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When I was in school several thoughts used to just come up in my mind in the middle of an ongoing class, most of the time the use case of these thoughts was to irritate the teacher but some of the thoughts were just different, very random & way away from reality. Also, we all could relate to the fact that many innovative and unique ideas are born on the back bench of a school/college in the middle of a period. Back then, I used to think if I could just stop the tutor from teaching for a while, digest the tougher concept he/she is trying to teach, & then resume it, sometimes I just didn't like the tutor or the way of his/hers teaching, but the liberty to choose the tutor wasn't there and that was fine cause we were going through a predefined system. The thing is When I see the unofficial modern education system in the world of developers and learning in public like phylosophies I just get amazed! and guys common, we are developers, we always find a way. In short, now I've got the liberty to choose the tutor on the basis of their previous work, and I can learn at my own convenience and at my pace. I can pause the lecture, and rewatch it until I understand it thoroughly in addition to that I can implement the concepts I am learning specifically in the development field but mostly this is the case everywhere nowadays. The point I am trying to make here is that we have the resources now and most of them are free if we are concerned with acquiring skills and not the certifications. Do certifications matter these days? well, that's another point of debate and I am no expert to put my thoughts on it, the only thing I can say is that skills matter the most, and all the things come afterward.
As you could guess YouTube is something I am trying to talk about all this time and it's obvious to have a question in mind, does YouTube has the potential to be our school/ college/ learning partner/ career guide, for everything? And I would say why not... Getting free resources for your career, having proper guidance from people who have actually achieved something in their field, getting command of your learning process in your hands, becoming the decision maker, having the liberty to choose your mentor everything is there. You know, sometimes I think what if YouTube makes a section just for the student community and the creators, how amazing will it be!! Well, YouTube might not make you an expert but you will definitely get your basics very much cleared and what remains after that, becoming an expert is not very difficult if you know the "skill of learning" and that's something you can get from the experts who are teaching on this platforms for free. The skill of learning becomes very important when we take the call to learn on our own i.e. for free i.e. on YouTube, cause it is filled with content in which we have to find the right, best, compatible one to learn. There are a few things we can keep in mind when we decide to learn on our own which according to me are important to ensure we are on the right path, all these points are specific to the development field but can be used in general.
Explore first and explore enough, don't decide on your tech stack beforehand:
Does it ever happen to you that a friend of yours is learning some tech like ML/AI or something catchy like that, everyone on your campus talks about these latest techs, and somehow unconsciously you decide to learn one of them. Now trust me you know the use case of these techs a bit, cause of course we do a bit of research beforehand but the question is, does this tech something I want to learn? The answer is not simple, it might or might not be. Uhm, let's answer one question before getting the clarity of it, have you experimented enough before deciding what you want to learn? most probably the answer will be no. The thing is if you are enough hardworking then you definitely will learn the tech that you haven't chosen because that's your thing, and you will reach where you want to but trust me when you will get something that you like or something that gives you the feeling that this is something you want to do, you will get onto that cause it's a learning process all the way. Now, you learned both the techs does this a waste of time? definitely not but you could have saved the time to learn the right one in the initial stage of your career and it matters. So, giving a bit of time to explore and try your hands on multiple techs and seeing if this is something you want to do, will always save you.
As we are convinced with the exploring part, there are some points that we should keep in mind while exploring the tech. So, the tech you will choose should surely contain your interest at the priority there's no doubt about that, but you should check if there are enough resources available for the same. If I have to choose the tech I will check if the course on the tech is created by multiple creators so that I can see which one is compatible with me or which one I could understand better. Check if there are enough project tutorials available to understand the tech better. If you get a project-based learning course then you will get the most benefits and it will reduce the learning period. Look for active communities (Discord communities, GitHub connects, Twitter community, etc.) that you can interact with just in case you get difficulty in understanding. These two or three points will make your learning process smooth.
