Lately, I’ve been getting caught up in the hunt for certificates. Scrolling through LinkedIn, seeing everyone with their shiny badges, it’s easy to think that collecting them is the fastest way to prove you know your stuff. I started doing the same, signing up for free courses, completing a few modules, feeling like each one was a step forward.
But the more I focused on certificates, the more I realised something important: for coding, they don’t really matter. Knowing a language or following tutorials is one thing, but being able to actually build something is what counts. Employers, clients, or anyone looking at your skills don’t care that you finished a course, they care about what you’ve made, the projects you can show, the code you can write. A portfolio of real projects is far more valuable than a list of badges. Building something, even if it’s small, teaches you problem: solving, debugging, and creative thinking in a way certificates never can.
That said, I’m still hungry to learn. I want to dig deeper into theory: algorithms, data structures, and CS fundamentals, stuff that makes me a better programmer, not just someone who can follow instructions. The challenge is finding good resources, preferably free ones, that actually cover these topics in a practical way. If you know any courses, tutorials, or books that have helped you, I’d love to hear about them.
At the end of the day, I’ve realised it’s not about collecting certificates, it’s about building skills that stick, creating projects that matter, and actually knowing why things work the way they do. Certificates can look nice on a profile, but nothing beats real experience and a portfolio you can be proud of.
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