First a bit about me, I just started my Junior year at Utah Valley University studying Full Stack Web Development. In August I landed my first EVER programming job! One of my friends from school was able to get me an interview where he worked, and they liked me enough that they gave me a job offer and I took it.
When I first started I had absolutely no idea what to expect. And one month in, oh man have I learned a lot!
One of the biggest things I have learned is that imposter syndrome is real. I have learned a lot in my classes from school and in my personal side projects, and would consider myself a decent programmer. But the biggest struggle is feeling like I have no idea what I am doing, even though I know I have done more complicated things before.
After thinking about it, I can point to one thing that has caused this feeling. Learning the structure of the application and how everything works together. I feel like I spend about 80% of my time learning how every function and file works together and about 20% of my time adding/fixing what needs to be done.
Even though this has caused discouragement on my end. I have realized that my colleagues and boss have not expected me to come in and have a perfect understanding withing the first day or even first week. They expect me to come with the with questions when I cannot figure something out or do not know how a certain part of the framework works.
Advice
So, the thing that I would tell any new programmer is that no one expects you to know everything right off the bat. Give yourself time to learn the structure of the app you are working on. Give your best effort to figure things out on your own, and if you still can understand it, ask for help understanding. Don't ask them do to it for you, ask questions so you can go back and do it yourself. The other most important advice would be, don't give up. They hired you for a reason, they saw something in you. Try to see that thing in yourself.
Top comments (3)
It should be public knowledge that when you start out, you should seek help where possible and move at your own pace through the work that other people have done.
Asking questions is the biggest take away. If you stay silent then it makes you look bad especially if you struggle on a problem which could have been solved if you just asked for help.
Nice article @andrewperkins . Totally agree with your advice part.