I feel like I don't know anything.

Hi anmo20,

You are normal. Google "impostor syndrome".

I feel the same way still. But sometimes I sit myself down and actually make something (so far mostly in a structured class setting). It has only happened with some outside deadline pressure. I need to do more personal projects, establish a portfolio, make a resume, etc., but I haven't. Life gets in the way. It has helped me see things in new ways in my everyday life and work, which is a library clerk.

When I do make something, I need to look up stuff all the time. That's the way it is when you begin. It happens less than it used to, though (but not by much!).

The point of taking a course even though you have to look up stuff is so that you'll know better what to do with the things you look up. If you are just learning English and you want to make good sentences, you may need to look up rules that govern the language, like the proper pronoun to use as an object in a sentence. If you hadn't learned about sentence structure beforehand, you'd be even more lost and wouldn't have even gotten to that point.

Go to some of the links in the Teacher's Notes, look up some YouTube videos on topics you don't quite grasp (or even those you do). Get another perspective. People explain things in different ways, and it helps.

I'm not sure where you want to go with programming, but I'd recommend taking some HTML and CSS courses. That way you can make something (like a webpage) relatively quickly that you can see. It will provide you a sense of satisfaction and give you some confidence. You can even add some JavaScript to it later. I added a simple random quote generator in my first class project, for instance. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work. It was a fake website for Spatula City, if you're familiar with Weird Al Yankovic and the movie UHF.

Well, I've rambled on long enough.

Bottom line: You are NOT stupid. You ARE normal. Keep going. You can do it, you've proven it because you've come this far.

I hope this helps you.

Imposer syndrome is a real thing. Just keep learning. This is actually my 2nd or 3rd time that I restarted to learn web development in the last couple years due to this, and I even had a half working card game written in javascript that i gave up on.

You're normal, we all hit a wall, just depends what you do after you hit that wall that matters.

Hi there, anmo20! As other students here have so wisely noted, "impostor syndrome" is very real and tough to overcome. In fact, you may never overcome it entirely but you can work with it and get it to a reasonable level so you can continue moving forward. Trust me, I'm extremely empathetic on this particular topic.

In your post you said this:

At this point, I don't feel I would be able to go off and make something from the what I've learned. I don't think I'd even be able to get started. I'd have to search for every single thing at every step along the way.

I'd suggest you do just that. Go try and make something! Experience always has been and always will be the best teacher. Sure, we can show you how to get started and explain concepts along the way. But there's nothing quite like experimenting to make it really "concrete" in the long run.

Even if you have to look up more than you'd like initially, so what? If we were supposed to memorize everything, we wouldn't need the documentation. The documentation is there so people don't have to memorize things. If a developer had to memorize everything about even one language, we wouldn't have any developers

I'd highly suggest taking a look at:

• this forum post
• this video

You are not alone. And you're not stupid. You're human.

And as for memorizing things, I think I will leave you with this quote that is attributed to someone much wiser than myself:

"Never memorize something that you can look up.” Albert Einstein

Some say that the actual quote is a bit different, but it definitely makes the point clear.

Just hang in there and go build some things!

Try to tackle some JS 30 projects, or just google 'fun little javascript projects.' Start small with a lot less guidance and force yourself to plan things out. Treehouse is very walkthrough based, and that's good for learning and refreshing. Now that it's time to be a full dev, you'll need to plan your own steps out, which you'll get better at with practice.

Also, if you find the information slipping away, I cannot suggest Anki enough for spaced repetition (the key to retaining information). I usually just copy links to the objectives and checks for understanding. If I don't know the answer, I end up looking it up. But after a few spaced repetitions, you can see a difference.

I wish you the best of luck! Start small with your projects and just keep building on them!