So, i've been struggling lately to keep myself motived and going after getting rejected so many times already.
I got hired at a pretty big consultancy company as a junior IT "professional". The promise that they made me was that i would get a frontend track to learn more about frontend and to potentially get a job. Once i started i realised they didn't have a track for me and basically do some more self-study and trying to find some projects within the company at different business units.
I've been here since October and i've been struggling to keep motivated to learn everything. Company's that ask for developers usually look for people who eat, sleep and breathe code and although i love coding and learning etc. When im home i don't really wanna code anymore.
I've been learning Angular(2+) for a while now and i'm also interested in Java (but also because company's look for java developers rather than frontend developers) and i just wanna start anywhere. I like frontend a lot more but im pretty desperate to get out into the big world and actually work in scrum teams and kickstart my career.
I have knowledge of HTML, CSS and Javascript. I do need to learn OOP a lot better but i'm planning to learn that with Java as i find Javascript pretty tough sometimes.
Anyone else experienced the same as a junior trying to get started? Got any tips for me?
Top comments (5)
I played tuba full-time (Yes, it's possible and professional tuba players exist!) before I started my coding career late last year, and I've learned a lot from it. Since I was in sixth grade, practicing the one skill of playing tuba so that one day I could do it for a respectable living was the only thing I knew. That day came, and for roughly four years I performed tuba in a professional band, with full pay and crazy-good benefits, traveling across the U.S. and abroad a few times a year.
But it was a drag. I learned that playing an instrument because it's fun is 100% different than being told what to play, and how to play it. In my time performing professionally, I felt like I was back in 6th grade. I slowly stopped playing in my free-time, because it's what I did at work --what I didn't like.
When I started getting a paycheck in something I loved doing, I stopped doing what I loved doing.
So I started playing on my own again. My own etudes. My own concertos. My own lessons.
Apply this to your coding. Make games. Make little web apps. Make HTML text stories. Make whatever you like to keep you motivated. The problems you'll run in to doing these passion projects will foster yourself to solve problems, and grow.
Best of luck to you!
Thanks for this P.L. Brannan. This is so true and I keep putting off bigger projects because I don't have the time but your comment at the end makes so much sense.
Little projects for 2019 is how i'm going to tackle it. Step by step every day.
Thank you
Ugh, I almost forgot. The role models. They are very important. It is difficult to underestimate how much inspiration I find in things my role models do.
Twitter, Dev.to and other places are great for finding people that inspire you.
More generally, it's better to remember that there's a whole community of programmers and you don't have to always be on your own. Socializing helps to persist, which is what you trying to do, isn't it? :)
I've spent several years questioning whether I'm right for the job and trying different things to find what I like. Sometimes my motivation was so low that I tried completely different careers.
Unfortunately, I did a lot for projects for free on my own time when I was able to.
Well,
Is not entirely true. There are companies that understand the value of work-life balance.
Here's a couple of pointers for the jobs:
For the record, that should not be the case. Look for companies that promote work/life balance. There are a lot out there that don't expect this! As someone who has a very time consuming hobby(horse back riding) I do not often code outside of work.
As for tips....Have you tried looking at smaller companies or at internships? I started at a very small company and the support and teaching I got because of it was second to none! I wrote a post called Tips for Finding Your First Dev Job. Might give you some ideas for things worth trying.
Keep at it! You will find your place, it just hasn't happened yet! GOOD LUCK!!!! 🤗