Programming isn’t fun when you first start learning how to do it. I remember struggling to print ‘Hello, World’ to screen and I continued to be a noob at coding throughout my degree…BUT I persisted and got better.

I wanted to write a post to encourage mostly girl nerds BUT  anyone who isn’t feeling so great learning how to code during university. When your code runs and works its the best feeling but it does take some time.

The following are words of advice I have learnt from people and experiences:

1. Firstly, the feeling of being a NOOB doesn’t go away (unless your super smart with ego but that wasn’t me during uni)  It’s not something you master overnight, you are constantly learning. Your brain just gets better at creating solutions and understanding the problem you are trying to solve. 
2. Its not everyday Stack Overflow, although many answers to your modules will be on that website, it doesn’t really HELP you understand anything.  Search for tutorials that explain the concept you are trying to understand they are your holy grail (check out The New Boston he has great video tutorials!) I took so many notes during university, I will create posts on the concepts I struggled with the most during my degree for you guys soon *cough* algorithms *cough*
3. Code with friends, I made a friend during university who was great at coding and I would just learn  from them sometimes I would just copy I cant lie BUT it was great to be able to watch and struggle together. 
4. CPU not central processing unit…lols I mean COPY PASTE UNDERSTAND! Nothing wrong with copy pasting what you see online. However, try understand what you copied and pasted and what it does. You probably won’t be able write the code you copied but after you have CPU’d it try rewrite it in your own way. (this is literally how I go through my end of year projects)
5. Lastly, *DJ Khaled voice* MAJOR KEY! Make friends with the TEACHING ASSISTANTS in your classes, I recommend this HIGHLY. I met DOPE teaching assistants who saw me struggle and took the time out to help me with all my frustrations. I would literally be in tears sometimes because I’d be like WTF is this lecturer saying and the teaching assistants (who are MSC/PHD students) would break it down. Some TA’s (have ego) and aren’t so helpful, just find others LOL

I hope these tips encouraged you or at least made you feel less alone about struggling to code. End of the day be shameless in not understanding, its all good; just stay persistent. Remember It’s an amazing skill to be able to program and its not easy, just keep working on it.

till next week


xo