Godot Tutorials is not affiliated with or sponsored by Godot Game Engine, full transparency. I have a professional relationship with both Shawn Shipton of the Game Development Center Community and Will of Will Nations Dev YouTube Channel. The last episode of the Godot Basics Tutorial series is called Teach Yourself to Learn Programming. Now, as a beginner, how can you effectively learn something new when you have no clue what you're attempting to teach yourself? This is a dilemma that all beginners face and the answer is quite simple. You learn from others who know what you want to learn, preferably one on one. In this episode, we will go over six different categories. The first is online courses. The second is YouTube channels aimed at Godot. The third is paid materials for Godot. The fourth is game developer conferences. The fifth are Godot communities you can partake in. And lastly, and my favorite mentoring first, let's start with online courses. In today's age, there's an abundance of free online courses taught by extraordinary people in any industry. The three I'm going to go over is Harvard University Online and MIT University and Coursera. Let's start with Harvard University.

Even though Harvard University charges of tuition in order to obtain a degree, Harvard does offer free online courses in a range of different topics. Of course, a topic we are most interested in is the subject area of computer science. If we take a look at Harvard's courses for computer science, you can see a range of different topics are being covered, such as machine learning and, of course, computer security or cybersecurity. Regardless, as a beginner, the three courses you should take the most interest in are the following the introduction to computer science web programming with Python and JavaScript and eventually the introduction to game development. All of this was charged to students at some point in time. However, Harvard gives this two for free, so take advantage of that. I personally recommend you start with introduction to computer science and then move into introduction to game development. However, keep in mind that this is just my recommendation. The second online course I like to recommend is the MIT Open Courseware and MIT standing for Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now, just like Harvard and MIT does teach a range of different topics over in order to find programming related topics, you're actually going to have to search for it.

Now, once you've went ahead and typed in programming, you're going to see all the free programming resources available to you on the MIT website or in this case, the MIT Open Courseware website. Now, the one thing I like about MIT is that they'll actually show you the different levels or different courses that you can take one after another. So in this case, I clicked on introductory programming courses. And as you can see here at MIT, Open Courseware recommends you learn introduction to computer science and programming in Python, then move into introduction to computational thinking and data science. And, of course, moving on with whatever topics you feel like tackling. On top of that, you're also able to download the individual video lectures. And on top of that, they do have interactive assignments available to you that come with both the questions and the solutions. Let me go back to the previous page now. One thing you do have to keep in mind is that the video lectures, although free, are a little buggy when you want to download them. So in order to download them, just head to the video, click on download this video, click on Internet Archive, wait for the video to load once the video has loaded. Go ahead and either right click save video as or click on the three dots and download it. The issue I do face sometimes is that videos do take a while to download, sometimes over an hour, and sometimes you have to press the download button a few times before your Web browser actually attempts to download the video file. Last and not least is Coursera. I recommend Coursera again because all the video lectures are available to you for free. As a matter of fact, you are able to join Coursera for free. On top of that, when you do log in, you'll have access to all the video courses and lectures available to people who pay the yearly fee for Coursera certificate.

The good news is you don't miss out on much by learning through Coursera for free, and that's because of Coursera stops you from doing, ah, the homework assignments, submissions and getting the certificate or attempting to do the capstone projects available to you in Coursera. And let me tell you that you are missing nothing by skipping the capstone projects. Now, if you are tempted to pay for Coursera to get these certificates, let me be the first to tell you that Coursera certificates are not highly regarded in the programming industry. One thing to keep in mind is that if you have no job experience for the job you are applying for a certificate is a great way of showing to your future employers that you are taking a specific subject seriously. The problem is Coursera certificates are not seriously taken. Let me give you an example. Let's say you want to get a job as a cloud architect designer. You may be tempted into finding the AWB fundamentals course or in this case, specialization from Coursera or specialization means is that the courses come with a chance of obtaining a Coursera certificate. Now, learning eight of us is great. And I'm not trying to stop you from getting a certificate from eight of us if you choose to do so. However, I am recommending that instead of getting your certificate from Coursera instead you actually go to the AWB website hosted by Amazon and prepare for the highly regarded Amazon certificate exam. And as you can see here, if we scroll down, you can see all the available certificates you can get from Amazon. Next, let's go over YouTube channels unguardable.

Now, I'm not playing favorites with the channels. I'm recommending. As a matter of fact, I'm only recommending channels to you that I have already seen myself when I started with Godot or continuing to c# as of now, the five channels I'm going to recommend to you today or Game Development Center, heart based game Endeavor Game from scratch and Will Nations Dev Game Development Center is a YouTube channel that aims to teach you game programming and game development in Godot . On top of that, the community of Game Development Center are quite friendly. The Game Development Center has many different learning opportunities. However, the one that Game Development Center is absolutely known for currently is the dedicated multiplayer series. So I highly recommend you check that series out. If you want to get into multiplayer game development. The next channel on the list is Heartbeat's. Just like the Game Development Center. The heartbeat's YouTube channel comes with a plethora of videos. The one I recommend you watch is the Godot Action RPG series. And this is great if you want to get into creating your very first game, especially if all you've seen are my first two series which go into theory and not practice. The next channel on the list is Game Endeavor. As a matter of fact, Game Endeavor is the first YouTube channel teaching Godot that I started watching when I wanted to learn Godot myself.

