The Phase-0 material is organized into a series of nine "sprints", each approximately a week in length for the typical student. You can move faster or slower, but if you think 1 sprint = 1 week you'll have a good idea of your pace.
You can also do deeper or shallower dives into the material, but do try to make it through all the material before the course starts as we'll be working with the presumption that you've already seen this material.
- Review the objectives for the sprint
- Skim the material
- Create a plan of attack
- Work through the material
- If you get stuck, move on
- Take notes!
- Try to get through all the material
- Iterate!
At the beginning of each sprint, review the list of objectives and any deliverables for the sprint. This will give you an idea of what you'll be learning, and what's expected of you. Make note of anything that particularly interests or confuses you.
We'll give you time estimates for these parts. These will range widely as some of us move more quickly than others. Also, the time required will depend on how deeply and thoroughly you work through the material.
Don't go down rabbit holes! You're not Alice in Wonderland (though you may sometimes feel like Alice), so do stay out of rabbit holes. To "go down a rabbit hole" means to get so involved in or obsessed with a topic that you spent way too much time on it. The material in Phase-0 other than the code is for your familiarization. You are not meant to become an expert in any of this.
Before you get started, skim through the material to see what's involved and to get a feel for how to divide your time and effort. Sometimes material is sequential—you need to complete one item before you can move on to the next—but often you can do things out of order. So keep that in mind.
Now that you know roughly what's involved, make a plan for working through the material. Guess at where you'll be and when, and then check yourself regularly to make sure that you're not spending too much (or too little) time on any one thing.
Time to get to work! Go through the material following your plan of attack. Take notes and plan to provide us with feedback. Your feedback will help us to adapt the course to your needs, and to make it better for future cohorts. You can also make note of things that confuse you or on which you'll want to spend more time when you have it.
If you get stuck on something for more than five minutes, take a break, get a drink of water or a bite to eat, and then come back. If after another five or ten minutes, you're still stuck, move on, if possible. And send a message to the instructors on Slack explaining what you're stuck on. We'll give you help as quickly as we can.
But don't sit around twiddling your thumbs while you wait for a response. You'll be getting stuck a lot throughout your career, and it's very important that you do not let this paralyze you. Get used to working around your confusion right now.
Did we mention that you should take good notes? You should take good notes.
Even if you end up mostly skimming a section, try to get at least some familiarity with it. Make a note to come back to it, and then come back to it. Ask the instructors. We're here to help! But try to avoid missing key material. We know it's a lot. There is a reason they call this "immersive" training.
To iterate is to loop back. You'll hear that word a lot as a developer. This entire course (and, indeed, your work as a developer) will involve regular reiteration. So start now. Every couple of weeks, take a moment to look back and skim through notes, resources, and previous material. Try redoing anything you've forgotten or think you can quickly do better.
This should be a cumulative process, each sprint building on the previous sprints. If you're not experiencing it that way, please let us know ASAP.