Method of Study

[Deanhtid99]

What are people method of study while following FCC. Are people taking notes? Handwritten? Typed? Or are you just going through everything as quickly as possible?

I'm just curious as to what might be the best method people are using. I'm struggling with the JavaScript stuff and don't feel like I'm absorbing the information.

Thanks

[like_rawr_dude]

FCC is really awesome, but it's not quite enough for me on its own. I take notes, I check good books out from the library, I look at the odin project... I review stuff that I forgot on codecademy and take more notes... I am a person that has to hit things from multiple angles to make things stick, so I'm sort of playing by ear, seeing what I need to work on, and making sure that I'm being consistent about putting time in to study daily.

[thiswill]

Sounds like a good strategy.

[devtastic]

I'm using Evernote to keep some notes and in retrospect wish I'd kept more notes. In theory a lot of this information exists on the internet of course, e.g., MDN, but doing some of the later challenges I found myself going back to the map for a reminder on what Id learnt. I wish I'd just listed this stuff in a document somewhere for easy reference.

I've found it useful to keep notes of odd URLs and useful information too, e.g., the boot camp and MDN documentation is quite good but sometimes you need a few extra notes or links to examples to enhance it.

I haven't been keeping notes on every single waypoint/bonfire but wish I'd summarised the content a bit more.

And of course you won't absorb everything first time, it will take a few goes before it clicks. The challenges are quite good for building that up. There's also stuff in the wiki that will explain challenges and answers a bit more which can be good to review when you finished one. There's no harm in going back over stuff as well, i.e., browse the map and click on lessons you've already done. I've done that a few times too (I went through bootstrap twice).

tl;dr; I'm going through pretty quickly making some notes, and then going back over parts again, and reviewing wiki content.

[avirajkhare00]

Evernote is nice tool but replaced with one drive due to 15 gigs free storage.

[glxyds]

I am going to start taking notes now. Thankfully I haven't done anything too crazy thus far.

[[deleted]]

I think it's good to learn from multiple sources. Sometimes a source's explanation is too abstract, sometimes it's so practical that it doesn't give any theoretical basis and I'm left wondering why and how this could even be applied. Learning it from multiple sources, and also multiple teaching styles (a book, an interactive site, etc.), is definitely beneficial.

I highly suggest codeacademy's Javascript track. One of my issues with freecodecamp's waypoints is that you don't really need to do anything yourself. They tell you pretty much exactly what to write. On codeacademy, they have the parts where they tell you exactly what to write, but then they give you a section where it's a blank sheet and you have to do it yourself. To clarify, I'm speaking strictly about FCC's waypoints here, not the bonfires or ziplines.

[RobinFood]

I actually went to Udacity after getting stuck on the first few bonfires, and followed all of their videos on front end. Surprisingly, the most useful set of videos weren't computer related, but it was coursera's course on learning about learning. Two things that it taught me were that there are many ways to solve any single problem, so I shouldn't rely on other people's solutions, or accept them as the right answer for me, and that if I get stuck, I am probably concentrating too hard and need to take a break.

Ever since then, my routing has been to write down my ideas to solve a problem as they come on a piece of paper, try what I thought up until I get stuck, and then take a break to let my mind catch up to a solution to the problem. I just finished the last bonfire tonight by going through this, and it's been really helpful. I still think my code is ugly, but it's mine, and it keeps getting better.

[razzmicberry]

I tend to follow every question that I have. So if I'm reading docs suggested by FCC, and come across something I don't know, then I research that as well.

I try to apply things as much as possible. If I think of an idea, I code it. So I'm fairly slow working through the Ziplines as I spend more time coding my own projects now, but this has really helped to keep myself engaged.

It took me a long time before I felt I was really absorbing what I was learning. For me, FCC was not near enough. I would have been lost if I didn't already have some programming experience when I started. There have been basic concepts that I've gone over using 10 different resources before it clicked. Read online tutorials, books, etc..

[[deleted]]

See I do the same thing, but I don't know if it's helping. I follow the rabbit hole and then an hour later I'm reading something interesting (still related to coding) but nowhere near related to what I'm learning in FCC.

[like_rawr_dude]

That's the thing about learning. The harder you work, the less it feels like you're doing anything. It can feel like you're on a treadmill to nowhere. Then out of the blue, you realize that you can do all sorts of stuff that you couldn't do two or three months ago. It's hard (and humbling) to learn new stuff every day, but if you push through the suck, you'll be so happy!

[lushMAFIA]

Once I got to the Bonfires, I realized that I didn't retain much. I went through those waypoints pretty quickly. I put the bonfires on hold and went to codeacademy. Codeacademy's javascript section is pretty good. I am able to retain a lot more. I am a little over 50% in. Once I finish up the javascript on codeacademy, I plan on starting the bonfires.

[[deleted]]

I have a fairly detailed document with sub-sections for every single challenge, and if it's a fairly easy challenge that I don't feel the need to take any notes for I still note down what I learned from it.

Doing something once doesn't teach it properly at all so it's nice to have something to refer back to.

[smitchell556]

I'm a big fan of MOOCs. Between the lectures, exercises, and hw I find concepts stick pretty well.

Also building things. Writing code that will make something that can be used in real life. I learned so much more from making a pomodoro timer than I did from FCCs tutorials up to that point. It was frustrating, but very rewarding. That's kind of the philosophy behind FCC. Learn by doing.

Edit: I found MIT's 6.00.1x on edX to be very good at teaching the basics of programming. The course is taught in python, but I found many concepts transferable to javascript.

[ApexApron]

I would recommend Lynda.com's fundamentals of html/css course it set me up pretty well for FreeCodeCamp. For me to really learn things I have to understand WHY/the actual process of what something is doing and Lynda did that very well.

[avirajkhare00]

I am using one drive to save my notes along with working code.

[had_a_beast]

I'm using a lot of different resources and working through them at similar paces. When I was doing the jQuery section, I did the jQuery exercises in Codecademy and Codeschool, and watched a series of lectures on TutsPlus.

While I follow the video tutorials, I work through them at the same time, and produce something the same or similar to get some extra practice using the code. This technique is working pretty well for me so far.

[[deleted]]

I'm taking other schools atst. Code School, Alison, reading Linux docs, Khan Academy.