One thing to note is that Game Endeavor has moved onto Dev lugging server B channel still aims to teach you new things as Game Endeavour goes along their journey into making their game. One of my favorite attributes of Game Endeavor is that Game Endeavor is quite entertaining to watch. What I mean is you will never get bored of watching any of game endeavors videos because gaming never does have a gift of getting you to love. Game Endeavor goes over quite a lot of different game development concepts, so I recommend that you watch every single one of game endeavors. Video, playlist, series. The next channel on my list is Game from Scratch. Game from Scratch has playlists that teach you about the Godot game engine, both 2D and 3D. However, I recommend subscribing to Game from Scratch because Game from Scratch is a great place to keep up to date news on everything and anything on the Godot game engine. Last end, not least, is the Will Nations Dev YouTube channel now, even though Will Nations Dev hasn't uploaded anything recently. The reason why I recommend subscribing is because will nations def does upload from time to time over. Will is just quite busy being a regular contributor to the Godot Game Engine Source Code Project over when will nations def does upload to YouTube. It is always a breath of fresh air, as you will always walk away learning something new. Next, let's go over paid materials for Godot.

Now I am only recommending these two resources because I have personally paid out of my pocket to buy these resources. And I would not recommend these two if I don't think they would be of any benefit for you, especially as a beginner, the two resources I'm talking about is the Godot engine game development in twenty four hours book and the Godot Tutty Secrets from the Jedi Quest website. The first paid resource I'm recommending is the Godot engine game development in twenty four hours. As a matter of fact, I structured my entire Godot Basics Tutorial series on the idea that I would recommend this book on the very last episode. If you were to buy this book, I feel you would have an easier time going through the game projects because I go over everything that this book goes over in just a little more detail without any of the practical examples. Just in our six, you'll be able to create your first space shooter game. So again, this book I highly recommend that you buy and you use it to practice your game programming skills. The second resource I'm recommending to you as a beginner is the Godot 2D secrets. Now they could do to these secrets is intended for an intermediate audience. As a matter of fact, if you want more details into what I think the value is for this series, please feel free to read my review of the course. One thing I want to note is I am not sponsored by or affiliated with Judy Quest. As a matter of fact, I have no idea who Judy Quest is. The review is my own personal opinion and only mine. I actually want to go into a little bit more detail on why I am recommending Godot The Secrets to Beginners. To reiterate Godot, Tuti Secrets is intended for an intermediate programming audience. However, as a beginner, I recommend you buy the course because I want you to buy the course, read the code, get beat down to the ground and get yourself back up.

Basically, as you're learning inch by inch through the door to the secrets course, you should be Googling what you do not know and attempting and pushing yourself to learn a material that you yourself are not ready to learn yet is the secret sauce for effective learning, in my personal opinion. Next, I want to talk about the game developer conferences. There are two conferences I'm going to go over. The first is game developer conference and the second is the Christian Game Developer Conference. Now, I recommend the game developer conference for the opportunity to network rather than attending the different speaker sessions. And that is because when you attend the game developer conference, you are given something called access to the GDC vote. And the GDC vote is just all the recordings of every speaker session that has ever existed in the game developer conference. And so because you'll have access to all of the speaker sessions, there's no point in actually attending the speaker sessions. And so your time is better spent focusing on networking and making friends. One of the negatives of the game developer conferences attending life is quite expensive, and that's because tickets do, in fact cost at the lowest price point, about two thousand dollars for the ticket alone. That does not include the cost of hotels and the cost of eating for survivorship. And let's not get started talking about the cost of flights over there is a cheaper alternative, and that is the GDC vote now for a low, low price of five hundred and fifty dollars, which is low compared to the price of a conference experience. You will get access to all the videos of all the speaker sessions at the conference. And as a matter of fact, the conference is quite fast when it comes to uploading their latest conference videos into GDC vote.

You have to wait at least seven days after the conference has ended to start seeing some of the more well known speaker sessions appear at the GDC vote. And as a matter of fact, again, if you do attend the game developer conference live, you will be given, I believe, six months of DC vote. So again, I recommend you use it as an opportunity to network and make friends. The last conference on the list is the Christian Game Developers Conference. The Christian Game Developer Conference is the cheaper, much cheaper alternative to the game developer conference. Instead of a price tag of about two thousand dollars, the cost of a C# ticket is about one hundred and fifty, not including lodging flights and food. Now, the reason I recommend CGT conference is because of the networking opportunities. The community at this conference is much, much smaller compared to the game developer conference, and because of that, you are able to form more meaningful networking connections. On top of that, as a beginner, you need to take every opportunity available to you when getting what I call free mini. Warships now the Christian Game Developer Conference has something called the sage groups, and it's basically a small group of about five to six individuals that get together, I believe, once or twice a month. And on top of that, as a beginner, you can ask all the questions in the world and you'll have someone with experience to answer those questions once or twice a month. And on top of that, to my understanding, these groups also go over books that they go along and so they keep each other pushing each other to improve their game design or game development skills. And so, if anything, I highly recommend you check out the search groups in order to get the most benefits of what I again call free mentorships. Lastly, I want to say that the C# is quite inspirational and by quite inspirational. I mean, some members of the community can show you that games has the ability to impact lives. Let's move on to Godot communities. So I recommend three Godot communities.

