Hello everyone, my name is Lena and I want to become a Java programmer. I made this decision in December 2015. I didn’t know anything about programming, even how to declare a variable in at least some programming language. I did not know any programmers, I did not work in an IT company, in general, nothing that could somehow help me. This is not a success story where I ended up getting a job as a junior programmer with great prospects, no. I'm still learning, and not everything goes smoothly. The Internet is full of inspirational posts - “everyone can program”, “old people become great programmers in a year”, etc. Everything is easy, fun and enjoyable. I do not know who writes these posts, but they inspired me, a naive woman. I decided that everything would be really simple and painless. Especially since I'm only 25 years old. On a wave of optimism, I bought a mobile developer course on Geekbrains and started taking 1 Java course for beginners. This course consists of 8 webinars (2 times a week) and small homework assignments after each. Then comes course 2. In total, the training lasts 2-3 months, and, voila! - are you a programmer. But here comes the collision with reality. Before the course, you are not warned that you will not understand more than half of what the teacher said, and this incomprehensibility will grow like a snowball. You are not told that in order to understand the essence of the next lesson, you need to read everything you can find on the topic, watch all the videos and ask around the experts. And they don’t tell you that far from newbies in programming will study with you on the course, people with higher education, with real experience, who will actively participate in communication at the webinar and ask smart questions, and you won’t even understand them. In general, you start to think that something is wrong with you, programming is not for you, nothing will work out for you, you are stupid and incapable. Although, in fact, it is only a difference in the hours spent on studying. Some people need more time, some less. But to be honest, it doesn't matter. If you want to code, no one can stop you! Of course, I benefited from the courses: my zero level in programming became higher, but not as much as I expected. After two courses, I decided to read books on programming. Everyone recommended Schildt and Eckel, but I started reading and became unbearably bored. I decided to try Java Rush, especially since the first 10 levels are free. That bribed me that they focus on real tasks. Finally, at least something close to what you will need to do at work !! I liked their approach - not boring, some jokes were made along the way, at the beginning of each level there was a motivating lecture about how cool it is to be a programmer. The course teaches you to enjoyJava programming. I actively worked on it, but since I work, it still turned out too slowly. Then I found new book recommendations - Horstmann and Head First Java. These are very cool books! Horstmann writes quite clearly, and I just love Head First Java - it's fun, clearly written, using different approaches, such as pictures, for better absorption of information. You can even read it just like that, to cheer up + it is written in fairly simple English, which means you can also tighten up the language, which is important! And then the gaps begin when you were able to solve a difficult task the first time or when you installed the plug-in for IDEA (I'm still a girl, and I have problems installing programs). When it finally dawns on you how to create and use objects. This is a great time to get up. But you go further in Java Rush and gradually read literature on the topic, watch videos. When you slow down somewhere, you start watching Info CodeGym, you even register there in order to ask a smart or not very question someday. Each time the topics become more difficult. HashMap killed me in general - for 4 days I could not understand how the iterator works, we found a common language with static for a long time, and StackTrace is generally a great joy! Motivation drops, and you continue to cook alone in this. No one will hire you for a job or even an internship, because you need to know at least Java Core, and oh, how far it is to know it. I have no idea how to work with incoming and outgoing streams. I don't know what is serialization, multithreading, console output. I still don't understand what an interface is. I generally keep quiet about frameworks and Java EE, although this knowledge will not be superfluous at the interview at all. And from time to time there are such moments when you think that you know at least something, for example, how to initialize a string in Java. It seems that this is already a passed stage, but then you suddenly find out that String has a lot of useful methods, for example, toCharArray(), toUpperCase(), compareTo(). And then the understanding comes: you know only the tip of the iceberg, and you don’t know much more. Why am I writing this? Share, is it really true? You just need to shut up and study Java hard day and night, watch videos, read books, solve problems as much as you like. And after a few months of such seclusion, life will return to normal: you will get a job, you will start communicating with other people again, you will practice more, and not study completely new topics every day, there will be confidence in their brains and so on. Or is there some way to live like a human right now, when your knowledge is still not enough to solve a problem that at least meets the requirements of the real world? I bought an annual subscription to Java Rush and a mobile developer course on GeekBrains, but these are different directions. Java Rush may then offer a paid internship, but this is web. GeekBrains is android, objective c, swift. To get to an internship at Java Rush, you need level 30, and I have, like, 10! Recruitment will only start in November, since I already miss August! It will be great at the internship - there are other people, deadlines, a mentor, when I study with someone, I have more motivation and a competitive spirit or something. But this means that you need to go through 20 levels on your own and hang out alone for another 4 months! On GeekBrains, I can start learning the same Android in August, but I'm not sure if this is mine. I'm more drawn to the web, but still I'm thinking about this option (it's a start in a month and there are people). Write, who has experience, what would you do in my place? Thank you!
