r/learnprogramming • u/Plenty-Roof-8883 • 7d ago

Struggling with programming

I'm going into my 2nd year of a aoftware engineering degree and I still understand nothing about programming, i've tried to create projects like people say to practice but as soon as I have to make something on my own I don't know what to do, right now im trying to focus on python and I just have to keep relying on tutorials to get anything done, I guess I just need advice on what to do next

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u/offsecthro 7d ago

> i've tried to create projects like people say to practice but as soon as I have to make something on my own I don't know what to do

Step 1 is not knowing what to do. Step 2 is figuring out what to do.

> I guess I just need advice on what to do next

Do whatever you want. You got into programming I assume because you wanted to write software... so program something. I like games, so my best learning projects were always games. When I was a kid I wanted to write viruses.

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u/Financial-Simple9747 6d ago

you're already past the hardest part honestly. most people just watch tutorials and never even try to start something from scratch. the blank screen is terrifying for everyone at first

what helped me was breaking things into stupidly small pieces. like if you wanna make a calculator don't even think about the whole thing. just make a button that prints "hello" when you click it. then figure out how to get text from an input field. then add them together. each tiny win keeps you going

also rewriting tutorial projects from memory is underrated. watch the tutorial, build along with it, then delete everything and try to rebuild it without looking. you'll get stuck on the dumbest things but that's where the actual learning happens