I am new to programming, and trying to figure out if I have the right mental aptitude to be really good at it.

I have years of experience in highly analytical roles, such as financial modeling, data analysis and qualitative reasoning. I was always good at math (straight As) but never took higher level math courses than Calc II or Stats II. I remember having a harder time with science, especially physics.

I’ve only been coding for 3 months but I’m finding it somewhat challenging to apply logic to solving problems through code. I can’t tell if it’s because my brain isn’t used to having to think like a computer or because this is some kinda different brain muscle. I often have the experience of getting 90% of the way there but not knowing that I have to, let’s say call a function inside a certain bracket, which makes the whole code not work in the end. For what it’s worth, I can solve all easy and intermediate ish level problems, but once it gets more advanced, I almost never get it all the way.

Any thoughts or advice? Should I take a course in computational thinking or something else, or is it just practice of seeing and doing more and getting better? I tend to have a very hard time memorizing things and only know what to do if I really understand the how and why behind it. The big picture.

submitted by /u/wonderwomaninc
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