The first is the Godot's Reddit community. I am a part of that community from time to time. I like to give small words or text of encouragement to others starting on their game development journey. Godot also has a Discord channel. I'm not familiar with the Discord channel, but I hear high praises for it, which you can find on the Godot Game Engine website. And lastly, I want to recommend the Game Development Centers Discord Channel. And the reason for recommending that Discord channel is because of the engaging, kind and friendly community fostered over at the Game Development Center. As a matter of fact, if you do join the Game Development Center Discord Channel, I recommend giving a shout out to Sean shipped in a very friendly individual. Lastly, I want to go over mentoring. As a matter of fact, mentoring is my favorite method of speeding up improvement on anything new. And of course, there is a reason for this. Mentoring comes with a cost in most cases in the programming industry, a high cost. However, you do get a high reward and that is something I want to reiterate once a week. Private mentorship, along with consistent daily practice, yields the highest results regardless of industry, which again spills out to high cost and high reward. And again, to reiterate, you have to be consistent and daily with your practice. And this doesn't matter what you are learning. For example, if you want to get better at partner dance, if you practice every day, you will get better along with breaks because partner dance is a physical activity and you can speed that improvement up by adding once a week mentorships. The same thing is true with piano. If you practice every day along with weekly mentorships, you can see your piano skills improving the same thing with flying airplanes. As a matter of fact, when it comes to flying airplanes, you'll have study and research during the weekdays and once a week private flying lessons with your instructors on the weekends. And the same holds true for programming as well. Now, I'm not saying you can only succeed with mentoring. As a matter of fact, my story and journey of becoming a member of the debate traveling team for my university, I had zero mentoring. No one wanted to mentor me.

It was almost a story of adversity, considering that the coach, the members of the traveling team, really refused or I should say created an environment in which new members could not benefit. And regardless, you can still teach yourself new skills and reach great heights. But with mentoring, you can speed that process up. Now, since I'm bringing up mentoring, I want to bring up what a good mentor is and a good mentor is someone who guides you to a solution rather than just showing you the answer. A good mentor also understands your goals and realizes that your goal is a journey. And lastly, a good mentor will tell you harsh truths. For example, if you are not practicing every day, a good mentor will confront you on that and explain to you why doing weekly mentorships is a waste of time and money if you're not going to do daily practice. And that's just true with learning any skill practice makes perfect. Now, since we're on the topic of mentorships, the person for mentoring I recommend is Will from the YouTube channel Will Nations DEVE. I have personally taken mentoring on the Godot Game Engine Source Code from Will, and just the way that Will explains all the concepts is the reason why I'm highly recommending Will to you on top of will. I do have a Trello page full of potential mentoring partners over. One thing to note is that you need to be vigilant and careful when forming a mentoring partnership with strangers. Lastly, just have fun learning. There is no single best way to learn everything in this video is just my own personal opinion based on personal experience. And the one thing I've learned is that the best way to learn is a method in which you can enjoy the process and journey of learning something new at your own pace. There is no rush in getting to your destination. While I was making the ultimate episode of the Godot Basics Tutorial series, I ran into two amazing channels that I recommend you check out. The first is the YouTube channel called Tiny Legions. Tiny Legions has the ability to break down game development concepts into one to four minute video snippets. On top of that, tiny legions is very entertaining. The second YouTube channel is pseudo kid, and the reason I'm recommending this channel to you as a beginner is because Sirikit has taken into their own hands into creating an MMO to push themselves into learning the Godot game engine.

As a matter of fact, pseudo kid takes you through the entire journey day by day. The videos are quite long, one to three hours on average, but it's always great to sit down and see someone code. And on top of that pseudo kid, I believe, does twitch streaming. And so you can also get a chance to watch Pseudo Kid live and ask your questions there as well. On top of that, I have additional resources such as the newly published website, so please feel free to go ahead and check that out. I also recommend that you subscribe to my newsletter as I give weekly updates on everything and anything that has to do with the Godot Tutorials. YouTube channel. Also, follow me on Twitter for daily updates on when I'm updating or creating an episode, if that is something you're into. Leslie, I'm also on Reddit, so please feel free to follow me on Reddit as well. Fun fact. When I created the outline and scripts for this series, I only planned for thirty five episodes and somehow Project Scope Creep came into play and the series expanded into 70 plus episodes. So thank you so much for joining me on this very exciting and interesting journey. Well, that's all I have for you in this episode. Everything I went over. I am going to link in the description down below. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comments section down below. And thank you for subscribing and liking my video. I look forward to seeing you in the next series. Have an amazing day.