"The first thing I did was look at their Q&A forums, and someone usually had the same problem as me. ... If this didn't work, I was proactive by going to the internet and googling things. This often worked to solve my confusion and taught me things about how "real coders" solve their problems."

This. I don't understand why people think having to Google something here or there is a complete failure of Codecademy. If anything, that gives them a better idea of how programmers solve their everyday problems.

It would be really interesting if Codecademy attached keywords or Google phrases to each step in a lesson. If they sensed that someone was stuck, they could show the phrase they recommend Googling, and explain that that's probably what a programmer would do. Or they could just sneak in a step in a couple lessons that involve Googling something. I really think that is a huge part of the programming mentality that should be taught.