Embracing the Impossible: My 173-Hour Learning Challenge in Two Weeks
We’ve all heard the age-old adage: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” While setting realistic goals is often encouraged, there’s something undeniably exhilarating about pursuing ambitious and seemingly impossible targets.
Recently, I signed up for Pluralsight, and in my quest for personal growth and recognition, I am embarking on a bold learning challenge — completing 173 hours of course videos in just two weeks, with the goal of achieving a “Proficient Above Average” or “Expert” skill assessment score in a range of web development topics. In this blog article, I’ll share the process, lessons from past challenges, and the power of aiming high.
Setting the Stage
I have done similar challenges before. In 3 days, I learned enough about administering Jira to pass the certification. In one week, I was able to learn how to create a life-like 3D rendering of a keyboard for Amazon. And I’ve completed similar courses that were 40+ hours long in a single week.
I’ve been practicing self-education since at least high school. I was a mathlete and the yearly competition during my Freshman year was going to take place before I was enrolled in the appropriate class, so I taught myself geometry while taking the first semester of courses that I was actually enrolled in.
Then, in my Junior and Senior years, I enrolled for online classes to learn German and programming and had to follow the coursework independently. The programming that I learned then, and since, will help me understand many of the topics I’m about to dive into.
My senior year, I learned Java and since then I have taken courses on C++, MatLab, Swift, and Flutter, so I do know many of back-end development big picture concepts already, but I’ll need to brush up on the syntax for the specific languages that apply to web development.
Pluralsight focuses on training for developers, which is one reason why I’ve chosen to use their platform (I also really love their gamification). I’ll be concentrating on the following subjects:
- Building Web Applications with React
- JavaScript
- HTML5
- CSS
- Redux
- Git
- NPM
- ES6
- Styling the Web with Bootstrap
- Building Dynamic Websites with jQuery
- TypeScript Core Language
- D3
- Collaborative Coding with GitHub
- Mocha
- Developing Websites for Accessibility
This will be my first time ever adding in a ride-with-me writing process. I’ve done this so many times that I think the thrill of the challenge is wearing off a wee little bit, so I’m both increasing the course load and also adding in the journaling.
I also want to start putting effort into building my personal brand, meaning that I want to establish an online presence (virtual resume/portfolio, of sorts) to demonstrate my skills.
Not to mention that I could use the notoriety since I do need to find a new position since I was laid off. If you need a web developer at the end of these two weeks, hit me up: kez.to/linkedin.
Crafting a Plan
So how do I do it?
After I know what I want to learn, I find the courses and assessments that I need to take. I really enjoy shopping, and that’s what this step feels like for me. I poke through and find “the best” affordable online course and an assessment or certification that will be recognized by others. This time, I’ll be using Pluralsight, HackerRank, and LinkedIn assessments for any skills they cover, due to lack of money to pay for certifications offered by other organizations. The others are usually $300 to $1000 per exam and this would be about 10 topics. It would be a lot (but still not as much as student loans).
To elaborate a bit more, I’ll typically start with the exam and work my way back to the course. With an exam picked out, I can see what topics any course I pay for needs to cover. I can see whether I’ll get a retake and how long I have to wait between each attempt. Finding the exam first lets me know what I need to be prepared for.
For example: Pluralsight’s Skill IQ assessments allow a do-over within 48 hours and then after that you have to wait 21 days to retake it. They also offer course paths designed to train you on all the material you need to know for the assessment.
When I see this, I ask myself: If I took the exam right now as a diagnostic, would 48 hours be enough time to watch the recommended learning to fill the gaps? The point of taking the exam as a diagnostic is to get a feel for the nature and difficulty of the questions.
Having already written down how many hours each topic requires, I know that for many of the paths, 48 hours would be enough for me. There are two course paths, however, that have too many videos and wouldn’t fit in two days. So my approach across the board will be to watch all the videos and then take the exam, and only leverage the do-over if I don’t do well enough the first time.
For me, picking the courses is easy since pluralsight has most of them all lined up and curated for the assessments, as I mentioned. However, if you’re trying to set up a similar goal for yourself, look at the curriculum and look for courses that are paired with the exam from the organization who offers said exam. It’s the most sure-fire way of making sure everything is covered that needs to be.
