If you are here it means you have an interest in computer science or want to land in an IT company. If you have done your education in computer science then this journey might be easy for you but if you have a different background then it might take you some time to land into IT company, however, trust me if you will be consistent you will get the success! Saying it from my experience. I have helped a couple of people in getting a job in IT so I believe, I am qualified to answer and write on this.

There are many online courses available on the internet that claim to land you into a software engineering job. I am not saying they are not good courses and you should go for those courses. You can remain consistent and can learn on your own. You are reading this blog it means you don’t have a job and before having a job when I ask you to spend some money to buy an online course, I am sure this won’t sound good to you or sometimes we want to go for those courses but we don’t have enough money to go and learn.

In this article, I am going to talk about some steps you should take and study at your own pace at home. you only need one good internet connection to learn from online free resources and one computer to do the hands-on and trust me you will get your first job very soon. There are so many jobs in the market still companies and resources are struggling. In this article, I will talk about the learning path for software engineering or web application development.

The first step is to identify, how good and comfortable you are in the programming and logical skills and pick any one programming language. Generally, we keep switching our programming language based on job calls. Someone says to learn java there is too much scope, we will start learning java no matter if we are good in python. Here, I would suggest learning Python or PHP as a scripting language. My first preference is Python, as it is easy to work on these languages and the second thing is there are not much installation and complexity involved. You can download and start practising, I will talk about Python in this tutorial.

Learning python will involve the below steps and don’t simply go through every point, always ask why are we doing this and how it will help us. Otherwise, you won’t have good fundamentals and will be stuck in the interview.

Python

  1. The very first step is to learn to install python. Go and search on google “install python in windows or Linux and Mac. and follow any link and install the python on your machine. Use python 3.7 or later. One more thing, I would suggest you work on Linux operating system but it is fine if you are a windows user and don’t know how to install Linux at this moment. This should not be a barrier to your learning.
  2. Alright, python is with us, what next? Now pick one IDE for the development. You don’t know what is IDE, IDE is an integrated development environment that is used to write code and it makes your life easy by giving autosuggestion and all. Still, in doubt, go and search on google what is IDE and why to use it. In this blog I will tell you to do a google for every small thing, this is the best advice I can give you, learn to search on google, read and understand from there instead of asking for help from others. I have seen many people in my career who don’t know how to google and ask every time for help from their colleagues whenever they are stuck. We will not go that way, we will learn to google and solve our problems on our own, still, if we are stuck then will not hesitate to ask for help. For python, you can use VS Code and also search on google download vs code now VS code is installed, we need to learn to use VS Code for python so what you need to search on google you know. (Search – Use VS code for python and then search how to use VS Code effectively.)
  3. The basic prerequisite is done, next search on google to learn to code in python. You can start following any links or w3schools.com is also good for basics.
    Learn Basic things like variables, looping (for, while etc), if-else conditions, and importing packages. Read what are the packages or modules in python and how to install them in your system. The basic data structure of python lists, dictionaries, sets, tuples etc. Don’t simply remember but try to see their uses in real life as well. Next, move to Basic Operators, String formatting, and creating functions and list comprehension.
  4. Now We know some basics of python. Now it’s time to do some hands-on and test your logical skills. Try to create a python program for at least 20-30 problems and build their logic on your own instead of seeing their logic online and then simply remembering. This is the worst thing. No matter how much time it takes, it is totally fine if you take a whole day to write a simple prime number program. Initially, it takes time, you won’t believe in my engineering days, I was remembering the logic and program of prime numbers. When I think of that moment, I think of how dumb I was. Actually, we don’t know how to write a program and that’s why we try to remember. Now, I believe that I can write a program for any logical problem, it might take time but I will be able to write it instead of remembering it. So, if I can do it then you can also do it. Just practice… practice… and practice. Trust me and give yourself 3 months you will be good at coding. It is not that difficult.
  5. Alright! So far we have learnt python basics, and we have practised a decent number of problems. Let’s move a step ahead. Go and learn oops concepts and see how to implement them in python.

MySQL

Now, we are good with python basics so the next thing you should learn is python frameworks but wait we haven’t talked about databases yet did we? So next step is to learn database concepts before moving to the python framework. You can learn any relational database management system for example MySQL, or Postgres. I will talk about MySQL here both are good you can learn whichever you want. Follow the below steps to learn MySQL.

  1. Search on google about installing MySQL in your operating systems like Windows, Linux or Mac. So go on google.com and type install MySQL in windows. You will find thousands of articles on this so I won’t write more on this.
  2. MySQL is installed on your system, next we need is database client to interact with the database server. You have installed the MySQL database server, you can either interact with the terminal by setting up a connection with the database or you can use any database client. For MySQL, you can download MySQL workbench and set up a connection by providing your server credentials those you gave in the first step when you were downloading and installing the MySQL server.
  1. The next step is to learn basic of MySQL concepts like what is a database, how to create tables in the MySQL database, fetch data from the table, and manipulate data in the MySQL table. You can search on google like learn MySQL database basics and then learn MySQL queries and try to do hands-on practice on the MySQL that is installed on your local machine. Learn the use of every operation or functionality you learn or read on the internet. Don’t go with theory only, if you can’t implement it then you won’t be able to answer about those concepts if they will be asked in the interview.

    A suggestion to make notes, whenever I learn something new, I generally make a google doc and copy and paste important learning, commands or anything that can help me to revise that topic and as I have implemented that part so I am sure it works. When you write in a notebook that is difficult to search and it is time-consuming to write and store them. You can use any other application as well like Evernote or OneNote for writing and keeping your notes safe. These days I am using OneNote and I like it.
  1. Learn MySQL database concepts and learn to write SQL queries from any resources available on the internet. All the courses and tutorials are good so don’t spend much energy on finding good resources or courses. Just read and do hands-on. There is only one secret to success, read on the internet and implement it. This method will make you an expert.
  2. Alright, now you know MySQL concepts so it is the right time to combine both python and MySQL together. From python, learn to make a connection with MySQL Database and try to run the SQL queries for select, insert and update in MySQL database using python.

If you are good here, you have learned the basics of MySQL and python. If you want to learn advanced things or need any guidance then let us know by commenting below or writing us an email at [email protected]. We will surely guide you in learning advanced stuff or will write a blog on the advanced things.

You can also write your comments if you like the above blog and if it helped you learn. It will motivate us to write more content on learning software engineering concepts.

Happy Learning!!