Why first 100 hours of learning is crucial?

Do you know the 10,000-hour rule given by Malcolm Gladwell? It states 10,000 hours of “Deliberate Practice” is needed to become world-class in any field.

While 10,000 hour-rule is about absolute knowledge and requires immense amount of inspiration and dedication, experts like CodingVC have also proposed 100 hour rule. It says,

If you have tried learning new things in life, you must have noticed, 100 hours will make you competent enough. Playing Cricket for 100 hours makes you good enough to play decently, or 100 hours of driving is good enough to make you a driver for life. First 100 hours of coding, that’s where the learning curve lies. Isn’t it?

Further to that, this 100 hours can go waste if not planned properly. Let me illustrate how you can plan it for maximum benefits, but first let’s know our enemies in these first 100 hours.

What are the challenges in first 100 hours?

Your first 100 hours of learning is like the game of Snakes & Ladders. Each snake depicts the hurdle that you will face while self-learning, which will restart your learning process. Whereas each ladder is the help, which relieves you from the issues & speeds up your learning process.

What ladders, you may ask? Well, I am sure most of you have either planned to join or joined Gym, but how many of you are still continuing?

According to a study, 80% who buy Annual Gym Memberships, quit within 6 weeks!

The reason is, the discipline which is required to learn anything is quite demanding. Most of us either give up early or never even begin.

Having said that, practicing with discipline & dedication will not deliver the result, your practice should also be focused in the right direction.

For example, a trumpet player will not become an expert if he/she is only concentrating on playing the trumpet and not focusing on how to breathe properly.

For developing craftsmanship, the initial guidance from an expert is very important to figure out the correct techniques & clear any doubts which can become bottlenecks.

In order to understand the challenges more closely, we talked to a few self-learners. The first challenge which we came across, was searching for right & updated content without wasting much time.

Most of them used Youtube videos, blogs and e-books to learn. They found 2 of 10 videos useful and 3 of 10 blogs unique. With this pace in today’s internet world, learning a skill completely in a structured manner is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Next biggest hurdle was, finding the right path through the World Wide Web maze. The subjects are the oceans, which have multiple rivers (topic/tools) flowing into it. Initially, it is important to understand the depth you need to dive-in as you have a multitude of rivers to cover. Again, there is a plethora of tools which are present in different fields and figuring out the best ones to start with, is challenging.

Most learners of technologies that have a complex setup process, such as Hadoop & DevOps, do not actually know the difficulty level of configuring and setting up these environments. Without proper guidance, the time and effort involved in this process holds them back from advancing and executing programs.

Some of them who find their way through the darkness and got some positive results, still feel that they are not aligned with the industry needs. This is because they have never solved the real-life industry problems.  

Let us take a quick overview of the hurdles(snakes) which a beginner faces in the first 100 hours of learning:

• Lack of discipline
• Finding the apt path for your learning
• Searching for right and updated content
• Setting up the environment
• Searching for your doubts
• Finding real-world projects
• Trying to connect to an industry expert

First 100 hours journey at Edureka

After training 5+ Lacs satisfied learners & continuously evolving our model since our inception in 2011, we figured out major issues and addressed them in our learning model.

From bird’s-eye view, we have 30-40 hrs of Instructor-led sessions, 20 hrs of Assignments and 40 hrs of Real-Life case studies.

Seems intimidating? Don’t be scared. This is not how we deliver.

Edureka follows a structured learning path that contains milestones after each topic. You’ll start with 3-4 hours of live-session where you will be understanding the concepts & clarifying your doubts. 

Then you’ll be working on real-world projects belonging to different domains. It will give you an exposure to real-life industry problems.

Once you have completed the first milestone then you’ll be moving towards the next milestone, and so on.

Edureka makes you capable enough to carry out your 10,000 hours of journey and join the league of extraordinary gentlemen in that field, which is approximately 5%.

Let’s understand how Edureka addresses the challenges faced by learners.

Lack of Discipline

Due to lack of discipline, 90% people oscillate in the early stages of learning. You start with lots of motivation & enthusiasm dreaming about your goal, but slowly your goal starts fading away and you lose your inspirations. Then comes the time when you are only left with depression, dragging yourself with the burden of commitment which you have made earlier. 

You start learning something on a weekend. Next weekend, you have plans with your friend or a house party or might want to have some beer. Again, when you come back to the topic after 14 days, you are back to square one.

