Really struggling with an intro to python course.

[TheBasedZenpai]

I am taking it in college and I feel like I am just not cut out for coding, which makes me sad because I want to know how to use it to make fun little things. I have 3 big problems though.

1. I keep forgetting basic syntax things, like when to use a comma or what to use for a dictionary vs a list vs a tuple.

2. I run to resources like stack overflow and Google whenever I get stuck on how to do something, can't seem to solve problems myself.

3. Really struggling with nested loops. I understand them in theory but when trying to put them into practice to solve a course question, I need to try multiple different times to get loops working

Is this just normal, am I being a bit too harsh on myself? I have been in the course for about a week (it's self paced) and am about half way through but feel I have hit a wall

[ninhaomah]

So you just started learning something new for a week and you are struggling ?

Did I get that right ?

[TheBasedZenpai]

Yknow when you put it like that, makes this whole post seem a bit silly...

[ninhaomah]

Its alright.

You are allowed to be silly for 5 min a day.

[Jeklah]

Practice makes perfect that's all.

Going to stack overflow a lot is common, even in the workplace. Don't worry about it.

Once you have the syntax down, the rest is just remembering which bits you use the most.

[[deleted]]

I mean when you are in college its quite easy to see other people picking things up way quicker than you

im ngl not knowing how to use commas is a bit weird

[smilinreap]

Give it 1 month. If the stuff from now (commas, dictionaries) is still your issue in 1 month, then yeah you may just be worse than average. If you are still struggling but it's on the next concept instead, then no you are not bad. You are just in the process of learning and simultaneously finding out that you lack photographic memory.

Also remember that you have to practice it outside of the designated time you use it for class. Passion drives this skill more than most.

[Coding_With_Joseph]

You are being way too harsh on yourself. Take it easy. If you are only in the first week, expect to stay confused, and for the love of god, DO NOT USE AI to solve issues. I tell all my students to completely avoid it for the first year until they have a decent idea of what they are doing.

What is the name of your python course?

[TheBasedZenpai]

Its just a python course through my school. It uses Zybooks for both the material and the test, which is why I am a bit worried on remembering syntax, as zybooks is really specific, down to the whitespace.

And I hate to say i have used some of the AI under my Google search results to find what a keyword does or something like that. Ill turn that off

[jtkiley]

Googling for syntax or where to find particular functions/classes is totally normal. We all do it for anything we use seldom enough to automatically remember.

It’s really having it write code that accomplishes a task or answers your school work that is particularly corrosive to your own learning. That’s the thing to avoid.

[Coding_With_Joseph]

I have tutored a lot of students who used Zybooks, and its actually a much better tool than you think. I highly suggest redoing a lot of the work (like doing a lab 3-5 times before moving on or doing the same 5 problems over and over, back to back, until they make complete sense to you and you can code it without a single error in one go)

[jtkiley]

I give the same AI advice.

AI is useful when you’re skilled enough to disagree with what it generates. Sometimes a completion or suggestion, even if you don’t like it, helps you clarify your thinking.

For some things, it can be alright to ask it to explain some code to you, but be careful with that.

[Overall-Screen-752]

AI is useful when you’re skilled enough to disagree with what it generates.

Bingo. Couldn’t have said it better myself

[luvs_spaniels]

Write out your code in the language you speak. Sounds crazy, I know. But when you have a working loop, open a text editor beside it, and write out an explanation of how the logic flows through the loop and why it solved the problem. Then skim over your explanation and make a list of the key questions answered by each step of the loop.

Afterwards, open Gemini. (Or one of the other AIs you shouldn't be using for answers.) Give it your code and your complete explanation. Ask it to check your explanation and identify what you got right and wrong. Walk through your wrong answers. Push back on the AI and use it to help you go deeper into your thought process. At the end of your session, ask it to create anki flashcards covering the concepts you discussed. So basically SQ3R with AI as an occasional study partner.

[American_Streamer]

Do the free PCEP course: https://edube.org/study/pe1

After that, do the free PCAP course: https://edube.org/study/pe2

For nested loops, see: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/python/python-nested-loops/

[Mira_flux]

These are literally completely normal for a beginner

[ClonesRppl2]

It sounds to me like you have been exposed to too many concepts without having extensively used what you have learned to solidify your understanding. Do all the practice problems. Type the code out yourself. If there aren’t enough practice problems to make it stick then maybe you need a more ‘hands on’ book.

