0 1 00:00:00,270 --> 00:00:06,780 Hi guys and welcome to the course. Now after thousands of students have taken this course I've compiled 1 2 00:00:06,780 --> 00:00:13,470 some of the top tips from the most successful students to help you make the most of your time on the 2 3 00:00:13,470 --> 00:00:14,310 course. 3 4 00:00:14,310 --> 00:00:18,090 So I know what I do with instruction manuals when I receive them. 4 5 00:00:18,090 --> 00:00:19,250 But this is not it. 5 6 00:00:19,290 --> 00:00:24,990 Because I want to share with you some of the most useful tips that will help you learn to code and get 6 7 00:00:24,990 --> 00:00:26,460 the most out of the course. 7 8 00:00:26,460 --> 00:00:34,200 So first tip is as you go from lesson to lesson in the course you'll find that each of the lessons should 8 9 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:36,570 take about 10 minutes long. 9 10 00:00:36,570 --> 00:00:40,020 And this is something that we intentionally designed for the course. 10 11 00:00:40,020 --> 00:00:46,890 Now a lot of students, when they're watching video tutorials online very often what people do, is they'll 11 12 00:00:46,890 --> 00:00:50,790 watch the video and type along to the code. 12 13 00:00:50,790 --> 00:00:52,530 And this is what we tend to call code along. 13 14 00:00:52,530 --> 00:00:58,260 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 15 00:00:58,260 --> 00:01:04,240 the video every so often to catch up. But essentially you're coding along with the instructor. 15 16 00:01:04,380 --> 00:01:10,280 And this is probably one of the most intuitive ways for people to learn from online tutorials. 16 17 00:01:10,290 --> 00:01:18,210 Now in order for you to be more successful than most people. What I would recommend is: instead to watch 17 18 00:01:18,210 --> 00:01:23,280 the video tutorials, which are usually as I said about 10 minutes long. 18 19 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:29,700 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 20 00:01:29,700 --> 00:01:36,780 watching it, instead of spending time trying to frantically type out the code, I want you instead to just 20 21 00:01:36,870 --> 00:01:44,130 try and understand what's going on. Why the code is being written and understand the purpose of the code 21 22 00:01:44,490 --> 00:01:47,310 rather than trying to type along at the same pace. 22 23 00:01:47,340 --> 00:01:52,770 Now once you've understood what those 10 minutes are about; what the tutorial is trying to teach you 23 24 00:01:53,250 --> 00:02:01,590 then to go to your computer and type out the code and try to replicate what happened in the 10 minutes. 24 25 00:02:01,590 --> 00:02:09,030 Now the reason why this helps people learn so much better is because, instead of just copying code by 25 26 00:02:09,030 --> 00:02:11,510 rote, which doesn't teach you anything. 26 27 00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:20,610 Instead, it forces you to really understand what's going on and absorb the content and then test yourself 27 28 00:02:20,640 --> 00:02:23,460 afterwards to see if you really understood. 28 29 00:02:23,460 --> 00:02:26,110 So this is my number one top tip. 29 30 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:32,970 And it's important to remember that we are learning programming. We're not learning how to type fast. It 30 31 00:02:32,970 --> 00:02:38,570 doesn't help you become a better programmer by just copying out code as fast as you can. 31 32 00:02:38,640 --> 00:02:44,910 If you wanted to practice your typing and to speed up your typing skills then I recommend something 32 33 00:02:44,910 --> 00:02:52,470 like keybr.com where you can focus on that specific skill to improve your speed of typing. 33 34 00:02:52,470 --> 00:02:56,760 But what we're going to focus on in the course is learning programming. 34 35 00:02:56,760 --> 00:02:59,390 So we're going to keep our eye on the prize. 35 36 00:02:59,490 --> 00:03:06,270 Now while you're listening to the videos and you're understanding what's going on, I recommend taking 36 37 00:03:06,270 --> 00:03:10,170 a few notes for yourself to come back to or review in the future. 