in the tech/CS field, as well as for those individuals who have already finished high school. More precisely, half of our students that participated in our survey already have a degree in the tech field, 21.4% of them have graduated from high school, and 14.3% can boast of an academic degree in computer science. With that, 7.1% are still learning at college and the same 7.1% have a non-tech degree (most likely, these are the career switchers).

Goals

What goals our students typically pursue is one of the “hottest” questions of this survey. The vast majority of responders said they are studying on CodeGym to get a job in IT and become professional developers. With that, almost 30% answered that they needed Java to boost their skillset and, thus, progress in their tech career. A bit more than 35% responded that they are just passionate about Java and learning it as a hobby. To find out additional information and graphs, you may be also interested in our article Who and Why Is Learning Java Online. A Typical CodeGym Student Profile.

What Do They Say About Organization of Training?

It’s really important to choose consistency over speed and don’t overwhelm yourself with new information, even if you have plenty of free time. Ideally, you should spend 1-4 hours per learning daily. And most of our students follow this recommendation and stick to this timeframe. More than 70% of our learners devote an adequate amount of time to learning on a regular basis, whereas about 20% study chaotically.

What May Happen If You Underload or Overload Yourself?

To start with “underloading”, in the best scenario, you will simply scratch your learning for too long and may end the course after a couple of years instead of the potential 12-18 months for beginners and 6-9 months for users with some experience behind the belt. In the worst scenario, you may give up the learning process because the studying gaps will result in poor knowledge and losing faith in your skills. On the other hand, if you overwhelm yourself with new information, you may quickly get exhausted and, again, quit. That’s why it’s vitally important to keep the balance and load yourself adequately. Ultimately, any student risks becoming a lifelong Java learner with no defined timeframe, so what can help you at this step is a thought-out plan. And luckily, most of our users answered that they have a study plan (more than 85%).

How to Create an Effective Plan

It’s really important to build an efficient roadmap tailored to your specific requirements. That’s why we suggest that you created the study plan based on your needs. It would be wise to break down your main goal into small steps and draw up a daily/weekly/monthly schedule depending on them. It’s a notable fact that CodeGym offers a concise plan that you can follow according to your needs: Still, many students report that they have a hunger for more and typically add some additional recourses to enhance their knowledge and boost the learning process. So, if you’d like to join the majority, you may be interested in our review of the best additional recourses the CodeGym has collected for our students.

How Breaks May Influence the Learning Process and What Can be Done about Them

According to our research, students take breaks from time to time (actually, about 50% of all the CodeGym’s users who completed the survey). For someone, it may be just a couple of days, whereas for others the “hiatus” may stretch up to 6-7 months. Needless to say, taking breaks (especially that long) may lead to quitting or, at least, dragging yourself back. Lots of our users have learned a lesson that ”regular studying with no breaks” is the key to success. So, below, we’re going to explain how to resume learning without losing already-acquainted knowledge and motivation. Here are the main things that may help you out if you happen to experience hiatus:

• Analyzing and eliminating the reason for your “stop”.
• Reviewing goals and, hence, modifying a plan and schedule.
• Creating a comfortable environment for learning.
• Maintaining the optimal life/study balance.
• Limiting distractions.

Also, it should be noted that once our students got back to learning after a break, most of them decided to refer to external helpers like Trello and Notion. Trello may help you organize your Java learning strategy, whereas Notion can provide you with notes, calendars, reminders, and some other perks like kanban boards. Likewise, Codegym offers its proprietary assistant called Kick Manager. It’s an effective self-learning enforcement feature that allows students to set up their own learning schedule and get reminders according to it.

Extra Helpers

Speaking about the other extra tools that may help you stay “on the path” we can subdivide them into:

• Distraction blockers. You may benefit from using StayFocusd extension and Anti-Social app.

• Pomodoro technique tools. If you’d like to follow a tried-and-true time management method created by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s (read more here), you can download Pomodairo or Tomighty.

• Habit tracking apps. There are tons of different habit-tracking apps out there, but what we can recommend to our students are Momentum (a Chrome extension offering to-do list sidebars, helpful links, and inspirational quotes, etc) and Habit List (a well-known app with numerous tools for habit creation).

• Study apps. Need an extra helper to push yourself forward? Then, you may benefit from special services helping you to organize the studying process. We like My Study Life for its user-friendly design and help in organizing classes, tasks, exams, and assignments. Evernote needs no presentation. It’s an old-school tool that still boasts lots of functional tools for its “modern” users. A note or memo in any format? Not a problem.

Bonus Info: the Time Needed for Completing the CodeGym Course

As you may have already guessed, the average time a person needs to complete our course varies significantly. Basically, the students who have a solid tech background need from 3 to 6 months to complete the course; the learners who had a slight prior experience in programming complete the course within 9-12 months; and people with no coding skills at all require 1-2 years or more. To get more information, you are welcome to read the results of our other survey, How Long Does It Take to Learn Java? New Study by CodeGym.

Conclusion

We are all different ― we study at our own pace and need different “extra boosters.” Yet, there are lots in common between us Java learners. It’s the formula of success that consists of the following ingredients: “hunger for knowledge,” “well-structured plan,” “end goal in mind,” “consistency,” and “motivation.” So, embrace the learning process but don’t be too hard on yourself, and remember that “The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.”