On a wave of optimism, I bought a mobile developer course on Geekbrains and started taking 1 Java course for beginners. This course consists of 8 webinars (2 times a week) and small homework assignments after each. Then comes course 2. In total, the training lasts 2-3 months, and, voila! - are you a programmer. But here comes the collision with reality. Before the course, you are not warned that you will not understand more than half of what the teacher said, and this incomprehensibility will grow like a snowball. You are not told that in order to understand the essence of the next lesson, you need to read everything you can find on the topic, watch all the videos and ask around the experts. And they don’t tell you that far from newbies in programming will study with you on the course, people with higher education, with real experience, who will actively participate in communication at the webinar and ask smart questions, and you won’t even understand them. In general, you start to think that something is wrong with you, programming is not for you, nothing will work out for you, you are stupid and incapable. Although, in fact, it is only a difference in the hours spent on studying. Some people need more time, some less. But to be honest, it doesn't matter. If you want to code, no one can stop you! Of course, I benefited from the courses: my zero level in programming became higher, but not as much as I expected. After two courses, I decided to read books on programming. Everyone recommended Schildt and Eckel, but I started reading and became unbearably bored. I decided to try Java Rush, especially since the first 10 levels are free. That bribed me that they focus on real tasks. Finally, at least something close to what you will need to do at work !! I liked their approach - not boring, some jokes were made along the way, at the beginning of each level there was a motivating lecture about how cool it is to be a programmer. The course teaches you to enjoyJava programming. I actively worked on it, but since I work, it still turned out too slowly. Then I found new book recommendations - Horstmann and Head First Java. These are very cool books! Horstmann writes quite clearly, and I just love Head First Java - it's fun, clearly written, using different approaches, such as pictures, for better absorption of information. You can even read it just like that, to cheer up + it is written in fairly simple English, which means you can also tighten up the language, which is important! And then the gaps begin when you were able to solve a difficult task the first time or when you installed the plug-in for IDEA (I'm still a girl, and I have problems installing programs). When it finally dawns on you how to create and use objects. This is a great time to get up. But you go further in Java Rush and gradually read literature on the topic, watch videos. When you slow down somewhere, you start watching Info CodeGym, you even register there in order to ask a smart or not very question someday. Each time the topics become more difficult. HashMap killed me in general - for 4 days I could not understand how the iterator works, we found a common language with static for a long time, and StackTrace is generally a great joy! Motivation drops, and you continue to cook alone in this. No one will hire you for a job or even an internship, because you need to know at least Java Core, and oh, how far it is to know it. I have no idea how to work with incoming and outgoing streams. I don't know what is serialization, multithreading, console output. I still don't understand what an interface is. I generally keep quiet about frameworks and Java EE, although this knowledge will not be superfluous at the interview at all. And from time to time there are such moments when you think that you know at least something, for example, how to initialize a string in Java. It seems that this is already a passed stage, but then you suddenly find out that String has a lot of useful methods, for example, toCharArray(), toUpperCase(), compareTo(). And then the understanding comes: you know only the tip of the iceberg, and you don’t know much more. Why am I writing this? Share, is it really true? You just need to shut up and study Java hard day and night, watch videos, read books, solve problems as much as you like. And after a few months of such seclusion, life will return to normal: you will get a job, you will start communicating with other people again, you will practice more, and not study completely new topics every day, there will be confidence in their brains and so on. Or is there some way to live like a human right now, when your knowledge is still not enough to solve a problem that at least meets the requirements of the real world? I bought an annual subscription to Java Rush and a mobile developer course on GeekBrains, but these are different directions. Java Rush may then offer a paid internship, but this is web. GeekBrains is android, objective c, swift. To get to an internship at Java Rush, you need level 30, and I have, like, 10! Recruitment will only start in November, since I already miss August! It will be great at the internship - there are other people, deadlines, a mentor, when I study with someone, I have more motivation and a competitive spirit or something. But this means that you need to go through 20 levels on your own and hang out alone for another 4 months! On GeekBrains, I can start learning the same Android in August, but I'm not sure if this is mine. I'm more drawn to the web, but still I'm thinking about this option (it's a start in a month and there are people). Write, who has experience, what would you do in my place? Thank you!
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