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Daniel Wagner
13,389 PointsWhy do the courses take me significantly longer than the posted times? Am I doing it wrong?
Right now I am working on "JavaScript Loops Arrays and Objects" course, which has a time listed of 3 hours. I am almost finished with the second segment, and I am nearing 16 hours. At this rate, the course should take me nearly 25 hours, something just doesn't seem right. I would also like to add that a lot of these concepts are not new to me either, I have programmed in BASIC and VB before so I already know what an arrays are, loops, etc.
As I go through the course, I am watching the videos, and pausing them to take notes and follow along in workspaces. I follow all the things the teacher is doing in workspaces, is this not figured into the time estimate? Should i only practice the things I am not sure of? I was having a lot of 404 errors for the script files, I think it was a network problem, so that ate up some time but not much since I just started working locally.
It is very frustrating, last weekend I devoted the entire Saturday to the "Loops Arrays and Objects" course and only finished the loops segment. So I gave up the entire Sunday to it as well, and didn't even make it all the way through the array segment.
My assignment for the week is the "HTML Forms" and "JavaScript Loops Arrays and Objects" I think if I spend the next day and a half I can finish that up, but if 3 course hours translates to 30 real time hours, I'm looking at either having to quit my job or my classes because the two aren't going to work together.
2 Answers
Benjamin Larson
34,055 PointsIn my experience, the estimated times do not account for any time you spend on the suggested coding examples or exercises. It's pretty much just the time it takes to watch the videos at the normal speed. How much you want to put into it is up to you.
Like you suggested, I often only decide to invest into some of the mini projects or examples when it's something very new to me or I feel like I need to brush up on. If I feel like watching the video and following along is a good enough refresher, then I don't take the time. Admittedly, if someone is new to web development, it could be difficult to determine what areas are worth more time and attention until you find your niche specialty.
Jay Padzensky
4,731 PointsHey Daniel,
You're not doing anything wrong at all. The times posted are an estimation that combines the video run time and predicted time to answer Code Challenges and Quizzes. Like you, I take notes, rewatch segments, and overall move very slowly through the courses. I don't even give the estimated times credence because due to my own personal learning style, they don't match up. Keep up the hard work! I understand it can be difficult to perceive yourself as moving slowly, but there's no one right way to learn this stuff!