DEV Community

Imposter Syndrome: That Same Old Song

Anna Wijetunga on May 12, 2020

Imposter syndrome. They say it's real and that everyone feels it, so don't dwell. Keep moving forward, you deserve to be here. Oh boy. Somehow t...

Read full post

Aaron McCollum • May 13 '20

"See those people? They spent 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 3-4 months learning one or two languages. You spend what? An hour a day?"

"There are people half your age that already know so much and build their own super nice webpages and games."

"There are people in your class that are having the easiest time doing the projects. You don't even know where to start."

"You have been completely left behind by the instructor. You should know what these lines of code mean. I bet everyone else is following."

"You don't have the type of brain to think logically and make sense of code."

Those are some of mine that I deal with. At least one or two of those a day. I keep plugging away though and try to do at least one new thing a day and still play around with what I do know. If it's super bad, I'll take a break and play Fallout or watch Parks & Rec reruns until I cool down.

Anna Wijetunga • May 13 '20

Ugh, it's so real. I'm so grateful you shared this, Aaron, because it somehow makes it all feel less bad! I'm always sorry to hear ANYONE else is experiencing it but heavens, it's good to know someone understands :)

Aaron McCollum • May 14 '20

Same! This morning I started getting upset because a simple function that I had learned a few weeks back was not working and I was like "of course it's not working for me. If I can't do this, how can I even go forward in the class?"

Turns out I misspelled querySelector as "quereySelector"...

...

A massive moment of satisfaction hit once the function worked haha. We just gotta keep plugging a way. One thing that keeps me going is the fact that this coding community is the most helpful, cheerful, and understanding group of people I've ever been around. That's huge. Helps me remember to keep my head up and continue trudging through.

Anna Wijetunga • May 14 '20

OH MY GOSH spelling errors - happens to me all the stinkin' time. SO glad you pushed through that!!

YES, spot on! The community really is everything and it's awfully good to remember :)

Aaron McCollum • May 14 '20

One thing that I think enhances the imposter syndrome is this: understanding HTML and CSS happened pretty fast for me. JS? Not so much. At least not at the pace of my class. I want JavaScript to happen just as fast - that quick satisfaction. Not getting that leads to frustration and many of those thoughts listed above.

Anna Wijetunga • May 14 '20

Honest to goodness, I don't know ANYONE who picked up JavaScript quickly. But here's what I can tell ya. I spent 4 weeks on JavaScript and things really starting clicking week 4. And then learning React for the following 4 weeks was SO GOOD because it made JavaScript feel so organized. I do think JavaScript is tough! SO MANY VARIATIONS. So go easy on yourself, give it a bit more time, and try to ignore those nutty negative thoughts for now ;)

Aaron McCollum • May 14 '20

Thanks so much! This is helpful. They just took down class quiz deadlines so I have the next few months to do it instead of a few weeks.

Same for you - keep your head up! You graduated from a top boot camp and that’s freakin awesome. Whenever imposter syndrome kicks in, remind yourself that you have already done a lot of cool things and a lot of hard things and you can most certainly tackle what comes next.

Anna Wijetunga • May 14 '20

YOU STOP BEIN' SO ENCOURAGING! This is TOO MUCH, too kind! But ok, I'll keep it in mind :)

And I can say the same to you. You've already done SO much, with so much other stuff on your plate - and it would be so easy to put it all off for later. But you're pressing forward, and truly that's what counts. Proud of ya!