WEBVTT 0 00:00.270 --> 00:06.780 Hi guys and welcome to the course. Now after thousands of students have taken this course I've compiled 1 00:06.780 --> 00:13.470 some of the top tips from the most successful students to help you make the most of your time on the 2 00:13.470 --> 00:14.310 course. 3 00:14.310 --> 00:18.090 So I know what I do with instruction manuals when I receive them. 4 00:18.090 --> 00:19.250 But this is not it. 5 00:19.290 --> 00:24.990 Because I want to share with you some of the most useful tips that will help you learn to code and get 6 00:24.990 --> 00:26.460 the most out of the course. 7 00:26.460 --> 00:34.200 So first tip is as you go from lesson to lesson in the course you'll find that each of the lessons should 8 00:34.200 --> 00:36.570 take about 10 minutes long. 9 00:36.570 --> 00:40.020 And this is something that we intentionally designed for the course. 10 00:40.020 --> 00:46.890 Now a lot of students, when they're watching video tutorials online very often what people do, is they'll 11 00:46.890 --> 00:50.790 watch the video and type along to the code. 12 00:50.790 --> 00:52.530 And this is what we tend to call code along. 13 00:52.530 --> 00:58.260 So the tutorial types a bit. You type a bit. You try to keep up with the pace of the tutorial or you pause 14 00:58.260 --> 01:04.240 the video every so often to catch up. But essentially you're coding along with the instructor. 15 01:04.380 --> 01:10.280 And this is probably one of the most intuitive ways for people to learn from online tutorials. 16 01:10.290 --> 01:18.210 Now in order for you to be more successful than most people. What I would recommend is: instead to watch 17 01:18.210 --> 01:23.280 the video tutorials, which are usually as I said about 10 minutes long. 18 01:23.280 --> 01:29.700 If it's a 20 minute or a 50-minute tutorial then stop it and around the 10-minute mark And while you're 19 01:29.700 --> 01:36.780 watching it, instead of spending time trying to frantically type out the code, I want you instead to just 20 01:36.870 --> 01:44.130 try and understand what's going on. Why the code is being written and understand the purpose of the code 21 01:44.490 --> 01:47.310 rather than trying to type along at the same pace. 22 01:47.340 --> 01:52.770 Now once you've understood what those 10 minutes are about; what the tutorial is trying to teach you 23 01:53.250 --> 02:01.590 then to go to your computer and type out the code and try to replicate what happened in the 10 minutes. 24 02:01.590 --> 02:09.030 Now the reason why this helps people learn so much better is because, instead of just copying code by 25 02:09.030 --> 02:11.510 rote, which doesn't teach you anything. 26 02:11.520 --> 02:20.610 Instead, it forces you to really understand what's going on and absorb the content and then test yourself 27 02:20.640 --> 02:23.460 afterwards to see if you really understood. 28 02:23.460 --> 02:26.110 So this is my number one top tip. 29 02:26.400 --> 02:32.970 And it's important to remember that we are learning programming. We're not learning how to type fast. It 30 02:32.970 --> 02:38.570 doesn't help you become a better programmer by just copying out code as fast as you can. 31 02:38.640 --> 02:44.910 If you wanted to practice your typing and to speed up your typing skills then I recommend something 32 02:44.910 --> 02:52.470 like keybr.com where you can focus on that specific skill to improve your speed of typing. 33 02:52.470 --> 02:56.760 But what we're going to focus on in the course is learning programming. 34 02:56.760 --> 02:59.390 So we're going to keep our eye on the prize. 35 02:59.490 --> 03:06.270 Now while you're listening to the videos and you're understanding what's going on, I recommend taking 36 03:06.270 --> 03:10.170 a few notes for yourself to come back to or review in the future. 37 03:10.230 --> 03:16.910 And this is especially useful after when those 10 minutes are up and you're trying to remember one of 38 03:16.920 --> 03:21.600 those bits of code that you had to type and what was the theory that was covered. 39 03:21.600 --> 03:28.350 So one of my favorite note-taking systems is something called Cornell notes. And it's very very simple. 40 03:28.350 --> 03:34.830 It just splits a single note page into 4 sections. At the top, you have the topic of what the notes are 41 03:34.830 --> 03:40.050 about. And then you have the section of notes where you would write down the majority of your notes. 42 03:40.050 --> 03:47.760 Now after you write a few lines it's recommended that you go and review those notes and pick out the 43 03:47.760 --> 03:53.880 most important keywords or questions that you're asking yourself that you want to research on later 44 03:54.210 --> 03:56.790 or any sort of hints or reminders to yourself. 45 03:57.390 --> 04:03.570 And finally once you've completed the lesson then you go to the summary section and you summarize what 46 04:03.570 --> 04:07.050 the entire lesson was about in a few bullet points. 47 04:07.050 --> 04:11.550 So I've created a downloadable PDF of this note-taking system. 48 04:11.580 --> 04:17.100 So if you're keen to try it out, go ahead and download it from the course resources section and you can 49 04:17.100 --> 04:22.700 print it out into a notebook or just on a few loose sheets if you want to try it out. 50 04:22.710 --> 04:29.790 Now the next thing to remember is that if I'm talking too fast or too slow you can always change the 51 04:29.790 --> 04:31.080 playback speed. 