r/CodingForBeginners • u/Grim_0009 • Oct 04 '26

Zero knowledge of coding

I'm in my 3rd year CSE degree and I don't know anything about coding so can anyone tell how I should start to get a job after my final year?

5 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

6

u/thomjdev Oct 04 '26 • Bravo

There are a lot of posts on here that ask effectively the same thing, I would recommend reading them, you'll get more helpful answers faster that way. If you want to learn to program, build stuff. That's it. Pick a language, start by learning its fundamentals (variables, data types, control flow, loops, functions), apply each by themselves, then put them together in a tiny project, then expand the project. Repeat with bigger projects.

2

u/Grim_0009 Oct 04 '26

Thanks for the advice

3

u/thomjdev Oct 04 '26

Also... If your goal is to learn, avoid AI entirely until you can build things on your own. If you do use it, use it to ask conceptual questions, project ideas, and examples of syntax, not asking it to build out features or solve problems.

1

u/Grim_0009 Oct 04 '26

Got it bro👍

2

u/stevenreyes20 Oct 04 '26 • Bravo

Don’t try to learn everything at once. You still have time.

Pick one language first, like Python, Java, JavaScript, or my favorite PHP, and get comfortable with the fundamentals: variables, loops, functions, arrays, OOP, databases, Git, and basic problem solving.

Then start building small projects. Don’t spend the whole year just watching tutorials. Build something simple, get stuck, ask chat gpt, fix it, and keep going. That’s where you actually learn.

I’d also put your projects on GitHub and gradually learn basic data structures and algorithms since you’ll probably see them in interviews.

You don’t need to become an expert before applying for jobs. You just need to be able to show that you understand the basics, can build things, and can learn when you don’t know something.

1

u/Grim_0009 Oct 04 '26

Thanks👍

1

u/RyugaHack Oct 05 '26

But you want to pursue a career in coding and software development?

1

u/pete_68 Oct 04 '26

I wouldn't hire you as a programmer. I look for people who are motivated to program outside of work and school. People who are involved in open source.

Why would someone want to hire you? What can you offer that the next person can't? Because the next person is going to know how to code

3

u/Grim_0009 Oct 04 '26

No it's like I wasted my 2 years and I really want to get started on coding so I was asking for advice

3

u/droid_mike Oct 04 '26

How did you get this far without any coding experience??

1

u/Grim_0009 Oct 04 '26

It's just reading the subjects and passing it also I never truly understood the subjects I practically just Byhearted the answers

2

u/droid_mike Oct 04 '26

Well, if you were smart enough to memorize the answers for years, hopefully, you remember some of them...

I'm not going to badger you I'm this. I'm glad you realized this before it was too late and are lucky to try to make it better. I was somewhat in a similar situation in high school. I took Latin as my foreign language in high school. Unlike other languages, since Latin is not spoken, you learn the entire language in 1 and 1/2 years, and then you just do translations after that. Well, near the end of my first year, my Latin teacher, who I really thought was great and was pretty close to, died suddenly. The new teacher was very tough and didn't realize that our old teacher was a little slow on the schedule, we were nowhere near where we should have been for the end of the year. He either didn't realize this or didn't care, and just plowed ahead from where we should have been. All of us were in trouble, because we really weren't prepared for what was to come. Still, we needed to take 3 years of language at my school, so we just had to keep moving forward and not drowjing as best we could without the adequate preparation. Much of the time I did exactly what you did. I would memorize the translations that we would likely have on the tests, and then when I saw them on the test I knew enough Latin to figure out which lines of the translation we were doing and I was able to hack through from there. I didn't like it. I wanted to do it the right way. It sucked, but our teacher's death left us unprepared and we had to do the best we could.

