Learning Python at 13: What Worked, What Didn’t

Timmy675g — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 07:40:27 +0000

Hey Dev.to people and developers!

I’m Timmy, a 14-year-old coder from Indonesia who’s been learning Python for about 1.5 years now.

I just wanted to share my experience on what actually helped me learn Python, and what didn’t really work out.

By the way! this is just my personal experience. Everyone learns differently, so if you’ve had a different journey, that’s totally nice and cool!

What Worked for Me :

So when I first started learning Python seriously at 13, my parents got me a tutor and honestly, that made a big difference.

The way we did it was pretty good:

The tutor gave me small or medium lines sized of codes
I had to figure out what it did and how it worked
And whenever I got confused, they’d explain it clearly

After about 8 months, i started to actually understand the basics and even some more advanced stuff. Eventually, i was confident enough to start making my own projects, and that’s when things got really fun.

So yeah, for me having someone to guide me was super helpful.

They answered my questions, kept me on track, and helped me learn way faster than I could on my own.

What Didn’t Work for Me :

Before i had a tutor, i tried learning Python by myself when i was like 12. I was really excited to start, but... I didn’t know where to begin.

Here’s what i tried:

Watching YouTube tutorials (they were either too long or too confusing)
Reading a Python e-Book (honestly I barely understood it)

The only thing that kinda worked was playing around with Turtle (you know, that drawing module). It was fun, but it didn’t really help me learn Python and i was just messing around.

So yeah, trying to learn by just watching videos or reading stuff didn’t really work for me.

I needed someone to actually explain things and help me figure stuff out when I got stuck.

Thanks for reading! That’s pretty much how my first 1.5 years of Python went — what helped me grow, and what just didn’t click.

If you're learning Python too, i hope this helps a bit! And if you ever need help or want a script made, feel free to reach out — I’m always open to chat or take on small projects.

Check out my GitHub here!
-- > https://github.com/Timmy675g/Kodland-Phyton-pro

Or even my Carrd!
-- > https://timcoderdev.carrd.co/

DEV Community: Timmy675g

Learning Python at 13: What Worked, What Didn’t