Learning with Hoppers Roppers

2021-11-06

A few weeks ago, I discovered Hoppers Roppers as a result of a tweet landing on my feed. I looked into it for a moment and honestly the pitch sold me pretty well. Of course I've been working with computers for probably over 10 years now, having had a love for the technology ever since I was very young, but I knew I could use a brush-up on the things I had taught myself years ago and a guide through the forest of infinite knowledge is always a good friend to have.

I just finished going through the first course that roppers provides. The "Introduction to Computing Fundamentals" and honestly? Man this was sorely lacking at my college education. All the stuff that was in this course was so informative and well written that while there were absolutely times I almost said "this really isnt for me is it?" I still was able to learn new things! For instance did anyone else know that 'fc' opens the previous command in your editor, and then runs the modified command after you close it!? I didn't! That kinda stuff is what you find only when you have someone to guide you through the noise, even if you already know a ton of it.

So here I am, maybe 20-odd days later having just finished submitting the final assignment. There's not really a grade and I think, like whos line is it anyway, the points dont really matter. It was a refresher for me!

But, it did get me around to doing a few other things I had wanted to for a while, and I really appreciate the kick in the pants its given me. If im being honest I wanted to jump right into the deep end and start with the reverse engineering course. RE is really a passion of mine that I've just never had the right motivation (read: specific enough end goal) to really persue as far as I would have liked. So I told myself to take a step back, and show myself that I do know what im talking about by starting with the basics. Now I feel absolutely confident that I can start working on the reverse engineering course and, while maybe not crush it, I can certainly get a lot out of it, and really learn to the best of my ability with it.

Perhaps the part I appreciated most about the Roppers course was the very start of it. You dont hop immediately into the thick of a bunch of theory and application, but instead you are asked to take care of yourself. To really say that if you want to improve your mind you must also improve your body. To exercise, stretch, eat well, and get a good nights sleep every night. It's a lesson I think most other instiutions want to try and beat out of you with a disciplinarians stick. To the education world, knowledge is a thing you have to pull into you and beat into your head until it sticks.

But really, knowledge is a dicipline of its own, its a way of interacting with the world, and god thats cheesy, but its also the truth. Anyone can lose knowledge, lose the ability to gain it, through giving up on the dicipline of learning. I think I lost a lot of that through college. An education that went from learning as much as I can to simply surviving and getting out the other end. I'm really happy to have found it again.

If I'm going to go through this next course though, it won't be review time for me anymore.

I'm ready to hop in.