Our first objective is to help you fall in line and continuously reinforce motivation & inspiration in your learning journey. When you start learning with Edureka, you have a calendar for attending classes which binds you to a schedule. We know your busy schedule! So, we give you a gentle reminder call before your class starts. From the instructors to the technical experts each of them play their important role in keeping you on schedule. 

Finding the apt path for your learning

For foreign climbers with the dream to conquer the summits of Everest, Nepal Government has made mandatory to hire a guide. You know why? Because they know the bottlenecks & the problems faced by climbers at each checkpoint, and that is the difference between life and death at such altitudes.

The structured training at Edureka is also designed with milestones. After covering each milestone you’ll gain a specific set of skills.

How are these milestones made? Will they take me to the Everest?

Milestones are made after intensive research on multiple job postings & consulting with the subject matter experts. Edureka makes sure that your learning is aligned with the industry requirements, so you can reach the Everest.

Again, in order to reinforce your learning, we give you assignments & case- studies after each milestone. 

Searching for the right and updated content

Finding the right content in today’s internet-paced world is like going through each & every book of the Congress Library to find one. And unlike a library which has curated high quality books, internet is filled with low quality content. With  Edureka, you do not have worry about figuring out the best study material. We bring it to your fingertips. We provide you the updated course content covering every nuance of a technology.

This is true for all types of learning. We know, change is the only constant & that is why, we continuously revise our curriculum based on latest versions of software.

Edureka’s Big Data & Hadoop course has been updated 6 times.

Your LMS (Learning Management System) is a one-stop solution to all the problems. It contains course material, including class recordings, projects and additional reading materials aligned to every class. Edureka also provides lifetime access to the course content & reference materials.

Setting up the environment

To prepare yourself for the war, you need shooting ranges. Setting-up the environment is one of the biggest frustrations. It takes a good amount of time for a learner to setup & configure the complete environment. The hardware requirement also adds to the obstacles.

To become competent enough, you need to align yourself with the industry requirements. Edureka releases you from all the efforts & makes you industry ready providing Cloud Lab. 

What is Cloud Lab?

Cloud Lab is a pre-configured environment which can be accessed by anyone through a browser with minimal system configurations. Cloud Lab is based on real-life environment and follows the industry standards. You can execute real-world case studies on the Cloud Lab without worrying about the setup & hardware requirements.

Searching for your doubts

According to a McKinsey report, employees spend 1.8 hours every day—9.3 hours per week, on average—searching and gathering information. Imagine the amount of time required by a beginner to search for an answer. Most of the learners waste their initial 30-40 hours in just finding the answers to some generic challenges.

But don’t worry, we have a team of qualified specialists who will be taking care of all your doubts, errors and issues. They are available 24*7 for your help and will ensure that you have a smooth & uninterrupted learning experience.

The average queries received daily is 500, while in peak days we receive up to 1000 queries.

Trying to connect to an industry expert

There are two ways of learning, either learn from your own experience or from someone else’s experience. Your own experience will cost you time & effort. It becomes important to have guidance from someone, who is solving the real-world challenges in that technology.

Edureka provides you instructor-led interactive sessions, where the industry expert who is working in that field, will be teaching you the concepts & helping you to solve real-world case-studies. They help you in working as per the industry standards & best practices.

We have a pool of 300 instructors who are teaching 100+ courses. On an average they answer 300+ queries.

Finding real-world projects

There is an acute demand to fill the gap between what you learn & what industry is looking for. We know that an important part of your learning is, working with real-life projects. Edureka provides you with real-world projects belonging to multiple domains. We are ridiculously committed in bridging the gap between what you learn & what industry expects from you. 

In 100+ courses we have 300+ real-world projects.

I hope by above examples, I have been able to illustrate how you can best utilize your first 100 hours of learning. To summarize, to make your learning effective & efficient, and align it with the industry requirements, you need the following:

• Discipline & commitment
• Structured learning path with apt milestones
• Quick assistance for your doubts, queries & errors
• Pre-configured environment based on industry standards
• Guidance from the industry experts 
• Real-world case-studies

As said by a wise man – “Time & tide wait for none“. So, now it’s your call to make, whether you want to start the journey by your own and try to escape the unavoidable snakes, or you want to take the ladders and get a head start.

Edureka is ridiculously committed in making the first 100 hours of your learning smooth & deliberate. Don’t just Learn it, Master it!