How can I make sure I am being efficient while learning on my own?

Hi Calvin

For me it took countless attempts at learning online from different platforms until I found something that worked for me.

What clicked for me was Treehouse. I needed to watch a video and instantly get challenged on it to make sure it stuck and fortunately Treehouse does just that with its linear learning path.

So my advice to you would be find that thing that makes it sink in for you.

Wether that’s reading a book, watching a video, learning with a song, etc. Once you find that, then that is the platform that is for you.

A lot of online learning platforms offer a free trial so just try them all till you find the right one for you.

Hope this helps and good luck!

With tutorials its very easy to get caught up in something called 'tutorial purgatory', this is a disease and I have been guilty of it myself as well and it actually holds you back even though you may think you are making progress but you are not, you're just going through an endless loop of tutorials and when you try to code you face issues and get stuck.

My advice to you would be, when you watch something, code along, also take some basic notes where you simplify it for yourself and if you had to explain it someone, then you could do so with ease. Coding is learnt through practice, repetition, no other way.

If your struggling with code break it down line by line and see if you actually understand, also as to what is going on and why it is working the way it is, so when you come across errors this will help you break it down and identify the issue that you need to fix or maybe work on a bit more.