How to Prepare for Learning Programming: Tips from a Game Developer

Eldar Azamatov, city — Bishkek, CEO Supernatural Gamedev, @hell_dar_

Recently, I gave a lecture on how the psyche reacts to learning new things. For the human brain, learning is a huge stress, and our brain, of course, wants to protect us from this stress. Therefore, many courses often immediately move on to studying tools and syntax, but almost never talk about how to cope with this psychologically. And yet, this is the most important thing.

Difficulties often arise during learning, and at the first signs of difficulty, our brain triggers protective reactions. The most common ones are: "this is not for me," "I'm stupid," "I won't be able to do it," "this is difficult." It is important not to turn a blind eye to difficulties and not be afraid to put in a little effort where others look for easy ways, staying in their comfort zone.

So, how do you prepare your brain? First is goal setting. We need to clearly define the goal: why are we learning, what is our goal. The goal can be different — from the trivial "I want to earn a lot of money" to "I want to create my own app" or "solve a personal or social problem." Second is the development of problem-solving skills. Often, people lack the skill to solve and find solutions. Try to change your mindset: instead of looking for excuses, such as "this is difficult" or "this cannot be solved," strive to find a solution to the task or problem with the resources you already have. You will understand that in fact, all tasks and problems are solvable, although not all of them require a solution.

There is also an excellent hierarchical chart called Bloom's Taxonomy. It well describes how deeply we have studied and understood the topic. It is important to understand that we are at one of the levels of this chart and determine at what level you want to be. For beginner programmers, the "Understanding" level will be sufficient, and the transition from the very initial level to the next can take from one to five years. And since we don't have so much time in life, you don't necessarily need to know everything at the highest level; in some cases, knowledge at the "Understanding" or "Application" level will be enough.

From the above, we can conclude that we need to develop our mindset. This is not a quick process — it is necessary to develop how you think, how you approach learning, how you solve problems or tasks.

And finally, the most important skill that needs to be mastered, which I myself learned thanks to Daniyar Amanaliyev, is the ability to learn. There is an excellent free course on Coursera, where professors from the University of California, Berkeley, talk about how our brain works and how to learn and absorb information most effectively.