Near the end of 2019 after a discovery glimpse on Twitter, I decided to explore the tech world 👩🏾💻. Like any curious person does, I went down the rabbit hole of research. I DMed people and asked for advice on what direction to take.
Thankfully they were kind enough to respond 🙏🏾, and I continued down my research rabbit hole. Now mind you, I studied Information Technology at university, but programming just never stuck and I never got in the tech field as intended. Anywho, the more I researched, I discovered "Tech Twitter", along with numerous blogs and YouTube videos on how to get into web development.
Needless to say, I read everything. What I didn't immediately read was bookmarked 🔖 for later. Then comes the "I'm going to do EVERY course 😁" excitement. Insert 'signed up for several Udemy courses' and 'bookmarked every course/learning resource' here.
Care to guess what happened next❓
If you guessed information overload, overwhelm and analysis paralysis - yep, that's right. Then I started to feel discouraged with all the things I'd have to learn 😞. It's a lot! Yet every time I read someone's story through a tweet or blog, every time I watched a video, I'd be inspired to get into this industry too 😌. I decided I would be on this journey for the long haul, struggles and all.
Then I jumped into 2 different courses, tried to do 100 Days of Code twice, fell off and gave up. Add feeling discouraged because other developers who call themselves "newbies" are way ahead of you to that, and you get "Can I even do this?" Their version of newbie and my version of just starting newbie are two different things 😩.
The developers I follow and admire are at minimum 1-3 years into their career. Plus, as a dev, you know many concepts aren't easy to understand and sometimes take a while to click in your head. I felt like giving up, though I never shared it. Seeing tweets from experienced developers encouraging beginners to "Keep going" and "It'll click, don't worry, just don't stop" became something I looked forward to daily 🙏🏾.
So far I've been staying on the learning journey, but also realise I wish I had an accountability partner who could relate to where I am on the path. What is refreshing though, is that the tech community is welcoming and supportive 💙. I'm learning to lurk less, not be afraid of being a beginner, find a non-judgemental community and learn in public.
Thanks for reading! Until next time 👋🏾.
Top comments (2)
Wow this is me to the T! Reading this gave me all the energy, motivation, and validation for the the things I have been feeling over the last year or so. Thank you so much for writing this.
It's so encouraging to see I'm not the only one struggling! It's rough! Thanks so much for reading! Let's keep at it 👊🏾