Learning: Developers’ stories

I remember when I started learning how to code, it was really difficult grasping these new concepts that I wasn’t familiar with. It got me frustrated because I often forgot things I’ve read almost immediately. Most times, I tell myself things don’t come easy, so you need to put in a lot of effort to achieve what you set out to achieve.

I stumbled upon this course, learning how to learn on coursera. This gave me what I needed to take charge of my learning 💪.

I had faced lots of challenges while learning to become a programmer because I was used to the traditional/classroom art of learning. The tutor comes to class at a particular time, tests and assessments were given based on what was taught in class, and I was really good at taking whatever was taught in class and giving it back to the tutor as it is. Yeah, I thought I was a bad ass 😐.

But when I started coding, oh boy!!! I felt dumber than a box of rocks. You know how you are trying to force your way through the door and it takes a while for you to figure out that you actually have to press a button to get through, that was how dumb I felt. I found myself revisiting the concepts over and over and over again. “Learning is hard but anything can be learnt as long as you put more time in it”, I said to myself.

I discovered the need to manage my time and self-motivate myself. This ted talk should give you an insight to this. As developers, we are mostly self-taught and we need the self-discipline to continue learning.

Note Taking

I found out that I can retain whatever I’m learning through the art of note taking, some people prefer doodling. Note taking is one of the ways I learn and could remember things easily.

At the University, there was this course I did, GNS 103(Sociology, I think). I could remember vividly that I was always taking notes in class because the lecturer doesn’t give handouts. Maybe I took notes because I loved the course 😎. But this helped me a lot in getting good grade in the course.

During my early days learning how to code, I took lots of notes, and then some of my colleagues made fun of me. You see, it was that bad that I got new notebook for taking notes every two weeks, but then again one needs to know when to take notes.

Another way one can learn is by blogging. This tweet sums it all up.

I had a chat with an Uber Engineer whose article I read, and one of the things he talked about was gauging your advancement through empowering other engineers. One of the ways to do this is by documenting your work and learning through blogging.

Traditional learning Vs Self-learning

I was asked by a CTO who wanted to get a sense of how learning is done at my company. he asked:

“Which one do I prefer between traditional(sometimes called classroom) learning and self-learning?”.

I almost wanted to say traditional learning because I excelled in it, but at the same time, I have learnt so much while taking charge of my learning.

Out of curiosity, I decided to ask some of my colleagues few questions about how best they learn.

Here are the questions I asked them:

1. How best do you learn a new concept or technology?
2. How do you keep information fresh?
3. In what ways do you retain what you learn?
4. What rules do you set when learning these concepts or technology?
5. Which do you prefer? Classroom learning or self-learning?
6. What do you think about blogging?

Their responses:

How best do you learn a new concept/technology?

Deborah

I do research and try the solution out to see how it works. Trying things out enables me to learn faster. It sticks after trying it out. When I started Ruby on rails, I was given rails tutorial books to read but I didn’t learn much from it. I had to use Codecademy. Learning through reading books don’t really work for me. I prefer videos because I can practice along.

Rowland

There is no one method to learning something totally new but some concepts apply in all cases. If it’s a technology I’m familiar with, it won’t be much of a big deal. If it’s a totally new technology, I’ll rather focus more on the concepts first before the implementation details.

Chineze

My first approach to learning a new technology is to assure myself of the possibility and then dive in. I take the time to get people’s thoughts on the new concept. I meet and talk to people about it, then I dive into it and see how to apply it in the real life scenario. I also watch videos.

Toyosi

I go to the documentation because they always have a startup tutorial on how to use the tool. Pluralsight and Codecademy are other ways I amass the knowledge I need.

How do you keep information fresh?

Rowland

I keep in touch with the developer’s eco-system of the technology I’m learning. For example, I follow ReactJs PRs, subscribe to the newsletter for that technology while a practice.

Chineze

It has to be practice. I tend to lose things easily if I don’t work with it. I haven’t been able to work on Ruby since I joined apprenticeship(a form of learning at my workplace which has to do with learning from the technical team ), so I pair with people who work on Rails and work on small tasks on Rails.

Toyosi

By having an open source project I can contribute to at least every week helps to keep information fresh. I must be able to remember some things about the stuff without checking it every time.

What do you think about blogging?

Chineze

I would love to blog but I find it hard and most times, I don’t even know where to start.

Rowland

Blogging is more like contributing to the open source community. Blogging helps you articulate your thoughts, it boosts your confidence on the subject matter. It helps in knowledge chunking as well.

Deborah

Blogging makes it easy for you to refresh your knowledge in the subject matter and not waste time relearning when you need to use it.

Toyosi

Blogging takes most of my time. It doesn’t come naturally to me to blog.

What rules do you set when learning these concepts or technology?

Rowland

One of the terrible things about learning is the more you know, the less you think you don’t know. You only retain 20% of the stuff you learn. What I do are: watch a video of the concept, do a preview of what to learn and outline pointers on what to learn, build a basic tutorial on the subject matter.

Chineze

The rules are not really set out. It has to do first with my inner conviction and I usually commit a lot to learning the concepts in a way that I can’t look back. I also try to understand the basics and foundation and If I’m pressed for time, I try to know why people are using it in the first place. Videos help me too.

Deborah

Programming is wide. Once you’ve done something, you already know what to expect. I don’t go back to videos I understand. One major key is understanding what you are watching. Learn things that are more challenging if you want to grow.

Which do you prefer? traditional learning or self-learning?

Toyosi

I prefer self-learning but I still think classroom learning helps me learn faster because it incorporates assessment and testing.

Chinese

By default, everyone should learn by traditional learning. I like a little bit of both. Traditional learning is good for guidance. But it shouldn’t be like 24/7.

Rowland

Traditional learning almost jeopardised my learning. It looked like I was taking my learning to impress my teachers and get good grade. Learning is a personal responsibility.

Deborah

I have a preference for self-learning but there is caveat because you can learn what you don’t need. Traditional learning helps you or guide you to what to learn by not going out of scope.

Personally, I think both are really important, and you learn fast by teaching others through mentorship, blogging and other forms of knowledge sharing.

If you want to win in the 21st century, you have to empower others, making sure other people are better than you are, then you will be successful — Jack Ma

You can share your thoughts on these questions to help other aspiring developers.

Thank you, Deborah Enoma, Rowland Ekemezie, Chineze Nwosu and Olatoyosi Famakinde for taking the time out of your busy schedules to answer these questions.