How long does it take to learn to code?

When you're starting out teaching yourself to code, looking at all the resources and paths out there to follow with learning to code, it can feel daunting. Pat DePuydt should know, he was in that boat ten years ago. In this video, Pat runs you through some essential lessons not only from his personal experience but his six years of teaching at coding bootcamps about how long it takes to learn to code, based on your intended destination, and what you can expect along the way.

- - - - - 
Join the millions learning to code with Codecademy.

[donnelly]

I started learning to code using Python almost three months ago as I am making a career change into data science. I got almost nowhere in two months when just focusing on basics and not doing anything applicable with what I learned. In the past three weeks, I have applied what I learned into actually playing around with some data and am only a few days away from taking on my first data science project in which it will be the beginning of building up my portfolio. At 44 years of age, I encourage anyone to NOT use age as an excuse to pursue a new career and or achieve new goals.

[GatesAion]

I used to study around 1 hour a day now its around 3-5 hours a day as I understand more things faster. I only started to understand things better once i saw patterns. Then everything started to open up. :)

[jewel]

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”
Earl Nightingale

[BlueShellshock]

Starting learning after being out of school for about ten years. I realized I lost the ability to study. I thought I could just hop in and do 8 hours on my day off, when I realized I blanked out too early. I had to completely relearn breaking up tasks, taking pauses, and reviewing. So yeah, don't get discouraged if for whatever reason you can only do a half hour a day like when I started - doing a 'bite at a time' is far more effective than 'make up for lost time by doing more'.

[ouimetco]

I spent a year learning java. Full time 5-6 hours a day, read code compile fix, read code compile fix, read more, code compile fix. After a year I was pretty decent but it was a serious mental workout.

[OrthodoxofUSA]

Codeacademy is very helpful. The instructions and information is clear, the hints are relevant, and the lessons are challenging yet not too challenging.

[Mcstalker]

I am taking two courses currently and I remember when I first learned stuff like Math.Pow and Decimal I made a calculator to calculate Pythagoreans theorem and I have to admit it felt AMAZING.

[lalawinter]

Now im starting again, I'll update in 3 months what will happens. Determination is all that matters..

[maximillionpegasus]

Speaking of elephants, Elephants are the only animal to have four forward-facing knees

[nemesisghost]

I had my first ah-ha moment two days ago, all thanks to code academy! And Its such an amazing feeling.

[PixelPaperDesigns]

This my 2nd time taking c programming. I'm working on getting my certification. However, it takes me countless hours, days if not weeks to implement a simple program. I understand it better when the instructor give real life situations, but when he say "put it in code", I get lost because I still have a hard time comprehending which functions, values, variables, strings, arrays, etc to use and exactly where to place then and when to use these things.

[thierrykauffmannwriter]

Learning how to code is relatively fast. Learning how to think like a coder or how to rephrase a problem so it is more easily "codable" or how to be mindful of time constraints and try to design the fastest code, all this takes a long time.

[yesman]

Me training csgo 10 hrs a day and still being shit at the game

[dabawocks]

I am already 3 months old in programming, it has been the most challenging 3 months of my life because of distractions and procrastination😂. But still, i don't give up

[damascanalexandru]

A very informative and well-structured video, brings a lot of clarity in choosing the path.

[merritt]

Going to start learning pretty soon. Getting closer to the end of my Mechanical Engineering degree, and I just want to have those coding skills with me. Never really considered it, but it is true that needing to how to code is just going to become more and more of a requirement for mechanical engineers. Plus in general, I'd just like to understand it in case of potential career changes. I like the fact that being able to work remotely is much more common with coding jobs. The downside of ME related jobs is that a lot of them are through very old guard companies. Which means always be in person, 40 hour a week MINIMUM with tons, and I mean TONS of overtime that you of course don't get paid for being salary. That type of job structure is just looking less and less appealing to me.

[RyanMichaels]

Thanks Pat, for someone who has started and stopped with interest in coding but a lack of places to apply it, this video was a helpful piece of encouragement. I ran through most of the free modules a few years ago but bounced around and didn't find a place to apply it.

Taking another serious look at things now as I've watched the company I work for continue to struggle with satisfying web development. Thanks for offering your insight and experience as encouragement!

[LusivableMT]

I will be joining Codecademy in a few days. I want to either be a Web Designer or Developer a year from now. Been practicing HTML and CSS in FreeCodeCamp for almost a month. Due to your site's claims, I want to speed up the learning process so that I have a job in that field before I graduate with my degree. Though my degree is to make my Resume look nice, I am determined to get a job in web designing and developing in a year from now. I look forward to joining Codecademy soon.

[bbsamazon]

Thanks Pat, for this video. If you had given a "pat" answer (no pun intended) I would have been disappointed. However, you did give the various scenarios which learners could fall under and gave an approximate timeframe, so your answer to the question, "How long does it take to learn to code?" was very informative. Thanks! 😊

[mildredjwashington]

Thanks for such a timely and interesting discussion about which language one should choose. Very sage advice and encouraging to hear. :) Millie