If you can't tell, I really love https://xkcd.com/
I had planned to leave my position as BitPay's Content Specialist at the end of Q1 2020 if I wasn't able to transition to development. Unfortunately, despite providing value and meshing with the Front-End development team, there wasn't the budget or headcount for that to take place.
I hadn't planned on COVID-19 or a recession, but I'm still confident about my decision. I'm scared, I'm anxious, but I've largely cured my impostor syndrome. Well, I've at least cured it enough to bet on myself during these uncertain times.
How did I manage this? I got to know other developers, I pulled myself out of tutorial purgatory, and I built some projects.
Getting to know other developers
I've had the benefit of working at a software company. I've been able to work with many talented and experienced developers. One of them, K, is responsible for me finally escaping callback hell and mastering async/await. But just as valuable was seeing him have to look up the syntax for something.
As ridiculous as it sounds, that blew my mind. This guy who is smart and experienced and talented needed to look up syntax. He needed to google something. That must mean that when I need to do the same, it doesn't make me stupid or a bad developer. Development is an open-book test. Not knowing the exact answers to everything doesn't lead to an F.
You likely don't have these opportunities, so I highly recommend finding online or in-person communities to become a part of. You'll not only learn a lot, but you'll also grok that developers are humans just like you and that you, a mere human, can be a developer as well.
Escaping Tutorial Purgatory
I've loaded up on Udemy courses the way some people load up on games during a Steam Summer sales. I've gone through well over a hundred hours of course content. I've been in tutorial purgatory for a while.
The key to really escaping is to build projects. But if you're just starting out, that's easier said than done. You're taking the tutorial because you don't know how to build your own project, right? You don't feel ready to jump into the unknown.
What's a code newbie to do?
Simple. Try and work ahead of the tutorial. If in Section N, you're going to be building a navbar with Bootstrap, pause the video and try it out first. Look up documentation, throw down some code, see if you can make it work, and try to debug the errors you get. Once you've done it yourself or you're at your wit's end, press play to compare your attempt to the instructors.
Working ahead gives you the practice and confidence needed to start building projects on your own.
Building Projects
The most common advice for any newcomer. Build your own projects. You aren't building the next Evernote or Google or Twitter. You aren't even building projects that you'll use. The reason you need to build projects is to learn how to build something with just developer documentation, Google, Stack Overflow, and thousands of online developers willing to help you out. You need to learn how to build without the hand holding of a tutorial.
Starting out, your projects will be learning opportunities. It's okay if they're simple. It's okay if they're little. They are your building blocks to bigger and better things.
If you have any other tips or suggestions for curing imposter syndrome, leave a comment below.
Top comments (2)
Great article. I own probably a couple hundred Udemy courses...none of which I have finished...talk about tutorial purgatory! ;p But, thanks to your article, I will now try to finish a couple of them by working ahead. Thanks!
Pick a short one, too. It was really fortunate I started with a 10.5 hour one when trying to get through a 47hr behemoth wore me out.