Once I have my courses and exams selected, I make a spreadsheet or just take a piece of paper and breakdown the course kind of like a thermometer goal. Usually the course will say how many hours it takes. So I take that and divide by 10 or 20 and draw out the thermometer and mark how many hours I have to finish to get to each additional 5%-10% of progress. Then I’ll look to see what section/video that correlates to. I’ll also take my timeline and figure out what percent I need to get through each day to meet my goal.
Sometimes, I’ll even get super nitty gritty and draw a box for each video I finish to fill in. I really try to gamify it as much as possible and create a LOT of feedback for every minute watched so that it becomes incredibly motivating.
So let’s walk through these steps with my current goal. Here are the lengths for each course or path in minutes:
- Building Web Applications With React — 2300
- HTML, CSS, & JavaScript — 1832
- Redux — 349
- Git — 798
- NPM — 187
- ES6 — 255
- Styling the Web with Bootstrap — 521
- Building Dynamic Websites with jQuery — 767
- TypeScript Core Language — 988
- D3 — 275
- Collaborative Coding With GitHub — 1175
- Mocha — 148
- Developing Websites for Accessibility — 762
In hours, I have a total of 172.6 to complete over 2 weeks.
Here is a grid of the hours for me to color in:
That is… ~12.33 per day (at 1x speed).
5% increments are increments of 8.63 hours. So my thermometer looks like this:
100% — 172.6 hours
95% — 163.97 hours
90% — 155.34 hours
85% — 146.71 hours
80% — 138.08 hours
75% — 129.45 hours
70% — 120.82 hours
65% — 112.19 hours
60% — 103.56 hours
55% — 94.93 hours
50% — 86.3 hours
45% — 77.67 hours
40% — 69.04 hours
35% — 60.41 hours
30% — 51.78 hours
25% — 43.15 hours
20% — 34.52 hours
15% — 25.89 hours
10% — 17.26 hours
5% — 8.63 hours
0% — 0 hours
Now here are two important notes.
- I don’t watch most of the material at 1x speed. I usually stick to 2x speed. You get used to it. There’s usually a lot of “fluff”. Plus, a lot of instructors talk slow, in my opinion. You just have to make sure you’re really paying attention otherwise you can very quickly miss important information.
- I don’t watch every video. Content gets repeated when you’re learning this much. The section introduction videos usually offer little value. Sometimes there are productivity videos or other relief/break videos that can be skipped. And usually, (not so much in my case this time around) the more advanced the topic, the less likely it’s covered in an exam, so sometimes you can end the course early. They don’t test you on edge cases and stuff that doesn’t apply to most people. They want to verify that you have functional knowledge.
So I’m looking at about 6 hours per day of videos at 2x speed. I will undoubtedly end up having to rewind and replay at times when my attention drifts and I take a break. I will also need to play some sections at 1x speed to make sure I understand more challenging concepts.
While this means sacrificing some leisure time and social activities, I am determined to stay committed to the challenge. For me, the ability to do so comes from a place of satisfaction. I KNOW I can do it, and it’s incredible when I do things like this.
Now, I have to let my usual distractors know that I’m going to be working with my head-down for two weeks otherwise I won’t finish. For me that’s my boyfriend. I tell him what I’m doing and how long it will take. We still can spend time together, but only after I’ve met my goal for the day.
Embracing the Struggle
The journey is long and arduous. Long hours of sitting and absorbing information take a toll on my ability to stay alert and focused. To combat this, I incorporate regular breaks and I make sure to keep my goal tracker in front of me so I can constantly shade in the grid/thermometer for every spec of progress. I also really live in the mental space of how freaking incredible it is to finish. I think about how impressive it will be once I’m done, and how big of an impact it will have on my life for such a short period of time invested. These activities help me stay focused, energized, and motivated throughout the two weeks.
Finishing Up and Diving In
So that’s it folks. My due date is Midnight two Saturdays from today. So midnight EST on the 8th of April.
I’ll give you all daily updates to report how far along I am, but don’t expect them at the same time each day. I have a weird sleep schedule.
And so, the 173-hour learning challenge begins.
