I've been a professional C, Perl, PHP and Python developer.
I'm an ex-sysadmin from the late 20th century.
These days I do more Javascript and CSS and whatnot, and promote UX and accessibility.
I've worked with people who switched to programming or engineering from radically different backgrounds. Off the top of my head I can think of a cabinet-maker, a bricklayer, an opera singer, a taxi-driver and a couple of chefs. None of those previous roles required the same kind of logical thinking, but just because they hadn't done it before didn't mean they weren't capable. And it's no so uncommon these days.
Switching careers doesn't have to be a lifetime commitment either. You don't have to measure up to some perceived standard or you're out. If you find you don't enjoy it two years further on, you can move on to something else: there are plenty of software engineers who want to be something else. In my office, someone gave up programming to become a stop-motion animator, and someone else spent all his spare time training to be a bus driver. As long as you're managing the minimum required to live, you shouldn't feel like you have to push yourself harder than you're comfortable with.
I don't even know what the assessments are asking of me...
Believe me, that's normal. You know how you look at a website and think, "my mate could have done that in a weekend" and then found out an agency charged a fortune for it? That's mostly because nobody knew what the hell the client really wanted. Imagine these questions as a training ground for that part of your future.
..and if I do understand the question, I don't know how to even start solving it
That's experience. The more things you do, the more you'll be able to break down a problem and think, "well this bit's the same as that pet project I did one weekend, and that bit's just like the tutorial I was planning to read next, and the final bit looks tricky, but I can define what it's supposed to do and then see if anyone else has done it before".
often find myself looking to outside resources over and over again on Youtube, Google, Github forums...
Random kids on YouTube have taught me more than official courses and documentation. The community is real, and most of the time people love to help each other out. There are a million posts here on DEV where people are teaching you how to do the same basic things, and it's easy to see it as pointless or confusing repetition, but it's not, it's people wanting to share what they're learning as they're learning it, and the process of making a post reinforces what they've learned. And it starts them on the road to the mythical Proper Documentation that their companies will pine for.
Ah! Thank you so much for your reply!
I'm glad to read that all my struggles are normal and part of the process.
I've found 2-3 Youtube channels that offer solid content, post 4-5 hour tutorials on the exact thing I am learning in the bootcamp, I honestly feel like without Youtube I wouldn't have gotten so far haha!
I fall under the "perfectionist" camp, sort of, when I try something I want to immediately be an expert, and do things well, but this whole experience has definitely taught me that I need to calm down, and take it one day at a time!
I spend more than 3 hours coding, and even if I don't finish the assessment or module, I've learned to not be so hard on myself because as long as I wrote one line of code I did more than enough.
I'm going to definitely take your advice on not pushing myself too hard, but I will try to make this one of my longer career commitments because I love the concept of always learning, and the possibility of being at the forefront of technology sounds very exciting to me!
Life long tech nerd.
Started soldering at ~12.
Started coding at ~19.
Cabinet maker for over a decade.
I write software for cabinet manufacturing and for my employers.
I've worked with people who switched to programming or engineering from radically different backgrounds. Off the top of my head I can think of a cabinet-maker, a bricklayer, an opera singer, a taxi-driver and a couple of chefs. None of those previous roles required the same kind of logical thinking, but just because they hadn't done it before didn't mean they weren't capable. And it's no so uncommon these days.
Switching careers doesn't have to be a lifetime commitment either. You don't have to measure up to some perceived standard or you're out. If you find you don't enjoy it two years further on, you can move on to something else: there are plenty of software engineers who want to be something else. In my office, someone gave up programming to become a stop-motion animator, and someone else spent all his spare time training to be a bus driver. As long as you're managing the minimum required to live, you shouldn't feel like you have to push yourself harder than you're comfortable with.
Believe me, that's normal. You know how you look at a website and think, "my mate could have done that in a weekend" and then found out an agency charged a fortune for it? That's mostly because nobody knew what the hell the client really wanted. Imagine these questions as a training ground for that part of your future.
That's experience. The more things you do, the more you'll be able to break down a problem and think, "well this bit's the same as that pet project I did one weekend, and that bit's just like the tutorial I was planning to read next, and the final bit looks tricky, but I can define what it's supposed to do and then see if anyone else has done it before".
Random kids on YouTube have taught me more than official courses and documentation. The community is real, and most of the time people love to help each other out. There are a million posts here on DEV where people are teaching you how to do the same basic things, and it's easy to see it as pointless or confusing repetition, but it's not, it's people wanting to share what they're learning as they're learning it, and the process of making a post reinforces what they've learned. And it starts them on the road to the mythical Proper Documentation that their companies will pine for.
Ah! Thank you so much for your reply!
I'm glad to read that all my struggles are normal and part of the process.
I've found 2-3 Youtube channels that offer solid content, post 4-5 hour tutorials on the exact thing I am learning in the bootcamp, I honestly feel like without Youtube I wouldn't have gotten so far haha!
I fall under the "perfectionist" camp, sort of, when I try something I want to immediately be an expert, and do things well, but this whole experience has definitely taught me that I need to calm down, and take it one day at a time!
I spend more than 3 hours coding, and even if I don't finish the assessment or module, I've learned to not be so hard on myself because as long as I wrote one line of code I did more than enough.
I'm going to definitely take your advice on not pushing myself too hard, but I will try to make this one of my longer career commitments because I love the concept of always learning, and the possibility of being at the forefront of technology sounds very exciting to me!
Iām a cabinet maker š
I programming for fun (and profit).