Piscine Survival Guide: What I'd Tell Myself Before Day 1

A few months into my apprenticeship at Zone01 Kisumu now, and looking back at the Piscine, here's what I wish someone had told me before I walked in.

1. It's not really about the code

The Piscine feels like a coding test. It isn't, not really. It's a test of how you handle not knowing something, how you ask for help (or don't), and whether you can keep showing up after a day where nothing worked. The actual Go syntax you're struggling with on day 3 will feel trivial by week two. How you react to being stuck won't.

1. You will not finish everything, and that's fine

I went in thinking I needed to clear every exercise perfectly. I didn't. Almost nobody does. The Piscine isn't designed for you to finish everything — it's designed to see how you work under pressure with incomplete information. Stressing about the exercises you didn't get to costs you more than just... not finishing them would.

1. Your peers are not your competition

It's easy to fall into comparing your progress to the person next to you. Don't. Some of the people who looked "ahead" of me early on struggled later, and some of the people quietly stuck on basics turned out to be excellent collaborators once we got into team projects. The Piscine isn't ranking you against them — it's watching how you work, full stop.

1. Ask questions even when you feel dumb

I held back questions more than once because I didn't want to look like I didn't get it. Every time I actually asked, the answer either unblocked me in five minutes or turned out to be something three other people were also stuck on. Nobody remembers the "obvious" question you asked. Everyone remembers the person who sat stuck for two hours instead of asking it.

1. Rest is not optional

I treated the Piscine like something to push through on adrenaline and no sleep. That works for about four days. After that, tired-brain debugging is just slower, worse debugging. A short walk or actual sleep solved problems faster than staring at the same broken function for another hour ever did.

The one thing I'd actually tell myself

You're not being tested to see if you already know how to code. You're being tested to see if you can become someone who codes. Different thing entirely — and a lot less scary once you see it that way.