OSSU: First month (Post 2)

The first month of studying is 100% DONE, marking an important milestone in the process: I broke the ice 💪

For those who missed it, I recently started studying Computer Science at Open Source Society University (OSSU). You can find my reasons and motivations for taking on this challenge in the first article of this series.

I’m taking away three key things from this month:

🦄 I committed and met my own goals
🦄 I realized how much I enjoy math
🦄 Python is awesome, and it’s great to know it has so many uses

Back to Math

This month, I’ve spent a ton of hours working on the math prerequisites. I need to recover all the knowledge I’ve lost over the past 10 years 🫠.

One of the first goals of OSSU is to level up your understanding of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry since there’s a set of core math courses in the curriculum that depend on having a solid high school-level math foundation—and maybe even a bit more.

I expected to spend several hours each week solving exercises and reviewing concepts, but what I didn’t expect was how much joy it would bring me.

I wake up excited to dive into the work, I use my downtime to study instead of endlessly scrolling through social media, and overall, I feel really happy every time I recover a small piece of lost information.

It’s a reminder that we don’t really forget the things we learn; they just get tucked away in a “separate drawer” waiting to be needed again. All the fear and uncertainty about whether I could do this vanished as soon as I started with the lessons and exercises.

Without wanting to sound too cliché, sometimes the whole “Just Do It” mantra is exactly what you need.

To study math, I’m using Professor Leonard’s lessons on YouTube. This channel is amazing because the classes are super engaging and line up perfectly with the prerequisites OSSU recommends. I’m also using OpenStax’s free textbooks for practice exercises and theoretical concepts.

I started my review from the very basics since there’s a lot I don’t remember and I’m pretty rusty. So I decided to begin with “Intermediate Algebra,” which covers fundamentals like equations, factoring, and general operations.

I estimate that it’ll take me a few more months (at least 3) to fully cover the math prerequisites, but in the meantime, I’m also progressing with the Introduction to Computer Science courses.

Hello Python

OSSU gives you the option to choose between two Python courses to fulfill the “Introduction to Programming” requirement. I chose to take the CS50 Python course from Harvard OpenCourseWare (the university’s own MOOC platform).

I’ll be writing a full article about the course later on, covering its pros and cons, so stay tuned to the blog and YouTube, where I’ll upload a video with my thoughts.

For now, I can say that I’m loving it 🤓. I’m already in week 3 of the course, and I really enjoy the mix of theoretical and practical lessons, along with the challenge sets for each topic.

They put a lot of effort into creating high-quality, free material that reflects well on the university and its standards.

I had heard good things about other courses in the CS50 series (it’s a set of courses on various topics), and so far, this one lives up to all the praise.

Technically, I could have skipped this course and jumped straight to the next one (Introduction to Computer Science and Programming using Python) since I already know another programming language. CS50 Python starts from the very basics—covering variables, conditionals, loops, etc. However, I decided to take it to build a solid foundation in Python.

I think it’s crucial to take the time to properly learn the syntax of a new language, and Python has so many advantages that I decided it was worth the extra time and effort.

Strategically, I’m hoping to leverage this Python foundation to dive deep into Back-end development. I’ve noticed that the market has a high demand for this stack, and the tech community offers a ton of resources for learning it. This aligns well with my journey so far, and I hope it helps open more doors for me in the future.

Goals

This month was all about adapting to new routines, study hours, and finding ways to organize myself to take on this new challenge.

According to OSSU’s official information, it’s possible to complete the entire program in 2 years with about 20 hours of study per week. In my case, I can only dedicate 10 to 12 hours a week, and that’s perfectly fine.

It might take me a bit longer, but I’m not letting that pressure me. One thing I’ve learned in the past two years of self-studying Web Development is that I prefer to focus on small daily steps rather than setting artificial deadlines far in the future.

What I mean is, that it’s better to focus on making a little progress every day, and the big goals will come naturally through those small efforts.

That’s why, this first month, I focused on building the routine and habit of dedicating 2 hours a day, Monday through Friday, to OSSU. In the end, I’m basically attending classes every afternoon like any technical program or university, but if I don’t motivate myself and follow through, there’s no one to catch me when things get tough.

If I can maintain 2 hours a day over a long period, I’ll eventually reach the goal of completing the entire curriculum. Everything else is just extra because every little piece of the puzzle I manage to master directly impacts and improves everything I’ve already learned about Web Development.

This month, I logged more than 40 hours of study, but the purpose of this section isn’t to brag about hitting my goals. Instead, I want to invite you to think about a system that helps you stay consistent with your own goals.

For any self-learner, the method that organizes your study efforts is almost as important as the goals themselves. Without a learning system, it’s easy to get lost in the sea of information, options, and opinions in tech.

For those who don’t know me, I’ve spent over a year doing 100 Days of Code challenges almost constantly because it works. Today I make a little progress, tomorrow a bit more, and that’s how things get done. Sharing the process on social media forces me to be consistent with myself and with those who support and follow those posts closely.

This topic is huge, and I’ll probably expand on it in a separate blog post, but for now, I’ll leave you with this: The study routine you create for yourself is just as important as the roadmap you choose. When motivation fails (and it always does at some point), only your habit systems can keep you afloat.

For this first month, it’s super important to me that I managed to stick to my two hours of study per day, even when things didn’t go as planned.

That’s the summary of my first month studying Computer Science at OSSU. I hope you enjoyed it, bye!

See you next month 👋

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