Mistra: Basic principles of learning to code from the scratch
That evening after the isya prayer call echoing in the air, we were shocked by a short message from Mistra, our candidate for the second batch student.
“I am already at Lempuyangan Station. Where should I go now?”
In the middle of heavy rain’s noise as the backing sound of our phone call, he told us that he came all the way from Indramayu to Yogyakarta only for attending Binar Academy class. Moreover, he only brought Rp 300,000 for the rest of his journey.
Since he has no relatives in Yogyakarta, he asked us about the availability to stay overnight at our classroom. “I can also do the night duty, freely,” he said jokingly. If it wasn’t available, he would gladly to stay at the nearest mosque, “I could stay there and be a freelance takmir as well.”
We were astonished by his passion, simply because the whole academic process we were doing was still awfully plain and simple. Additionally, we had no specific regulations about students who comes from outside of Yogyakarta. At that time, we didn’t directly invite him to stay at our office. We offered him a temporary stay at one of our employee’s house.
After a while, we already knew him better. He had a degree in Islam Philosophy without any experience about IT, let alone programming skills. However, he was willing to bet every thing he had on this journey. The reason was too simple to believe, “Shortly after I got the skills I need, I would like to create e-library for kids back in my village.”
He was struggling at first when the academic time kicked in. As a student of our second academic cycle, he attended all classes passionately without skipping any of them. And as the time went by, his hard work and dedication led him to graduate with good grades.
Until now, he keeps sharpening his programming skills by joining our internship program as a backend engineer. This program makes him able to purchase his own device to do programming experiments. Most recently, he works for Oktagon Indonesia — one of Binar Academy’s partnering companies — before he can go back to fulfill his dream later.
We asked Mistra to share his tricks on how to learn to code quickly. Let’s check it out.
Binar Academy: Hey, Mistra. Long time no see. Congratulations for the new job! What are you up to these days?
Mistra: Hey. Thank you! I’m into Golang right now. It could deliver a high performing, quick, and scalable outcome.
Binar Academy: It’s very popular these days, isn’t it? Well, is it a bother for you if we ask some questions?
Mistra: Not a problem, go on.
Binar Academy: How do you learn all these things quickly?
Mistra: It’s flattering, actually. I’m not that fast learner, but I might have some tricks to share. Well, only master the specific things you need at a time. What makes it hard is that you need a lot of things in short amount of time. Hahahaha. Learn them one by one, based on what you need the most. In the end, you will realise that you already master a lot of things.
Binar Academy: Every one is an amateur at first. What advice can you give for those who want to learn to code from scratch?
Mistra: First of all, you should understand the principles of basic algorithm. Don’t worry, it’s like basic logical proposition.
Binar Academy: It sounds simple..
Mistra: ..at first. You don’t know what comes next. Different cases need different treatments. Either you do your own experiments to solve that, or you can ask someone who can. Personally I prefer the first, but it would kill you if you don’t like to ask the others when you’re stuck. The most important rule: don’t be afraid to ask.
Binar Academy: It’s interesting to encourage them to not be afraid, because many programmers here are introverted person. What if people around you still can’t help you?
Mistra: If people around you still doesn’t give you much help, you can visit various repositories on GitHub. There, you can use the open-source library on your code. If it still doesn’t do good, just ask the library owner. GitHub people are friendly anyway. They will gladly help you since you are using their code. Well, of course you can do the same thing to whoever needs your help on GitHub. Oh, you can visit Stack Overflow too. Sharing is caring.
Binar Academy: GitHub and Stack Overflow are a hell of a place. Love this sharing culture. Do you have any other suggestion to say?
Mistra: Hmm.. Challenge your curiosity, maybe? The key of learning is curiosity. Curiosity without knowledge is a ticking time-bomb. Knowledge is easier to access nowadays. Simply read the current tech trends on Medium. There are lot of programming stuffs along with complete how-to. I learn from these tutorials too. Most of them are easy to understand for beginners like me. If you don’t get what you need on Medium, just keep reading. Every knowledge shouldn’t be wasted, you might need it later.
Binar Academy: Well, thank you for sharing, Mistra. Hope you can fulfill your dream. And don’t stop learning!
Mistra: Don’t worry, an engineer is a lifetime learner. You’re welcome!
Binar Academy is a non-formal academy to revolutionize education where we teach students to build an app within 10 weeks and transform companies digitally.
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