I thought I'd be a natural programmer for a while because a lot of family members were awesome with computers. My father was a network engineer, my mom a technical translator and my grandfather worked for IBM in the time they required a team from the USA to install a 10mb hard drive that would 'last them for decades to come'. Go figure.
With all the computers around, I enjoyed gaming, overclocking and tinkering around with hard- and software. I studied IT management and worked at help-desks and it wasn't until I started studying IT engineering that I got my wake-up call.
The whole studies already started out ominous as I didn't have the right qualifications and had to do an algebra summer course. I passed this course somehow, but it was a strong reminder on how bad I am at math.
When the study began and the actual programming started, things became even worse. I remember programming Java all day long and literally being the slowest of the class. While I was still trial and erroring my way around the first assignment (rendering a simple drawing of a house) my neighbor took it upon himself to make a calculator which was 'better than the default Windows one because it could calculate more numbers behind the comma' or some shit like that.
That was the moment I began understanding the difference between people who are natural programmers and... me. If I would continue the IT-engineering study, I would be making it really hard on myself. Things that seem to come natural to my classmates were a real struggle for me. It was pretty sobering because I was used to being good at everything without even trying too hard.
After three months I called it quits, and I'm glad I did so. After all, I've found my way to programming in another way!
I thought I'd be a natural programmer for a while because a lot of family members were awesome with computers. My father was a network engineer, my mom a technical translator and my grandfather worked for IBM in the time they required a team from the USA to install a 10mb hard drive that would 'last them for decades to come'. Go figure.
With all the computers around, I enjoyed gaming, overclocking and tinkering around with hard- and software. I studied IT management and worked at help-desks and it wasn't until I started studying IT engineering that I got my wake-up call.
The whole studies already started out ominous as I didn't have the right qualifications and had to do an algebra summer course. I passed this course somehow, but it was a strong reminder on how bad I am at math.
When the study began and the actual programming started, things became even worse. I remember programming Java all day long and literally being the slowest of the class. While I was still trial and erroring my way around the first assignment (rendering a simple drawing of a house) my neighbor took it upon himself to make a calculator which was 'better than the default Windows one because it could calculate more numbers behind the comma' or some shit like that.
That was the moment I began understanding the difference between people who are natural programmers and... me. If I would continue the IT-engineering study, I would be making it really hard on myself. Things that seem to come natural to my classmates were a real struggle for me. It was pretty sobering because I was used to being good at everything without even trying too hard.
After three months I called it quits, and I'm glad I did so. After all, I've found my way to programming in another way!
Thank you for the interesting question!
Thank you for adding your story too :D
I wasn't expecting so many awesome replies to be honest, hahaha.