After shying away from online communities and only being a passive reader, with the start of an okayish 2022, I am looking to become a more confident and active contributor to the tech space.
When I joined college 2 years ago, I knew nothing about programming but of course, courses I took in college made me more confident in coding and it is certainly something I like doing. But it is definitely not something I love or see myself doing everyday for the rest of my life.
This does not mean I do not want to be in tech and I do not think anyone would not want to be in such a fast space where you can make loads of money with smartness. I certainly want to be in tech but I want everyday in my career to be different. A different project. A different problem. And a different solution I hope I solve for.
But first, I need the SKILLS. And I want to document my journey of learning in the tech space so that I can look back on how I have grown.
Everything I learn will be documented here in dev.to and hopefully it helps someone as confused but passionate as me. And hey if you are that person, hit me up! Let's talk about anything tech and see how we can thrive here!❤️
Top comments (13)
Hey Samyuktha, great post!
I can confidently say that the degree to which I like, love, or hate programming has varied a lot in my life at different times... And at the end of the day, all are okay states of being (unless hate becomes prolonged, then something needs to change).
But I definitely have had times where coding felt like a means to an end (employment), and other times where I felt a real passion. Sometimes the passion is in the project my team is working towards, and sometimes it is in the work itself.
But every scenario is fundamentally... Fine. There is sometimes external pressure to always be passionate about this endeavor, and if you ever feel that pressure, just be aware that it is entirely fabricated. But just take it day by day and this work can be pretty fulfilling.
Sorry for replying a year later :( but thank you so much for this advice!
That's great! Keep us updated with what you are upto.
And being confused means you are exploring multiple domains - actively or passively. which is a fantastic thing! Just one advice, dont jump from one technology to other very soon. Learn the basics and get the whole idea about the domian and see if you are actually a good fit there or not.
And as @curiousdev said, keep practicing. make simple projects to imlement your learnings. That's the best way to learn software development.
Sorry for replying a year later :( but thank you so much for this advice!
Welcome 🤗
I'm not sure that actual coding is the main thing that I do as a developer, there's much more problem solving and planning involved, but even so there's plenty of other seats to be taken. What do you like? Project management, design, testing, marketing, data processing maybe? Or is it hardware? There's a lot of options and I think it might help to figure your passion first, and choose tools and skills you want to learn accordingly - to not torture yourself 😉
Sorry for replying a year later :( but thank you so much for this advice! My problem is I truly do not know what I like yet. I hope I find it soon!
If you like programming and Software Development in general, it can be worth it to keep learning and practicing! What exactly are you referring to, when you write "Tech"? Which skills would you like to improve?
Also do not shy away, I think Dev.to is a great place to share knowledge. It does not matter how much experience you have yet.
Sorry for replying a year later :( but thank you so much for this advice! My problem is I really do not know what skills I need to improve on because I get motivated to learn something only when there is an external force like my manager or college pushing me to work on something. That is honestly the only time I learn and implement new stuff.
Hey also keep in mind that the tech space is far and wide and that you very likely will have a multitude of career changes within the tech space once you become familiar with it. There are so many options....even management :P (srsly we need managers with tech background)
~Cheers
Sorry for replying a year later :( but thank you so much for this advice! That is so true! I feel I would be best suited for really dynamic roles where no one day is like the other.
Hardware has moved fast for decades.
Software, not so much. Besides some highly specialised type systems of limited practical use there hasn't been much innovation since the olden days of McCarthy and Knuth.
Whether you prefer stability or fashion is actually up to you. If you want really, really stable, learn a business or engineering domain really well and apply Common Lisp, commercial Prolog, COBOL or an Iverson language to it. If you prefer to feel like you're in a constantly capsizing boat in a vast ocean you've got JS and Python, where library updates come every week and one out of six breaks your application in surprising ways.
Sorry for replying a year later :( but thank you so much for this advice!
You got this!