The term tutorial hell can familiar to many people. It is specially used in the field of programming among developers. I believe people get into this trap in other areas of skills as well, like graphics designing, video editing, learning a new language, and even cooking.
What is tutorial hell?
You completed a tutorial or a course, great. Now let's do another one, and another one after that and you go down this rabbit hole that you can't escape.
Tutorial Hell is the phase of a learner where a person is highly dependent on tutorials and remains that way for a vast period of time.
Remember the time when the teacher was explaining a certain topic and you felt like they all made sense at the time and when you finally had to do on your own you realize you know nothing at all. It's the same thing with the online courses and tutorials that you find on Youtube, Udemy, or anywhere else. It's easy to follow along, but when it's done you're left with no creativity or inspiration. Thus you go for another tutorial because you think that the previous one didn't work out for you.
It's bad enough that you get lured into advertising such as "From Zero To Hero", "From Begineer To Mastery", "Build an app like Uber", "Learn to draw this Professional Character". The problem here is you do not get past the knowledge you're offered in the course. If you find yourself you cannot build or make something and vaguely remember what you learned in all those tutorials, then you didn't do it right. You didn't do your own practice.
I'm not against tutorial or anything of that sort. Tutorials are a great tool. You can grasp a large amount of information through them. You can learn how things work, and learn how to use basic tools. In programming, you can learn about syntaxes, variables, basic loops, function, objects classes, and kinds of stuff like that. While you're at it build the dreaded ToDo list app and even throw in a "HELLO WORLD". However, don't limit yourself there, and build some cool projects, make some mistakes, explore documentation, ask on StackOverflow. Then rinse and repeat.
You're never going to learn and have that GOTCHA moment if you're spoon-fed every time.
Similarly in graphics designing such as Photoshop or Illustrator, there are many tools. You may know how each and every tool work and there are 100s of them, but you'll never create anything extra-ordinary if you do not start using the tools on your own. As you explore around you'll realize how you can use different tools and even combine them to create amazing effects.
It's the same with other skills as well unless you get your hands dirty you're never improving.
I fell into this trap as well. I did several courses on programming in Udemy but I couldn't build anything on my own. My Dad kept telling me just to apply for a job, you might just get hired. I thought I wasn't good enough but did what he said. Well, I didn't get the job, but I did land an intern. It's there where I learned so many things because I had to do them and no tutorial is going to teach me how to solve that specific problem to that specific situation. We just get a few minutes of guidance then that's it.
The point here is to put yourself in a situation where you need to be creative and have to use your problem-solving skills. Sure you'll spend hours stuck on a certain problem or a bug, but you'll feel really great after you passed that.
My single advice would find a good tutorial, follow it from start to end. Please don't rush. Then start building/creating cool things.
Have a good day and be safe.
Love the way this reminds me to take it easy every once in a whole.
I see you mentioned that people learning should finish something and get their hands dirty afterwards. Which i agree with, but need to ask what is your opinion about giving up on a tutorial because you can't grasp the whole subject, and coming back another time?
How would you approach this idea?
Yes, of course, I've seen people playing the tutorials 2x just to get it done quickly. However, our mind can only take in so much information at a time. It's totally fine to take a step back when you do not understand something and come back later. Everything seems difficult at first and it's fine to take it slow. If anything it isn't a race.
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I've always felt that maybe, just maybe, I'll go straight at something with minimal guidance or learning. There are few things I hate more than reading instructions and tutorials. They're important for those that can stand by and listen, and especially if you're going into it the first time. But every time I've found something I interesting, like "how to do computer programming in these simple steps", I normally bookmark them because they're interesting, only to immediately say "nah, too boring".
For better or worse, this is how I've done things, and I've learnt them through my own common sense, and much trial and error. I guess the best teacher in any subject is not to wait around reading tutorials and whatnot, but to just go ahead and "do it"! Every mistake and failure is a lesson learned, and they only serve to make you stronger in times to come!
I can really relate to that 😄 . I bookmark so many things and don't get back to it later. I dont remove them from the bookmark because I think I might need it later.
I think you have a really good mindset and that will get you far in life. You could watch dozens of tutorial on how to swim, but unless you really get into the water you'll never learn. Yes, you'll swallow water few times at first but that's how we improve. :)
That's the purest, most clear way to describe it! I'm still not sure how far I can go, since the road ahead lies with trials and tribulations aplenty, but it's always great to try, and push the boundaries just that bit further than where you once thought it was possible. Don't think much about where you'll end up, but more on where and how you'll get there :-)
Your philosophies are the kind that I read in motivational books and is really inspiring to be honest. If you ever write a book, let me know, I'll buy it. 😁
Thanks, I might include an autograph, too! 😄
I can agree with you 100% on this. It applies to everything! For painting as an example, I would be inspired to paint but didn't know what. I went to the internet to see and I saw things I wanted to try painting, copying from what i saw just to see if I could paint. Credits to the artist of course, it was a success. But then when I wanted to paint again, I was left without an idea and it also left me with the need to look on the internet again. I didn't want to because I quickly saw the pattern I was making for myself. How could I become creative if I do only what I see? There is no growth.
Of course, going on the net just to find a quick tutorial on how to get that certain look, how to make a flower look dried up or something but only do that if you are already wanting to paint that and have started and not getting quite what you want. Although I know I should have done that with my silhouette painting but I wanted to see what I could do first. Next one is going to be better I'm sure.
I'm glad you saw this awful pattern of tutorial hell. Growth comes when you apply your skills. Happy you took that step forward, and high 5 to your dad!
Yes we often only try to copy what we see and never develop our own imagination and creativity. It's fine of course when we're just at the learning phase but at some point we have to start applying personal touch and have that unique aspect.
Like they say "Successful people don't do different things they do same things differently"
Hope you have a great day. :)
Well said! Hope yours is a good day as well.
Yes, oh my god yes. I was there and it's a terrible thing. A couple of google searches and the official documentation of whatever you're using are more valuable than any tutorial.