It may be a paradox, but my biggest experience with impostor syndrome was not in a professional environment, but during the FreeCodeCamp curriculum I was following. I have never followed any college course in this field and even if I faced difficulties, I was always able to overcome them.
Until I got to the React challenges and the Game of life exercise. I can remember the feeling I had when I first looked at the requirement. This feeling of being out of place, of knowing that there was NO WAY I could do such a thing. It was a pretty awful place to be in. I procrastinated this exercise for a few weeks. Then, I just decided to break the problem in very small pieces. Just show a bunch of boxes. Good, now just make some of them red and other grey. Ok, now add a random React method to make those boxes change their color ....
Finally, before I even realised it, the exercise was completed and all the requirements were done.
This experience really taught me a lot about myself and how I should tackle this programming thing.
The voice in your head that tells you: "You are worthless, this is not you" never goes away. It comes back every time I face a challenging situation at work or during a complex side project. I believe it's just part of every complicated journey like learning to code.
Whatever knowledge I have, whatever problem I face, I always tell myself that I can always learn a little more. It's never finite, there is always something I won't know, but there is always something I can learn.
I like to think of it like infinity with numbers. Whatever number you can think of, you can always add 1. With that addition, you come closer to a solution, and before you know it, you solved the problem.
Ahhh, I've had the same experience with code tutorials – like, you've just watched the video or whatever and they set you loose to code your first "real" thing and all of a sudden it's like "oh shit, I haven't really learned anything, I can't do this." But you're right – pushing yourself thought that pain point and finishing the project is such an empowering moment. I think your outlook on learning is really inspiring – also I try to remind myself that it's okay not to know everything right away. In fact, if I already knew everything about my chosen career already, it would be pretty boring!
It may be a paradox, but my biggest experience with impostor syndrome was not in a professional environment, but during the FreeCodeCamp curriculum I was following. I have never followed any college course in this field and even if I faced difficulties, I was always able to overcome them.
Until I got to the React challenges and the Game of life exercise. I can remember the feeling I had when I first looked at the requirement. This feeling of being out of place, of knowing that there was NO WAY I could do such a thing. It was a pretty awful place to be in. I procrastinated this exercise for a few weeks. Then, I just decided to break the problem in very small pieces. Just show a bunch of boxes. Good, now just make some of them red and other grey. Ok, now add a random React method to make those boxes change their color ....
Finally, before I even realised it, the exercise was completed and all the requirements were done.
This experience really taught me a lot about myself and how I should tackle this programming thing.
The voice in your head that tells you: "You are worthless, this is not you" never goes away. It comes back every time I face a challenging situation at work or during a complex side project. I believe it's just part of every complicated journey like learning to code.
Whatever knowledge I have, whatever problem I face, I always tell myself that I can always learn a little more. It's never finite, there is always something I won't know, but there is always something I can learn.
I like to think of it like infinity with numbers. Whatever number you can think of, you can always add 1. With that addition, you come closer to a solution, and before you know it, you solved the problem.
Ahhh, I've had the same experience with code tutorials – like, you've just watched the video or whatever and they set you loose to code your first "real" thing and all of a sudden it's like "oh shit, I haven't really learned anything, I can't do this." But you're right – pushing yourself thought that pain point and finishing the project is such an empowering moment. I think your outlook on learning is really inspiring – also I try to remind myself that it's okay not to know everything right away. In fact, if I already knew everything about my chosen career already, it would be pretty boring!
I had a very similar experience with that same project.