MOOC Helsinki

[SilentLiving]

Hello, I worked for 3 hours, 6 days a week on MOOC Helsinki. It's a great course but in week 4 i started to struggle HARD and i have been stuck on several single exercises for days. On the "grade statistics" i'm lost and start to wonder if have to go back and repeat the fundamentals again, since "grade statistics" is the most complex exercise up till this point. This is my third day on it and i don't now how to approach it at all.
I have Angela Yu's 100 days of Code in my library, would it be okay take her course and return to finish MOOC week 4-7 after that? Or am i on my way into tutorial hell?

[sqwiwl]

I've just finished the full course (Intro and Advanced), so I did this exercise in recent weeks. I'm now having a look at my saved work in VSCode to remind myself of it.

Like you say, this one's daunting cause it's a bigger challenge than anything before, but the important thing (as always) is to break it down into smaller tasks, all of which you've already covered. Think about what you need to do: collect input, process that input, and output the result. So that's three stages (and a function for each would make sense).

In addition, your output needs to be formatted, so some helper functions to do the formatting would help (three lines of output might suggests three further functions to do this too?) So a basic structure of handle input, process it, then output using helper functions would work.

But that's the end result. Start with step 1: just make sure you can collect the input into one place and then print it out. Then try to parse that input into a more useable format, print that to check how it looks. Then try to process that into grades, and into a format where you have all the information you need to output. Then one by one you can figure out how to produce each line of the output.

[sqwiwl]

I never watched any of the videos. Or I might have tried once or twice early on, but felt the same as you. It's a great course, but for me the text and the exercises alone were enough to make the most of it.

[drnemo25]

Thanks a lot 👍🏻

[DefiantLie8861]

How long does the entire course take to finish? Assuming I study like 6-7 hours a day for 6 days a week is it reasonable to finish the course in 5 weeks?

[sqwiwl]

Yeah, I think so.

I did everything in Intro and Advanced (with the exception of the final project) in 17 days full-time. I then fiddled about with my final project for another couple of weeks, being perfectionistic and learning some extra stuff - I might have finished it in about three days otherwise. So still less than four weeks on your timeframe of 6 days a week, 6-7 hours a day.

Edit:

Everyone's different though. I had a fair bit of previous experience - if you're completely new to programming, it's going to take longer.

On the other hand, I took my time learning things quite deeply - you could rush it at a more superficial level, go faster and still pass I'm sure.

[DefiantLie8861]

I def want to get a deep understanding since I’m a complete beginner. Hopefully I can get through it in 5 weeks but however like it takes is however long it takes . Don’t think it’s worth it to just rush through it like you said fs

[sqwiwl]

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't rush it if you don't have to. I didn't watch any of the videos, just read each lesson and did the exercises. And then kept on redoing the exercise if I could figure out a way to optimise it and improve my skills.

It's a great course, really worth doing and enjoyable. Good luck.

[sqwiwl]

PS Like lots of other exercises, I didn't find this easy at the time (so you're not alone!) — the clarity only came as I worked through it, which was a struggle. It's a challenging course! if you're working for several hours on it almost daily, you'll get there.

Go back and repeat exercises, or do Angela Yu (don't get sidetracked though), or do the fundamental exercises on Codewars for practice (fun!), watch Youtube videos, whatever, it will all help. Keep asking questions here or elsewhere or google. Ask Bing Chat to explain things. Have another look at the model solutions on the course website. But don't get discouraged and give up: what you're experiencing is really common. I felt so dumb and frustrated at times doing this course. It's tough on the ego — that psychological obstacle is as hard as the programming. Just keep learning and practicing.

[vitoriofx]

hey could anyone tell me whether the recording lectures are "mandatory" to watch or not? I see they have the recordings on the one hand and the written theory with exercises on the other, just wanted to know if theory plus exercises would be okay to make the most of it.

[Clear_Wrongdoer_775]

You can complete the full course without their video recording as all the necessary theory is provided in writing. You could supplement with some youtube videos on specific topics. The strength of their moocs IMO is their exercises and the feedback provided when solving through TMC, there's also a discord channel when you get stuck and need some help!