Thanks to social media and the rise of intensive bootcamps, it is natural to expect to become a developer quickly. I won a scholarship to a local coding bootcamp, dreaming of breaking into tech. However, this turned out to be not as easy.
I soon found myself overwhelmed by the full-time learning schedule (10am-5pm) due to my part-time job and health issues. From someone who was very confident, I began to fall behind. I managed to finish the frontend section, but eventually gave up when it came to backend and databases. I was drowning in self-doubt. I decided to drop the course, thinking coding was not for me. The funny thing is, I was still daydreaming about building beautiful and user-friendly websites.
Soon, my school shut down due to Covid, and I became temporarily unemployed. Instead of panicking, I felt eager to get back to coding.
What I'm doing differently this time:
Reflect on what I have done well and what needs improving. Now I don't rush. I take baby steps, making sure I understand the concepts and get lots of practice.
Have a goal. I want to create a web app that displays pet-friendly places nearby. I started with the front-end layout while learning to write APIs and connect to a database.
Seek help. Learning to code should not be a lonely journey. You don't know what you don't know. Like-minded people help me learn faster and stay motivated.
Embrace confusion. Coding is totally different from what I've done before. There are days I see almost no progress, spending hours debugging. But that's ok. Looking back, one year ago, I could not write a single line of code.
I highly recommend this article about why coding is so damn hard so that you won't beat yourself up when feeling stuck.
In short, bootcamps are not for everyone. Quitting does not mean we're a loser.
“Failure shows us the way, by showing us what isn’t the way.” ― Ryan Holiday.
To continue or to stop is a matter of choice and I believe there is never a wrong choice.
Feel free to connect with me via Twitter 😄