Can’t study? Teach.
It took me 6 months, and a failed attempt at the oral assessment, to pass the OOP exam — the JS129 in Launch School Core Curriculum. Compared to the lighter concepts of JavaScript thought at other platforms, it was my first encounter with so many abstract concepts that require not only understanding but also the ability to precisely describe and support concepts with examples using code.
The main reason for the months it took is days off from studying. After passing the previous exam, the days off studying started to gain longer and longer streaks. Trying to “let it sink in”, I attended study sessions where things did not make sense and took “headache” breaks — the turtle way. I finished the JS120 from April to June with more days off than days with at least 30 mins studying. Because things still didn’t make sense, I went back to the start and reviewed. Breaks between studying, though, from a week became two… Then four… Then five… Time passed. Lots of it. Look at my Time Sheet, no kidding! What did I even do during that time that I couldn’t even spare 30 minutes? I don’t know if I regret the time off or if it was necessary, but the end result is positive — I passed the JS129 exam. Seems like days off were necessary, but weeks were not.
One of the things that brought me back to learning was the SPOT study sessions I signed up to lead when I passed my first exam in LS. Even though I missed a few here and there, the commitment to people looking forward to a meeting is unbearable to ignore. So I wandered, came back to studying, wandered off again, and came back to it again. My study buddy passed me. People I’ve met at the lil’ JS101 study session caught up to the same course, and I felt the pressure to do the exam. Not feeling quite ready, I started the written one… The devil is in the details. I ended up barely passing with a shaky understanding of the execution context for arrow functions. Immediately, I scheduled my oral assessment. There is only as much I can do to study using the Study Guide in the Wiki, so my study buddies went over it with me a couple of times, spotting some improvements.
When the time came, I failed the exam. I was able to explain and present concepts; however, I committed numerous errors when it came to precisely coding examples to illustrate concepts. Ironically, I caught myself correcting and debugging my own example code.
Before the second attempt, Pete(TA) reached out, asking if I needed help. I said that I’d like a resource with practice problems to help me spot holes in my knowledge. He recommended Chat GPT to get more practice problems :)
I was able to prompt “Please give me some practice problems for OOP design patterns”, and it gave me practice problems I could tweak to also apply concepts from the study guide. Coding out in this Repl, I noticed myself going back and forth with my notes to verify the accuracy of my code. I was able to spot and fill the gaps. The next interview went technically flawless. (I was late 10 minutes because of a dinner pizza, so lost points on the non-technical side. I was surprised that Viktor didn’t take points for me mishearing his questions. I had a lot of noise in the background from boys eating the rest of my pizza.)
Lessons from this half of the year:
- Distractions have been and will continue to happen. A method of dealing with them is what keeps us in the game.
- If you have a hard time finding time to study, sign up to teach. It will keep you from drifting away too far for too long. Knowledge needs time to “sink in”, but also needs consistent repetition.
- Find different ways to poke holes in your knowledge. You know when you are not ready for an assessment. For me, it did not work to re-read and re-look at the lessons and examples. Practical questions that involved abstract concepts were the way for me.
