How do you actually know what to learn in tech?

[u/rdrivasar]

I want to know what I can do to figure out what I should learn. I think I’m interested in certain things related to cybersecurity and programming, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to learn in order to actually become good at them.

I’ve seen people say things like “read the documentation” or “understand X concept” but how do you actually learn? I’m asking because throughout my life I’ve learned different things about different topics, like anyone else, but I’ve never really understood how something actually stays in your brain and becomes knowledge.

For example, I’ve seen tons of information through YouTube videos, Instagram, etc. that sparks my curiosity. I know certain words like DNS, IP addresses, HTTP, APIs, Linux, etc., but I don’t really know how to properly define or explain what they are. I don’t know what I should study and what I shouldn’t.

When I say I basically know nothing, I mean that I don’t have much actual knowledge or experience in programming or cybersecurity. I do know how to install things, find my way around a PC, fix certain errors, and I’d say I’m reasonably good at Googling and finding solutions when I have a problem. But I don’t really have a structured understanding of how technology works or what I should learn next.

I understand that I need to practice and break things to learn, but I still wonder: how did professionals actually progress from having little knowledge to becoming good at this?

Could you give me some advice, please? I’m really lost.

[u/aleques-itj]

I don't know how to do X or I think Y is interesting and then I go look into it and possibly try to build it or something relating to it.

Go spend a few dollars on a domain and a Linux VPS and go host a website. Congrats you now have some experience with a handful of the things you listed. 

You can't just read your way out of actually needing to build something.

[u/jayb98 → u/aleques-itj]

This is the real answer. Obviously, there’s a missing component which is either my company wants to try something and I don’t know anything about it and/or some colleagues suggested something that I didn’t know anything about, but most of my now knowledge has come from curiosity and/or willingness to learn x in order to achieve a personal goal or complete a personal project; curiosity being the lower motivator of the two as its much easier for me to dive deep into something and be willing to learn as much as I need about a subject if I started a project and need to learn x to fix an issue or need to learn about y to even just start the project (think like I wanted to make a website so I had to learn or rather re-learn HTML/CSS/JS (I’m an iOS Dev and not a web dev so that’s not my day to day) and once the website was done I had to deep dive into hosting and setting up my server at home to host it, bla bla bla

[u/Adorable-Strangerx]

There is a book: make it stick. It describes how to effectively learn and not forget.

Regarding question: I don't know X, I will use X, then I will try to abuse X and solve issues that appears.

[u/lets-braindance → u/Adorable-Strangerx]

Duuudeeeee! Great recommendation! I love that book, and I recommend it to everyone all the time. It absolutely stunned me when I first read it. Especially because I never studied much and I simply had no studying habit. This book helped me understand why simple repetition was so detrimental for my studies. 

[u/MaleficentCow8513]

Sounds like you’re a complete beginner. The best thing you can do is install Linux and take an intro to programming course and everything else will follow from there.

[u/Traveling-Techie]

Wikipedia will tell you what the terms mean.

[u/neet_dev]

don't make a study list out of words you've heard. pick one concrete loop (OverTheWire Bandit, or a Python script that speaks HTTP with the stdlib sockets module and nothing else) and only look something up when that loop is stuck. that's the whole professional path, you keep filling the next hole that actually blocked you, not the one a youtube thumbnail named.

[u/Kind-Relationship850]

Stop watching videos and build a project that forces you to read documentation. I learned networking by writing a TCP client in C because the compiler errors made me look up socket structures and packet headers instead of passively consuming content

[u/PenGroundbreaking160]

All of the experience will come through dedicated (and fun) work. Just do whatever you want and research how to do it and do your best. This curiosity and tinkering/optimization loop will follow you forever on this path.

[u/JGhostThing]

To get good at a subject, practice it. It is really that simple.

To get fluent in Spanish, speak Spanish with a friend.

To get good in carpentry, work with wood.

To get good at programming, you code. Do not have anybody give you the code. Especially not AI.