


My next challenge was to face the great unknown: the job market for bootcamp graduates. I had completed my assigned tasks on the group chess application and felt very proud of the results. I was finally on the path to becoming a developer! Fast forward 15 weeks and I actually was a developer. Getting my development environment set up, starting the initial lessons, and becoming part of the Firehose Community all produced a sense of relief and joy. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.Going from feeling not smart enough to be a programmer to being a programming bootcamp student was a big change. Learn from experts and access insider knowledge. This question originally appeared on Quora. So in order to do it, you need to turn that initial boost of motivation into long-lasting discipline.īut now that you know what it takes, you’ve got this. Technology is evolving quickly, so you need to set up the framework of teaching yourself new concepts on the go. This will also serve you well in the technical interview process.
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Learning things like algorithms, data structures, and how to perform computational transformations is essential to enabling yourself to level up as a programmer. Gain a solid foundation in the fundamentals before moving onto the next thing.The best developers volunteer for work that makes them nervous. Practice things that are outside your comfort zone.This is the only way to make consistent progress. In your path of learning to program, you need need to develop the discipline to: Discipline is the mental fortitude of putting in the work that will help the most in the long term, even if there are things that you would prefer to do in the short term. But it takes discipline to stick to your path and achieve your goals. So, how do you feel motivated enough to not give up? But you’re unable to maintain that motivation and do things the right way, and it becomes really easy to just give up. You’re motivated enough to reach a certain point in the learning process. Whether playing the guitar, trying a new sport, learning to code, or really attempting to do anything new. Most people have probably had a similar experience. He went on to play concerts to live audiences. Guitar remained a big part of James’ life. When it came to pushing myself to learn the stuff that would unlock my potential, I lacked the discipline I needed. I was motivated enough to keep playing those four chords. And it wasn’t because I didn’t spend the time playing the guitar. I never got further than the skill level that I reached after a few weeks of lessons. Whenever it came time to practice the new type of work that Laurie assigned me, the work that actually made a difference, I’d lose motivation to play and do something else.Įventually, I stopped taking guitar lessons.

I would go home and play my guitar, but I couldn’t break the habit of practicing the same four chords I learned before. He would teach me fundamentals and ask me to practice them. I took guitar lessons from Laurie for several months. But at this point, it was pretty easy to see why, so I convinced my parents to let me switch to Laurie. I asked James about his instructor Laurie, and shortly after found out guitar lessons with Laurie were more expensive than the lessons from my Guitar Center instructor. I was still playing the same four-chord songs. To make things even more embarrassing for me, James was even composing songs of his own. Not only was he capable of playing pop music, but he also could play Jazz, Blues, Folk and more. When we would talk about music, he would say a bunch of things that I didn’t understand at all. But it took him over a month before he started playing the chords I was playing.īut a short time later, James surpassed me. During this time, he built up a solid foundation in music principles. He was doing things like reading sheet music, which I thought was pointless. Meanwhile, my friend James was learning at the same time and was miles behind my pace. Given that most pop songs are made up of the same four chords, I was capable of playing some cool stuff with basically zero knowledge of music theory and no understanding of what actually made up a chord. I jumped right into playing chords, and I could play most of the chords used in popular songs.
