Online education has become a global trend. There are 7.7 billion people in the world, and more than 4 billion have internet access. Universities are catching up to the trend and go online. “Virtual” bachelors are in demand same as “analog” ones. But online courses have one huge drawback: only four percent of students reach the final stage of education. The reasons for that are lack of motivation and lack of mentor.
During the “OPEN Vacancies in HTP” forum, Vitali Shulha, EPAM experienced mentor, gave some useful advice on how to get results from online trainings and always finish them.
- Set concrete goals and fixed deadlines. Create and update the schedule of lessons. Prioritize, don’t try to learn several technologies or follow several directions at once. Be realistic about your possibilities. Divide your course into weeks to avoid information overload.
- Create a work atmosphere and dive into the course. Study in a separate room, turn off all PC notifications, and set flight mode on your phone to remove all distractions. Change from your casual clothes into a business suit, or the clothes you wear to work or to university. This will help you concentrate on the learning process.
- Try to do your work in one sitting. Don’t limit yourself, work until you run out of inspiration. Even if your creativity peaks outside your schedule, don’t stop. But it’s important to not torture yourself if you run out of strength.
- Save your time. Do ask Google about things you don’t know and skip blockers. If you are stuck at some task, leave it alone for the moment and move on. You can always get back to it later. Do not stay in one place for long, because then an unfinished task will demotivate and demoralize you. Use the experience of your colleagues to overcome difficulties: feel free to investigate the code of another developer to understand why you’re stuck. It’s OK to learn from other people’s successes and mistakes.
- Find your own guru. Ask programmers you know for personal recommendations, use code review sessions to understand your mistakes and improve your code. Google can never be a substitute for communication. You can spend days searching for an answer with your search engine, while it will only take ten minutes for an experienced developer to get to the bottom of your problem.
- Practice and don’t devote all your time to theory. Create working software: when the code is written, your risk to lose motivation to continue your work goes to a minimum. Your own product will give you confidence and become your inspiration.
- Always choose a project that fits your interests!