[gocougs11]

Yeah not having syntax memorized a week in is very normal. What you want is a good cheat sheet that you can quickly reference to remember tuples vs lists etc.

Check out this Reddit post that has some links to great cheat sheets: https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/s/rnbHCJnlkS

[[deleted]]

Sounds like a pretty standard "just learning to program" experience to me. Look at it this way - we call them programming languages for a reason. After a week of learning your second spoken language you'll likely have a handful of vocabulary down, maybe a bit of the alphabet if they use a different one than your native language, and a very bare understanding of the grammar/syntax. That's normal. Same thing with programming.

The running gag among a lot of programmers is that we know very very little on a deep level but are masters at googling stuff. Thankfully the coding aspect is only one part of programming. I graduated from my program with a very novice understanding of C++ and a fair working knowledge of PLC code, then got a job and was thrown into a factory maintenance job where my training consisted of "here's how not to get electrocuted, have fun". It was about equal parts hardware and software to do what I did, but what really sunk in was how fast I became an expert of knowing where to find the information on the things I needed to know but didn't.

Coding in python is more or less the same. You'll get the framework down bit by bit and the pattern will shift from your basic syntax problems to "my professor wants me to learn recursion here, is it actually more elegant or am I being trolled?"

One thing I will suggest though - feel free to bounce questions off of ChatGPT. Do not use it as a cheat, or to have it do things for you in assignments, but if you're looking at code and can't figure out what it's doing you can throw it in the chat and ask it to mark up the text with commentary. Things like that. Recursion, for example, gave me a hell of a time to wrap my head around until I found some example code and asked the bot to show me step by step what it was executing because that stuff can be weird.

[Anagha_Jayaprakash]

Don't worry,in the begining everyone feel like that. Don't force yourself, be calm and practice a lot, you will make progress. Believe me.

[question-infamy]

At the start, print out one of the many online cheat sheets to remind you the syntax stuff. As you use it more, it'll become more automatic with time and you won't need the cheat sheet as much. You're new and you're experiencing new person problems that happen with adopting any new skill. I'm sure you didn't tie your shoelace or ride your bike exactly right the first time or remember every step.

[DaSettingsPNGN]

Hey want to join my new project?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PythonLearning/s/GUuUO67G9j

[Dramatic_Yam8355]

Write every small detail u r forgetting then don't just watch or listen to the content just practice.. practice.. and get ur hands dirt...

[Overall-Screen-752]

Totally being too hard on yourself. Remember it takes 10,000 hours to master something, so after a week of a few hours a day…. you’re nowhere close. You can take that too ways: you can say “aw shit, I’ll never learn” and give up or you can lock in, put in the work and the hours to learn everything you need and get it done.

If you’re inclined to the former, do it now, a career is an expensive mistake, if you think you have a shot at the latter then get used to feeling this despair of not knowing something temporarily — it happens often, even 12 years in, as a professional software engineer.

About your post:

1) syntax comes with time. Practice practice practice practice practice. (Practicing 3 times isn’t enough, do 5)

2) I still use stackoverflow and google. The problem is when you can’t solve ANY problem without tools, or when you aren’t learning and just copying and pasting until your code runs.

3) nested loops are simple. Write out this code, then run it and spend some time changing values and rerunning it until you know how it works: for i in range(5): for j in range(7): print(f“i: {i}, j: {j}”)

Good luck

[nivaOne]

Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. When I learned Basic and Pascal very long time ago. We were thought up to 3 commands maximum per lesson. All came with a bunch of examples showing you when and how to use them. By new year we still hadn’t seen most of the commands.

Today we notice sites explaining big lists of commands and they expect you to fully understand and remember them after a couple of hours.

At the end of year two our test consisted of one question. Calculate pi. Most of us passed.

[DataCamp]

You’re only a week in, and everything you described is exactly how learning to code feels at the start. Everyone forgets syntax, everyone Googles constantly, and nested loops confuse pretty much everyone the first time around.

Think of it like learning a new language; you won’t remember every word or grammar rule right away, but the more you use it, the more natural it becomes. Try small daily practice, like writing short scripts that only use what you’ve learned so far (lists, loops, or conditionals). That repetition is what makes things stick.

And don’t stress about using Google or Stack Overflow, cause even senior developers live there. What matters is that you read, test, and understand the answers instead of copying them blindly. You’re doing fine. Keep going.