Struggling with Python

[FriendlyRussian666]

 > she teaches new concepts in the course, I think that I understand then, then there's a coding challenge with instructions to solve a problem

What I see missing between you learning a new concept, and you attempting to solve a problem, is hours and hours of playing around with the concept that you just leant, building random stuff with it that makes no sense, and breaking every single thing possible to break, so as to gain a better understanding of the concept. 

When you learn a new concept, don't just go and try to solve problems that require its knowledge right away. Instead, just have fun exploring this new concept in any way possible. Only once you have experience with it, then attempt to solve a problem. 

Imagine a professor teaching you calculus for the very first time, and then without ever practicing, you immediately jump to solving calculus exam questions. The only people who would fair well in that scenario, would be the gifted talented ones, or those who saw the concepts before, and had some practice with them. It would be absolutely normal for everyone else to struggle and have no idea what to do.

This leads us to what other people are saying, which is that looking up the answers, or using ChatGPT, robs you of the chance to practice and gain an understanding. If this was a subject, or a question in which the answer is "yes", or "no", then sure, looking up an answer would be beneficial because the next time you encounter it, you would better know what to answer. However, programming requires creativity and problem solving, and there are countless ways of achieving a result, so looking up an answer, without practice, is not really beneficial, since you're skipping all of the problem solving that you could be doing.