In case you don't find enough resources for free and you still want to learn the tech desperately then I will suggest purchasing the courses from Udemy/Coursera-like platforms instead of going for the live boot camps that charge you a hell lot of money.
Don't get distracted once you decide on the flow:
After deciding on the tech, and the course and starting with it, there comes an integral part of your learning i.e to stay focused throughout the process and not get distracted at all. Distraction doesn't just mean the distraction we talk about in general, here in I mean it as if you are having second thoughts about the course you are going through or you are feeling like learning something different just because you heard someone talk about something or if you watched or read some latest tech that is in demand and everyone should learn it. That is something you should be cautious about, that doesn't mean you should not be aware of what's going on in the world but to keep in mind that the tech you've chosen is well-researched and decided and whatever you've started, you should finish it first and then think about other techs. If you maintain your dedication to the learning period then trust me you won't regret giving up, but if you start something new in the middle of it then everything will mess up, and you will end up in confusion, delegation, and guilt of giving up.
Hurray! it's time for the implementation phase:
Say, you've gone through some content of the course and practiced it a bit to have a basic understanding, a lot of the course still is remaining and you are wishing if you could contribute to something valuable which has some meaning. Here comes the term that you definitely have heard from the media i.e. "Contributing to Open Source". To be frank I am not a contributor so I won't be able to share my thoughts on it but whatever I've heard from the community is that it's best for each developer to keep learning and keep growing but it's a bit tricky and somewhat difficult in the initial stage to contribute. So, I would say the earlier you start the better you get, and you will need to be fast to contribute to the open source to get the recruiter's attention, starting early will help you in becoming compatible with the contribution process. If you want to learn the open source contributions I will definitely suggest you go through Kunal Kushawaha's YouTube channel as I started my programming journey following him and being a mechanical guy from a tier 3 college, I've learned a lot and still learning from his experiences.
Is contributing to open source the only option? well, it depends on which phase of learning you are in, if you've learned pretty much of the tech some beginner-friendly internship sites like Internshala can help you give some internship experience with stipend and completion certificates as well. I will definitely share my Internshala Internship experience in some other blog. You can choose either of the options and you will get benefitted for sure.
There are some demerits of using YouTube as a learning partner that I can see which are lots of distractions, lack of live courses, and not having enough material. Distractions are something that needs proper management everywhere and so on this platform too, live courses are somewhat important in case someone struggles in maintaining consistency but that is manageable, I personally prefer recorded sessions over live courses but it's a personal preference. If you are not getting enough material or the course is incomplete then you definitely can go for Udemy/ Coursera-like platforms which are cost-effective and provide a bit of course preview to explore the options and see if it suits you. In my experience as far as I've seen most of the developers and experts in the industry prefer community support, youtube, and documentation whenever they are stuck, and they generally prefer the best practices to solve a problem which means we are on the right track. Oh wait, there's one more to it i.e. getting trapped in the tutorial hell and I've been part of it a very long time, as I've mentioned earlier I am at the top of making mistakes and that's why I am sharing the experience so the at least some can be aware of these mistakes. To avoid tutorial hell I would only suggest you follow these paths and get involved with internships or open source after completing your first projects at each level of learning so that you neither get the need of following multiple tutorials nor face the insecurity of not having enough knowledge or projects. Another suggestion I think would be to not follow the project tutorial which does not contain something major/ difficult implementation which you can learn and understand to excell in your learnings.
Being a mechanical guy, I am not much experienced with the process and I am still exploring but whatever I felt is important according to my experience is added here. I know most of the points are kinda negating like don't do this, avoid that, and blah, blah, blah... But in my opinion, if we are aware of what to not do what to do becomes too easy and flawless.
To summarize YouTube is something you can always rely on for your learning process and the saying goes, Give a developer laptop, the internet, and a mug of coffee and he/she will create a whole new world...
Hey, guys, this is my first blog, open to suggestions, thank you for your time,
This is Rushikesh, Mechanical Engineer, developer to be...