Either if you want to achieve to

• get your job as an ABAP developer
• master ABAP to enhance your SAP skills to increase your value on the market,

then keep reading, because this is something, what you should know.

The biggest struggle when learning programming online

Based on all the feedback I have received from students, before they took ABAP Academy StarterKit Online Training, the #1 struggle they had to face when learning programming online, was applying learned programming principles into real life projects.

Let me explain, what I have learned from them about this issue.

Most often, students went through a training where they learned syntax + programming principles. Even though they were watching an instructor implementing demo examples, many times the result was the following:

When they started to implement their own project, they suddenly started to struggle! They did not know,

• how to apply the knowledge in specific situations
• to be creative and come up with their own solutions
• to solve issues by themselves.

Some of them were able to successfuly get over those struggles and master the topic. Some of them just got lost.

Do you want to know what is the #1 mentod you should look for, when you want to master any topic?

I will tell you just in a moment. Before I reveal the method, I will tell you how I started to learn programming and why you should know about that.

How I learned ABAP programming and why you should know about that?

It was more than 10 years ago, in my dormitory room. The sun was shining and summer was already coming. I was wearing my old college T-shirt and I was sitting on the chair in front of my CRT monitor and PC running old good Windows XP, with installed SAP GUI, which was connected to a company network, where I was programming my first paid software project ever.

<- on that picture I’m coding something else, but, this is how it looked like ;)

I remember it like it was today. I was sitting there and I was totally lost and depressed, because I was not able to move forward, even though I knew all the syntax and principles from the training. I did not know what I was going to do. Anything I tried, didn’t work, even Google was not helping. I knew I had to do something, but didn’t know exactly what.

Then I called the guy from company, where I was taking ABAP classes and scheduled one-on-one meeting with him. I started to ask questions and did not let him go, until I really understood. That was totally something new for me, because I was not thaught for many years at school to ask questions and clarify the knowledge (well, it may sound silly for you, but it was like that).

Long story short: because I studied electrical engineering all through college, I was used to just putting my head down and working by myself, just me and my trusty computer day after day. And I was able to move forward. When I started to work, I had the exact same attitude. I just put my head down and started to do everything all by myself without thinking for asking any help.

And today, when I work on any project, I make sure that I always have some expert on reach. And here is my troubleshooting procedure: when I get stuck, I take max. 15 minutes trying the most relevant solutions by myself, if it does not work I take another 15 minutes by googling for the solution. And when I don’t get the solution in half an hour, I ask somebody who has got great skills and can lead me to right direction in few minutes.

All in all, being a senior developer does not make you only from mastering ABAP syntax, creating own algorithms, or even creating software architecture all by yourself, but you should work on your personality as well and master your soft skills such as communication is.

How Conventional Way of Learning of ABAP Works?

What people usually do when they want to learn ABAP programming on their own, is that they either

1. take their time and patiently search for information and learn by themselves
2. they invest some money to learn it much faster

Here are the options that you have as well:

• read BOOKS, BLOG ARTICLES, ..: depending on what source of information you get, but in general, it is the longest way how to learn ABAP.
• watch practical YouTube VIDEOS: it is much better, because you see actual programming on the fly, but still, you will spend too much time watching such videos and you can end up being messed up, just because, many times YT channels do not have their instructional videos structured in the way, to lead new ABAP programmers from the beginning to some reasonable end
• take regular ONLINE TRAINING: this is much better, because you get
  • structured video tutorials (+ many times with additional learning materials)
  • most often you get access to some forum where you can ask questions
  • you see examples of how instructor implements project right in front of your eyes

But you know what? For most people, none of that works really well! Even online trainings! How do I know that?

How was I helping newbies to get skills?

One of the parts of my daily work was to mentor new people coming to company or to specific projects and on-boarding them to become a valuable part of our development team in as short time as possible. They had to go through our internal “on-boarding online training” with practical examples.

Guess what happened, when they had to implement their very first project? They struggled! They did not know how to apply some learned concepts into their project.

The same result as in feedback from ABAP Academy students!

Why is that? Research done by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom, published by American Educational Research Association, proved that the most efficient teaching method is using one-on-one approach, rather than conventional instructional methods (for more information read the whole study here: http://web.mit.edu/bosworth/MacData/afs.course/5/5.95/readings/bloom-two-sigma.pdf ).

In practice, I was available for newcomers to ensure as smooth on-boarding phase as possible. I was providing to them:

• regular study check point sessions – newcomer is asking mentor to clear all the questions coming from the training and implementation
• code review sessions – mentor is providing feedback on written code after implementation phase

What is the benefit of such approach?

There are two main benefits that mentored people get. They:

1. master the topic in much shorter period of time
2. get good programming habits right from the beginning

Having mentor is much easier and much faster route to gain any programming skills!

Is this approach good for you as well? Try it out!

Based on what I have stated in this article, I am sure, it is the best approach for anybody!

Great thing for you is that ABAP Academy is coming with its unique teaching methodology, where its big part of learning process contains mentoring in more ways. ABAP Academy spends hours on consulting your issues for FREE, so that you can dramatically speed up your learning process.

And even more awesome, you can enroll in ABAP Academy StarterKit Online Training for FREE with chance to get your personal mentor for FREE as well. You can try the whole learning process all by yourself without any risk.

Try ABAP Academy StarterKit with Mentoring for FREE, and you’re going to get a lot further ahead much quicker. You don’t have anything to loose. Not even time! You won’t get such chance to learn ABAP this way every day.

Questions/Doubts about mentoring from StarterKit students

Q/D: Like many programmers, I don’t like direct interaction with people. I prefer contact via mail.

A: That’s the pain of us (developers). This is the thing, I wish I would have known before I started to learn programming. Having mentor is much easier and much faster route to master any skills. Sometimes it’s much beneficial to step out of your comfort zone to gain much more than you can think of.

Q/D: I couldn’t really imagine, what I would do in that code review session.

A: If you don’t have any questions in your mind, that’s okay. You are there mostly to listen to your mentor. His suggestions and improvements to your code. He offers you his valuable know-how on your work done. Many times you wouldn’t even think about some things you can learn there. And you will definitely not find such information randomly waiting for you on the internet.

Q/D: Seriously, l was afraid that you would ask me something about my code and I would not know the answer.

A: This is very important to learn for you! To learn to not be afraid, when you don’t know something. This is what will make you skilled senior developer as well. Nobody is perfect and nobody knows everything. You can gain skills only when you try hard. And sometimes you might fail. Let me be clear to you, failure is much better than no action at all!

Take your chance to learn ABAP with your personal mentor!

Conclusion

Based on scientific research and from my own experiences, the #1 most important activity to skyrocket your gaining skills journey is MENTORING!

If you want to get your own personal mentor in learning ABAP programming language, ABAP Academy is offering its Mentoring for FREE in ABAP Academy StarterKit Online Training.

Do that, and you’re going to get a lot further ahead much faster!