Tutorial Hell is a real problem and it's one of the students’ worst-known sufferings. You can easily find lots of beginner developers burning, out there, in the fire of tutorials.

Most of the search engine platforms show content on the top based on more views and reaches. Although there are beginner-level content and roadmaps present also but due to fewer views, they're not on the top. As a result, the beginners fell into the trap of the tutorials without knowing the roadmap of a particular technology.

What is tutorial hell? 🔥

Tutorial hell is a time in your new developer journey where you are watching tutorials from Udemy, Coursera, etc, able to follow along, and replicate what the instructor is doing and it works.

But after taking the complete tutorial and trying to start from scratch on your own, if you stare at your computer, your mind slowly goes blank. The guiding voices of your instructors fade to nothing. And all that is left is an empty code editor, a vague feeling of uncertainty, imposter syndrome, fear even, and no clear idea of what to do next.

In other words, you are great at following along with a tutorial. But it is difficult to take that first step to code independently. I have also gone through this experience and I don't want someone to suffer.

Escape 🏃‍♀️

Based on my experience, there are some points that will help you get out of this loop and really enjoy the journey.

Table of Contents

1. Build, build, and build

2. Join the communities

3. Teaching = Learning

4. Don't complete the tutorial

1. Build, build, and build 👩‍🍳

Not building a project is the problem of imposter syndrome that many people face. You don't need to be an expert to start making projects. There are tons of projects online that you can search on Google, choose one of the beginner-friendly project, and start building them.

Beginners often think of a project as something big but great projects are not finished in a day, they are built day by day in small proportions. And you have to do the same if you want to become a great programmer.

DON'T BUILD A BIG PROJECT ALL AT ONCE

Initially, what you want is to build a super small project or a bunch of super small projects so that you repeat the same steps again and again to learn them. Use the same mental model to break other big projects that you want to build into smaller chunks.

2. Join the communities 🤝

Joining the communities will help you cover the milestone in a short period of time. As a beginner, you're not perfect to solve everything on your own. You need people who will guide you in your journey and make the path easy for you.

The biggest mistake that I have made myself is not finding the roadmaps and directly jumping into a particular technology. As a result, I suffered a lot because after completing the tutorial, I was clueless that what is the next step. When I joined the community on Twitter and interacted with real people, they helped me more than any courses that I have taken.

I will give you the same advice to create a Twitter, Slack, and Discord account. Join technical communities there and try to connect with developers who can help you solve your problem. Build a genuine connection with them, and ask your questions if they are ready to help you.

Here is my blog that will show "How social media can help you in your tech journey?"

3. Teaching = Learning 💡

Teach yourself. No one else will teach you everything you require. Tutorials won't deliver you everything. Sometimes teaching yourself also includes teaching others. When you teach something to others, you repeat that concept in your mind which results in a better understanding of it.

If you're thinking that you are not ready to teach others, you can start your own YouTube channel or write a blog just like I did. In this way, you will be able to teach others without any fear. Similarly, if you're an introvert and uncomfortable in front of others then teaching on YouTube or writing a blog is a nice way to deliver the concepts.

To teach is to learn twice, if you are teaching someone, you'll have to revisit the concepts and communicate in an easy way, which will also give structure to your understanding of that particular concept.

4. Don't complete the tutorial 🚩

Learning something is dependent on its use. There is no need to watch the 4-hour-long tutorial video. You literally won't grasp everything from it. There are tons of courses ranging from 10 to 20 hours or more than that and in the end, you will just get a diploma.

I don't care about a diploma if I don't know how to print a Hello World. The fastest way to learn a new programming language is to find or search on Google for a small project idea and then start working on it. While making a project, you will need different functionalities to be performed.

As a result, you will start googling and find the syntax of that language. Here is a video of Clement Mihailescu who describes us how to learn a new programming language fastly. This formula is not only specific to programming but to learning other skills also.

Conclusion

You may find this hard initially but as you practice and work more, you will learn how things work and definitely become a great developer.

I wish you very good luck in your journey of escaping tutorial hell. If you follow the above points seriously, you will most likely get rid of tutorial hell.

This article is published for the Hashnode #blogswithcc challenge.

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