If someone had asked me a few months ago what I was learning, my answer would've been simple ie 'DSA'.
Like most CSE students, I started with LeetCode, watched DSA playlists, and spent hours trying to understand arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, and all the other topics that every roadmap tells you to learn.
And honestly, I still do.
I never stopped learning DSA.
But somewhere along the way, I realized something.
Whenever I looked at internship requirements, there was one thing that kept showing up besides DSA which is development.
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Git, React, APIs, databases, projects...
It wasn't enough to solve problems anymore. Companies also wanted to know if you could build something.
That was the point where I started giving web development more of my time.
Not because DSA became less important.
Just because I felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzle.
The first few weeks of web development were interesting.
I thought HTML would be easy.Then CSS happened.I spent more time trying to center a div than I'd like to admit.When I finally reached JavaScript, things started making a little more sense. Then the DOM came along and confused me all over again.
There were days when I spent an hour debugging, only to realize I had misspelled a variable name. And somehow, I still enjoyed it.
Because every time I learned something new, I could actually use it.
Instead of ending the day with just another solved problem, I ended it with something I had built.
A timer.
A small website.
A tiny feature.
Nothing groundbreaking, but it was mine.
Seeing something work in the browser after hours of debugging is a different kind of satisfaction.
One thing I used to believe was that you had to pick one path.
Either become really good at DSA first or start building projects.
Now I don't think it's that simple.
For me, they complement each other.
DSA teaches me how to think.
Development teaches me how to apply those ideas to build something people can actually interact with.
One improves my problem-solving.
The other reminds me why I started coding in the first place.
I'm still a beginner.
I still get stuck on easy LeetCode questions.
I still spend way too much time fixing bugs that shouldn't exist.
I still Google things almost every day.
And I'm completely okay with that.
I think social media has made it easy to feel like you're always behind.
Someone is solving harder problems.
Someone is building cooler projects.
Someone is getting internships.
It's easy to compare.
But I've realized that learning isn't a race.
As long as I'm a little better than I was yesterday, that's enough.
Every problem (whether it's on LeetCode or in VS Code)is helping me become a better developer.
And I think that's progress worth celebrating.
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