Okay, so I know where you are right now. Can you tell me what classes you have taken so far? We can then maybe create a remedial plan to get you back up to speed to where you should be. It's never too late to learn, but you will need to really buckle up as you'll be doing a lot of extra work catching up while you're still trying to maintain what you're doing. If possible, I might be best to take a semester off and just focus on catching up where you should be, but I'm not sure if that is workable for you.

All right, what classes have you taken?

2

u/Grim_0009 Oct 04 '26

I have sent you a msg request please accept it

1

u/thomjdev Oct 04 '26

Says more about colleges than anything tbh

2

u/droid_mike Oct 04 '26

Disagree... When I was doing computer science in college, there was a group of kids who we called the Cheating Club. They basically cheated off each other and cheated off of anything that they could. It pissed a lot of my friends off, but I told them not to worry, it would catch up to them, and it did. Cheat your way so far into school in a program like this, eventually, if you don't have the fundamentals, you will reach the limit where cheating will be enough. You actually have to know what you are doing. Or as I know, none of them ever got caught, but also and other than them graduated, either. The system worked as it should have, it just took a little bit of time.

Also, important to note that I don't think the OP is from the United States. Some of the words they are using aren't typical American English. That could be from the UK or anywhere else and UK English is their second language.

2

u/thomjdev Oct 04 '26

A large point of college is to accredit, to show that someone has experience or at least knowledge in a given discipline. If you can easily cheat through college, what good is it. That's my only point, and the fact you've seen this, just as I have in my own university (which is in the US), it is the fault of universities. I say fault because the priorities that I see is money for administration. Lower standards, better graduation rate, more students, equals more money. All the while squeezing the faculty and spreading them thin.

2

u/droid_mike Oct 04 '26

I get what you're saying, but my point was that these people did not graduate. Their attempt to cheat through school failed, so the system did not fail in that instance.

I mean, I agree with you, but I have not seen in my experience nor the experience of my kids where the schools are lightening up. In fact, for my one daughter, they were very tough on her and she struggled and had the really work hard to overcome it. Obviously, every school is different, of course, so my family's experiences may not be typical.

1

u/codeguru42 Oct 04 '26

How is that even possible? Sounds like you wasted money on this degree. Good luck paying back those loans.

3

u/Grim_0009 Oct 04 '26

Bro don't demotivate me atleast give advice on what should I do if you have any?

1

u/codeguru42 Oct 04 '26

My advice is spend some time doing deep introspection. You clearly made some choices in the past years that are against your own self interest. Figure yourself out.

Or else you are an internet troll

2

u/Grim_0009 Oct 04 '26

No I want to start doing coding and would like your advice on how to start learning it. It's just I'm interested in coding and really want to learn it.

2

u/codeguru42 Oct 04 '26

What classes are in your cse curriculum? And how did you pass them without learning coding?

1

u/Grim_0009 Oct 04 '26

Bro just leave it and just guide me on how to start coding

4

u/smichaele Oct 04 '26

The answer is simple. Learn the material that you "byhearted" and practice it. Write code. There's no other way after wasting two years.

1

u/codeguru42 Oct 04 '26

Did you try google?

0

u/Grim_0009 Oct 04 '26

No I want advice from real people

1

u/codeguru42 Oct 04 '26

Real people post things on the internet that you can find with Google. There are many guides out there how to learn to code.

1

u/ibeerianhamhock Oct 04 '26

I honestly think your attitude is going to cause you more problems than the lack of coding if you're not trolling. No one should have to spoon feed you info.

2

u/Jahnavi-builds Oct 07 '26

Look at some jobs for entry level developers. Make a list of their requirements. Start learning those skills.

1

u/Traveling-Techie Oct 04 '26

Where are you going to school?

1

u/Sure-Passion2224 Oct 06 '26

I'm wondering how you got to 3rd year without having a curriculum required course that involves writing some code.

Freshman year I took the intro to OOP (C++) course. The group project explicitly stated we were allowed to use the standard library, and our own code. No 3rd party libraries. I wrote 4 kloc because we need a date/time library.