52 04:31.080 --> 04:36.750 Now if you're in a lesson that you find particularly easy to understand and you already know most of 53 04:36.750 --> 04:42.090 the concepts, then go ahead and switch the video player to double speed so that you can cover much more 54 04:42.090 --> 04:44.330 ground in the same space of time. 55 04:44.340 --> 04:50.220 Now on the other hand if I'm talking too fast or if English is not your first language then feel free 56 04:50.220 --> 04:56.370 to change the speed to half-speed, so that I talk a lot slower and you can take up the information 57 04:56.370 --> 04:57.150 more readily. 58 04:57.180 --> 05:03.730 But it's important that you try to not skip any of the tutorials on any of the modules. 59 05:03.980 --> 05:11.360 And the reason is that the curriculum was carefully designed so that it would be a smooth sloping 60 05:11.360 --> 05:18.740 ramp so that you start out at the beginning and you slowly make your way through more and more difficult 61 05:18.740 --> 05:19.930 concepts. 62 05:19.940 --> 05:26.990 Now if you skip a couple of modules then it makes it really, really hard for you to catch up and to understand 63 05:27.020 --> 05:29.940 what's going on, which is the most important thing. 64 05:29.960 --> 05:36.740 However some of the videos I will label with optional or skippable and in that case feel free to skip 65 05:36.740 --> 05:38.990 those lessons if they don't interest you. 66 05:38.990 --> 05:46.460 Now the next thing to remember is that if you find at any point the tutorials become harder and they 67 05:46.460 --> 05:50.330 inevitably will be they're designed to get harder and harder. 68 05:50.510 --> 05:57.020 But if you find that it's a little bit too difficult, then I recommend just bookmarking it. 69 05:57.140 --> 06:04.490 Making a note of which module you really struggled with and trying to use that method of watching the 70 06:04.490 --> 06:09.870 videos for 10 minutes, reviewing what has been taught, trying to replicate the code yourself. 71 06:09.950 --> 06:15.770 But if you're still stuck and you really don't understand what's going on then that might be something 72 06:15.770 --> 06:17.950 that you have to come back to. 73 06:17.960 --> 06:25.190 So I find that usually with programming concepts it helps to try it out, read around the topic, and then 74 06:25.190 --> 06:28.930 come back to it after a week or so. And very often 75 06:28.940 --> 06:35.510 what was very very difficult the first time you come across it, after you've done it a few times, after you've 76 06:35.600 --> 06:40.350 researched around the topic and then you come back to it, it becomes a lot easier. 77 06:40.490 --> 06:44.570 So remember to mark things for review that you don't understand. 78 06:44.810 --> 06:53.690 Now recently I went to learn windsurfing in Mykonos. And it's a skill that I've never had before. 79 06:53.780 --> 07:00.620 It's something that I found incredibly challenging. And I fell on my face during the entire lesson pretty 80 07:00.620 --> 07:02.780 much and it hurt a lot. 81 07:02.780 --> 07:09.350 I got battered and bruised. And my ego got bruised a lot as well. But this is exactly what it's like when 82 07:09.350 --> 07:17.960 you try to learn a new skill so it's important that you persevere and continue to put in the hours to 83 07:17.960 --> 07:25.940 practice and to try and try again. Because you can learn something very superficially just by watching 84 07:25.940 --> 07:34.070 a video or you know trying it for a few hours. But in order to master a skill, the most important thing 85 07:34.550 --> 07:36.520 is practice. 86 07:36.530 --> 07:43.700 Now the final thing is that I will say it now you will get stuck at some point because everybody does 87 07:44.150 --> 07:50.750 And in fact, I wish that Hollywood would stop making movies where programmers are just typing away, like 88 07:50.750 --> 07:57.350 some sort of frenzied hacker person. Because most of the programmers I know who actually do this as a 89 07:57.350 --> 08:04.610 job, they spend probably 90% of their time just staring at the screen trying to figure out what 90 08:04.670 --> 08:05.390 is wrong. 91 08:05.390 --> 08:07.120 Why is it not working? 92 08:07.220 --> 08:15.020 So getting stuck is very much a universal part of programming; something that you have to come to even 93 08:15.020 --> 08:16.380 love and enjoy. 94 08:16.430 --> 08:23.510 So when you do find yourself stuck, I want you to imagine that you're already a fully-fledged developer, 95 08:23.930 --> 08:29.990 working a job where somebody is paying you to do this for them, because you're the professional. 96 08:29.990 --> 08:38.390 So I want you to use the tools that professional programmers use when they get stuck. And that is Google 97 08:38.570 --> 08:39.770 and Stack Overflow. 98 08:39.960 --> 08:43.580 Try to figure it out. Try to see: what did other people do? 99 08:43.670 --> 08:50.230 Because 99% of the time, you won't be the first person who's come across that problem. 100 08:50.240 --> 08:56.090 It's very likely that somebody has experienced that before and other people have helped them to solve 101 08:56.090 --> 09:02.840 that problem or help them understand what it is they're stuck on. And the thing to remember is that struggling 102 09:02.990 --> 09:10.040 is good. In that moment when you finally spot that typo or finally figure out why it is that your code 103 09:10.040 --> 09:11.900 isn't working and you fix it. 104 09:11.900 --> 09:19.970 That is one of the best feelings in the world. So struggle is good. And it really is through the struggles 105 09:19.970 --> 09:24.410 that you actually improve and level up your skills. 106 09:24.410 --> 09:33.350 So I'm so excited to be on this journey with you and I look forward to all of your success in the future!