How it started
Summer of 2013, I just finished my studies for high school and got my baccalaureate degree in Natural Science, while I wasn’t a good student in Computer Science, I had close friends at that time who were studying it at University; They recommended that I choose it as a specialty for my university orientation, one of the big reasons was that CS graduates usually don’t suffer from unemployment afterward, and as I was financially not doing good, I had to be pragmatic and choose CS for the better.
The struggle to fall in love with programming
During my first semester at the university, it was hard to cope with all the changes that were imposed on me; The subjects, the proactivity to research and understand all of the new topics that I barely knew even existed before. Frankly, I was some kind of an introvert; I had problems getting used to student life even laterward and until graduation; this transition and what it came with made me anxious, and in turn, I was not caring so much about my studies, I only cared about getting the grades that would enable me to promote to the next class in any manner. Before the exams period came, I had to pass 3 practical tests for C programming language in different weeks, the average would be calculated as the mark of that subject, 1st test was mediocre, and I got not such a bad mark, for the 2nd test, I had to cheat, but I was exposed when explaining the code because I had no idea how the project worked, and for that, I got a 0 mark, and I felt bad about it, so I had to get an excellent mark for the last test without cheating…
Revelation
The last test was about a Card Game in the C programming language; I had my full focus on it; I had to be excellent and make something special. I was researching and was able to create a function in the project that prints colored cards; no one thought about investing an effort in this feature. Then I was able to cover 95% of the game’s logic; doing all of this while I was not good at programming was weird. Am I really bad at it? On the test day, I was next to the professor; I started executing the project and showing all of the features that I had implemented, from the facial expression of the professor, I could tell she was a bit amazed; she told me to open the source code and explain it, then I did go through the code fluidly; after that, she told me something that I still remember to this day:
Was it you, the same person that came cheating last time and didn’t understand a thing from programming?
From that day on, I knew that I had the potential to be a programmer, and C programming language became an easy subject for me after it was the opposite.
Snap back to reality
After a couple of years, although I had several personal problems along the way, I did manage to graduate in the summer of 2016. Being a fresh graduate wasn’t an attractive profile for most employers, and I knew that, and I’m also convinced that I need to choose a specialty and master it before starting to apply for job offers. I embraced unemployment, then started to look for a specialty with these criteria:
- Well-demanded in the IT job market.
- It will stick for several years laterward.
After several days of research, the choice was clear; it is JavaScript. And for that, I spent a year learning JavaScript; I did find a freelance job along the way and worked on it for 3 months, but it was a disaster; I had to work on the full project on my own, from UI design to database. I wasn’t able to cover all the workload on my own, and eventually, I got burned out and quit that job; As I badly needed an income at that time, this was a sensitive period for me; my self-esteem was at its lowest. But I had to encourage myself and continue learning and improving my skills; I built several personal mini-projects and got a broader idea about Full-stack JavaScript development.
My first full-time job
After feeling ready to seek a job, I prepared a CV and started applying; I got a response from xTECH and did a good interview later. In December 2017, I started my first job there; the location of the office was in a calm neighborhood by the beach, and the atmosphere was great within the team; this was more than what I wanted. It was the first time where I worked with a team; I had to understand the methodologies and how to collaborate on the shared code base, I saw how other senior colleagues think and code, and it had an impact on me. After almost 3 years spent in xTECH, I learned a lot and enhanced my soft skills, and gained a lot of experience in coding JavaScript.
Learnings from my journey
Being lost for a while is something most people have to deal with, especially at the beginning; this happened to me and might happen to others that are just starting their careers as a developer. I overcame the doubts that I had through hard work and teaching myself what I needed to know to be a better developer, and until this day, I’m still in the learning process.