Growing up, I wasn't exactly the best student. My grades were the very definition of passable, and I was at odds with my teachers more often than n...
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That's the spirit! "It's only upwards from here"
Keep it up man, I've been through similar journey, lost many good years along the way, but that's what makes me, and this is what makes you.
Look ahead and don't turn back! The best is yet to come!
Hell yeah!
It's crazy how we often percieve ourselves to be something we're not. I feel like I'm on the opposite side; taught myself react/redux while working a normal job over 3 year period. I was able to make a full service custom forum builder with items and a queue manager using firebase in about a month. It was my first real completed project. I managed to get an opportunity,but passed because it was a startup. Since then I'm not sure why I can't seem to land a react gig for the life of me. They see my resume which is heavy data and that's it. I know I need to get a portfolio up so I'm working on that now.
One thing I learned from it all was people can never take away what you do know and it's up to me/you to do what we know.
I really enjoyed your piece, and it resonated with me in several ways. I was born and raised in Italy where conditions such as ADHD are chalked up to kids being lazy/stupid/mischievous. I was diagnosed in the US when I turned 30 and even though all of the signs were there I was never aware I had it, and so my school years, while moderately successful as far as academic results, were always a struggle and I had to put in twice as much the effort as my peers to achieve what they did. Despite ADHD though, I taught myself to program, first with PHP and then several other languages over the years. You are right, conventional education some times just doesn't work for some people. My way of learning, as I imagine yours too, is different than others. I can't sit for hours reading on a book, I need to do what I'm learning. That's why I think programming works so well for creative people, people that need to solve problems, be engaged into something challenging while not discouraging. That is also why tech companies aren't much interested in formal education anymore. Until something changes in the way such disciplines are taught, many brilliant people who would otherwise achieve great success, will fall through the gaps of an inadequate system.
Good on you, as with all endeavours not everything will be highs, but I can tell you that after 30+ years of programming, when a part comes together it's still highly satisfying. I may not throw my hands up in the air in victory (much) but making a difficult module work gives me the same thrill as beating a boss in a Dark Souls game 😄
Dev.to started a mentoring system recently, may be good to hook up with people here. I'm also part of it and am open for Qs from you and of course anyone else here on the site.
Best of luck and stay hungry!
I will have to check out the mentoring system, would be really good for me. As for the Dark souls part, love that game so much, i always jump up and do a dance if i beat a boss.
I wish you the best of luck on your journey 👌
Thank you :)
I empathise with this so much, haha. I'm currently in uni for CompSci and I suffer from major imposter syndrome, so far everything's going well though. I try and reassure myself of my love for programming whenever I worry too much about whether I deserve to be doing what I'm doing.
I assure you: it wears off. But it never wears off entirely. Creation is intrinsically rewarding and, oh, the things you can make!
My random thoughts on this:
There are a lot of giants in the field, and as knowledge work it can be fairly competitive, even if not always publicly so.
Some people struggle to make peace with the thought of not being one of those giants. I know I do, and likely always will. I have a degree in it, and work experience, but it doesn't quiet that voice -- I'm just more aware of the folks who came before me, and who exist around me, and I expect that much more of myself.
I think it's more about personality than anything specific to coding, honestly -- how competitive is a person? How much pressure do they put on themselves to be the best?
Ultimately I think most problems require not a genius but someone who can build maintainable stuff out of easy-to-reason-about abstractions. And thankfully the process of building things appeals to me all on its own. I coded before I was old enough to care what people thought of me as a "developer" and will likely always do some amount of it.
Anyway, programming is full of natural tinkerers who have nontraditional or checkered educational pasts. I have one myself, and it's been fine -- lazy hiring managers might hold out for Ivy Leaguers, but ultimately talented people recognize talent in others.
Awesome to hear you're finding your niche. I'll leave you with a Perlisism:
Your computer is too smart, that's a better way to look at it, one day you will outsmart your computer.