37 38 00:03:10,230 --> 00:03:16,910 And this is especially useful after when those 10 minutes are up and you're trying to remember one of 38 39 00:03:16,920 --> 00:03:21,600 those bits of code that you had to type and what was the theory that was covered. 39 40 00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:28,350 So one of my favorite note-taking systems is something called Cornell notes. And it's very very simple. 40 41 00:03:28,350 --> 00:03:34,830 It just splits a single note page into 4 sections. At the top, you have the topic of what the notes are 41 42 00:03:34,830 --> 00:03:40,050 about. And then you have the section of notes where you would write down the majority of your notes. 42 43 00:03:40,050 --> 00:03:47,760 Now after you write a few lines it's recommended that you go and review those notes and pick out the 43 44 00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:53,880 most important keywords or questions that you're asking yourself that you want to research on later 44 45 00:03:54,210 --> 00:03:56,790 or any sort of hints or reminders to yourself. 45 46 00:03:57,390 --> 00:04:03,570 And finally once you've completed the lesson then you go to the summary section and you summarize what 46 47 00:04:03,570 --> 00:04:07,050 the entire lesson was about in a few bullet points. 47 48 00:04:07,050 --> 00:04:11,550 So I've created a downloadable PDF of this note-taking system. 48 49 00:04:11,580 --> 00:04:17,100 So if you're keen to try it out, go ahead and download it from the course resources section and you can 49 50 00:04:17,100 --> 00:04:22,700 print it out into a notebook or just on a few loose sheets if you want to try it out. 50 51 00:04:22,710 --> 00:04:29,790 Now the next thing to remember is that if I'm talking too fast or too slow you can always change the 51 52 00:04:29,790 --> 00:04:31,080 playback speed. 52 53 00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:36,750 Now if you're in a lesson that you find particularly easy to understand and you already know most of 53 54 00:04:36,750 --> 00:04:42,090 the concepts, then go ahead and switch the video player to double speed so that you can cover much more 54 55 00:04:42,090 --> 00:04:44,330 ground in the same space of time. 55 56 00:04:44,340 --> 00:04:50,220 Now on the other hand if I'm talking too fast or if English is not your first language then feel free 56 57 00:04:50,220 --> 00:04:56,370 to change the speed to half-speed, so that I talk a lot slower and you can take up the information 57 58 00:04:56,370 --> 00:04:57,150 more readily. 58 59 00:04:57,180 --> 00:05:03,730 But it's important that you try to not skip any of the tutorials on any of the modules. 59 60 00:05:03,980 --> 00:05:11,360 And the reason is that the curriculum was carefully designed so that it would be a smooth sloping 60 61 00:05:11,360 --> 00:05:18,740 ramp so that you start out at the beginning and you slowly make your way through more and more difficult 61 62 00:05:18,740 --> 00:05:19,930 concepts. 62 63 00:05:19,940 --> 00:05:26,990 Now if you skip a couple of modules then it makes it really, really hard for you to catch up and to understand 63 64 00:05:27,020 --> 00:05:29,940 what's going on, which is the most important thing. 64 65 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:36,740 However some of the videos I will label with optional or skippable and in that case feel free to skip 65 66 00:05:36,740 --> 00:05:38,990 those lessons if they don't interest you. 66 67 00:05:38,990 --> 00:05:46,460 Now the next thing to remember is that if you find at any point the tutorials become harder and they 67 68 00:05:46,460 --> 00:05:50,330 inevitably will be they're designed to get harder and harder. 68 69 00:05:50,510 --> 00:05:57,020 But if you find that it's a little bit too difficult, then I recommend just bookmarking it. 69 70 00:05:57,140 --> 00:06:04,490 Making a note of which module you really struggled with and trying to use that method of watching the 70 71 00:06:04,490 --> 00:06:09,870 videos for 10 minutes, reviewing what has been taught, trying to replicate the code yourself. 