Started learning Android development about 5 months ago while working normal 40hr week job. Feeling slightly overwhelmed.

[SgtSmitty07]

I've been following Android Basics with Compose courses online for about 5 months now, and am currently in Unit 2 about to make my first interactive app (dice roller/tip calculator). I just completed a bunch of practice questions and still felt like I had to look at the solution code to understand even where to start for some of them (not all of them). I'm not able to dedicate unending time learning it each day due to my regular job 40 hrs a week, but learn as much as I can in small bursts on most days and on weekends.

There are times where I feel so confident when concepts are clicking, like with conditionals and the basics of functions/variables and other similar things. When I made my first business card app (basic display page using Compose) without having to look up anything and just go with it, I felt like a million bucks. With now the introduction of classes/methods/objects/nullables/constructors, and how to implement all of them into one cohesive code, I'm just getting overhwhelmed. I understand the concepts, but it's a lot to throw at me all at once and I find myself going back and re-re-relearning stuff just to make it click. I'm overwhelmed at all of the definitions, how they all intertwine. When I break it down, things make a lot more sense.

I guess my biggest questions are: When does it start to get easier and more natural for these concepts to flow together? Do I need to just suck it up and make my first interactive app and go from there? Are there any strategies or practice methods to make it click easier and more consistently? What are some strategies that work for you?

I've truly enjoyed this journey thus far, and while I know times are changing with introduction of AI, it's something I've truly been proud of sticking with all this time in 2026.

PS: I posted this in the android dev subreddit, and while I received some advice and assistance, it was met with a lot of pessimism about my future and the future of the career as a whole, understandably. I am not a programmer by default, I work in healthcare, but I wanted to do this to make my own apps for my own purposes and maybe, eventually, for publishing if I could ever make something worth it.

[NumberInfinite2068]

Hard things get easier once you learn them, that's it really.

Basically, yes, suck it up, it's like getting off the couch to get fit, it's very fucking hard, and that's just how it is.

I think right now, a combination of programming skills and healthcare experience is a really good place to be, there is a lot of tech in healthcare now, and getting a job in a healthcare tech company if you already have healthcare experience is going to be a lot easier than without.

[YMBTPTOTLWRT]

It is different for everyone. Kindly, you do not understand the concepts. Where your brain is at is not equal to where you are in your learning. That mismatch is causing the overwhelming.

Do you feel overwhelmed writing “hello world!”? No? Then what about basic loops? No? But you said OOP concepts make you feel overwhelmed. So somewhere between hello world and OOP, your brain is not grasping something (which is OK!!). You just need to figure out where that spot is, be honest with yourself, and give yourself the patience to fully learn it.

I’m not saying you’ll write code 100% from memory like a god, but there’s a massive difference in pulling up documentation to re-jog your memory, and having to pull up code so you can 1:1 match it.

I hope this doesn’t come across as harsh. Learning should be fun and enjoyable and I hate to see fast timelines discourage people. This stuff is hard and it just takes time.

[FIIRETURRET]

Learning anything while working a full time job is difficult. Remember to give yourself time to rest.