Is NeogCamp making a difference?
The state of the Indian education system can be argued to be in shambles, it has failed students in the aspect of preparing them for the modern world. Still stuck with the irrelevant curriculum, the Indian student suffers to adapt in the fast-paced society of today.
I have done several courses online, for Java and Android development, a writing workshop and others. Learning a language is a painful process, you can see people do it all day but learn nothing of significance. You see, when you’re learning something, you don’t want to only learn what the instructor is doing on screen, you actually want to learn the concepts behind the process, in order to repeat them differently leading to different results altogether.
Unlike other instructors I’ve had the pleasure to anonymously learn from, I found Tanay to be quite different. How, you may ask. As mentioned above, I’ve had some coding experience prior to starting level zero of the NeogCamp. The foremost difference between his teaching style and others is that he doesn’t want us to follow the tutorial with him. He wants you to watch him do it while he explains the concepts behind his program, post that you go the guide without a video and write the program. Now, how does this matter, you wonder. When you have to code from your mind, remembering glimpses and running the concepts in your head back and forth to get it just right, you begin to learn rather than just imitate. Imitation is a poor form of comedy as pointed out by my English professor and it’s definitely not the most ideal approach to learn things.
Running into problems while programming is part of the learning curve, he asks you to run head first into one, as you have no ongoing guide helping you through, you’re bound to run into some problems as you venture into the unknown. While scratching my head over a simple method call I made using parenthesis with no parameters, I re-wrote the code thrice, still stuck and quite honestly frustrated as an angry fufaji’s kid at a wedding. I went back to the video, I looked at Tanay’s code on the screen and realised my error. I commented the entire thing, paced down into the page and rewrote everything from scratch. Worked like a treat. How did it help me learn the concepts? I wrote the other similar translation app within minutes from a blank page, no help, no guide, nothing. It was a smooth glide and surprisingly, no bugs. Something quite seldom in the industry. A code running on the first try is comparable to acing your first physics exam.
Another thing, I’d like to point out in his approach to teaching is that, he’s an SDE at Microsoft (if I’m not wrong). I, for one have no doubts that he knows the most efficient methods to get the simple things done, but he chooses to not use them while teaching, he doesn’t overlook the small things other instructors take to be obvious. I’ve seen his microaggressions when people point out a better way to do something while he’s teaching and his anger make sense, because a beginner might give up if his doubts are not accounted for, not everything can be taken care of while teaching. Not everything can be broken down into 2s and 6s, and he knows when it might get overwhelming for a beginner, he repeats those concepts and gives reassurance, not understanding that one concept is a barrier to overcome, not a blockade to switch paths from.
This blogpost might appear as an attempt at buttering by some, if it ever reaches the light of the day, that is, but I’m writing this for two simple reasons, firstly, I feel his teaching is innovative and effective in incorporating skills required in the industry and secondly, I had plans to learn from a course I found on Udemy like I learned the other things I know, but attending the lecture series of levelZero on Youtube, I can see the big difference between the two, Tanay knows the inside-out of the industry, he knows how things work and especially, he is more of a mentor than a teacher, someone who has a genuine interest in “being the mentor he didn’t have”. He made me change my mind and It has been worth it so far. Whatever projects I’ve worked on till now, I’m confident in them, I can reproduce those results without a finger to hold on to. Even If I don’t get into levelOne of the camp, I’m sure I’ll be able to learn and perform better with the skills I’ve learned so far.