71 72 00:06:09,950 --> 00:06:15,770 But if you're still stuck and you really don't understand what's going on then that might be something 72 73 00:06:15,770 --> 00:06:17,950 that you have to come back to. 73 74 00:06:17,960 --> 00:06:25,190 So I find that usually with programming concepts it helps to try it out, read around the topic, and then 74 75 00:06:25,190 --> 00:06:28,930 come back to it after a week or so. And very often 75 76 00:06:28,940 --> 00:06:35,510 what was very very difficult the first time you come across it, after you've done it a few times, after you've 76 77 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:40,350 researched around the topic and then you come back to it, it becomes a lot easier. 77 78 00:06:40,490 --> 00:06:44,570 So remember to mark things for review that you don't understand. 78 79 00:06:44,810 --> 00:06:53,690 Now recently I went to learn windsurfing in Mykonos. And it's a skill that I've never had before. 79 80 00:06:53,780 --> 00:07:00,620 It's something that I found incredibly challenging. And I fell on my face during the entire lesson pretty 80 81 00:07:00,620 --> 00:07:02,780 much and it hurt a lot. 81 82 00:07:02,780 --> 00:07:09,350 I got battered and bruised. And my ego got bruised a lot as well. But this is exactly what it's like when 82 83 00:07:09,350 --> 00:07:17,960 you try to learn a new skill so it's important that you persevere and continue to put in the hours to 83 84 00:07:17,960 --> 00:07:25,940 practice and to try and try again. Because you can learn something very superficially just by watching 84 85 00:07:25,940 --> 00:07:34,070 a video or you know trying it for a few hours. But in order to master a skill, the most important thing 85 86 00:07:34,550 --> 00:07:36,520 is practice. 86 87 00:07:36,530 --> 00:07:43,700 Now the final thing is that I will say it now you will get stuck at some point because everybody does 87 88 00:07:44,150 --> 00:07:50,750 And in fact, I wish that Hollywood would stop making movies where programmers are just typing away, like 88 89 00:07:50,750 --> 00:07:57,350 some sort of frenzied hacker person. Because most of the programmers I know who actually do this as a 89 90 00:07:57,350 --> 00:08:04,610 job, they spend probably 90% of their time just staring at the screen trying to figure out what 90 91 00:08:04,670 --> 00:08:05,390 is wrong. 91 92 00:08:05,390 --> 00:08:07,120 Why is it not working? 92 93 00:08:07,220 --> 00:08:15,020 So getting stuck is very much a universal part of programming; something that you have to come to even 93 94 00:08:15,020 --> 00:08:16,380 love and enjoy. 94 95 00:08:16,430 --> 00:08:23,510 So when you do find yourself stuck, I want you to imagine that you're already a fully-fledged developer, 95 96 00:08:23,930 --> 00:08:29,990 working a job where somebody is paying you to do this for them, because you're the professional. 96 97 00:08:29,990 --> 00:08:38,390 So I want you to use the tools that professional programmers use when they get stuck. And that is Google 97 98 00:08:38,570 --> 00:08:39,770 and Stack Overflow. 98 99 00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:43,580 Try to figure it out. Try to see: what did other people do? 99 100 00:08:43,670 --> 00:08:50,230 Because 99% of the time, you won't be the first person who's come across that problem. 100 101 00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:56,090 It's very likely that somebody has experienced that before and other people have helped them to solve 101 102 00:08:56,090 --> 00:09:02,840 that problem or help them understand what it is they're stuck on. And the thing to remember is that struggling 102 103 00:09:02,990 --> 00:09:10,040 is good. In that moment when you finally spot that typo or finally figure out why it is that your code 103 104 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:11,900 isn't working and you fix it. 104 105 00:09:11,900 --> 00:09:19,970 That is one of the best feelings in the world. So struggle is good. And it really is through the struggles 105 106 00:09:19,970 --> 00:09:24,410 that you actually improve and level up your skills. 106 107 00:09:24,410 --> 00:09:33,350 So I'm so excited to be on this journey with you and I look forward to all of your success in the future!