Programming

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Feeling dumb (feddit.nl)

submitted 1 year ago by Stroopwafel1@feddit.nl to c/programming@programming.dev

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I've been learning on and off about programming for 3 years now. Mostly front-end, html/css/js, for school projects. My degree isn't in CS or IT, so projects that give the opportunity to code are scarce and often short. So I get that I may simply may not have enough hours in coding.

So I'm delighted to be taking CS50 as a Minor at the moment, this has given me the chance to sink a lot of hours in coding, and currently I am in week 5 Data Structures.

But every time I start on the problem sets, I feel overwhelmed and feel like I don't understand anything. I have to Google/GPT the most basic of things. Even though I've been programming regularly the past 6 weeks, I don't feel as if I have improved and I'm starting to doubt if this is a career for me.

In a year I would like to find a career in development. Have any of you felt this way? And what has helped you get rid of this imposter syndrome?

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[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's the great thing, you never get rid of imposter syndrome! The thing that helped me was the mantra "there's always someone better than you". It's true for everything, so I can focus on just having fun and delegating to those that know more (which is also an important skill since nobody knows everything).

As for improving skills, practice makes perfect. 6 weeks is pretty much nothing. If you work out on one muscle group for 6 weeks, the chances of you seeing significant gains is minimal. You've gotta stick with it for months or years. Just look at the weight-loss journeys of people - it takes some years to lose their weight.

Don't be hard on yourself, find interesting tasks or sites with challenges you consider interesting and try to solve them. https://exercism.org/ is OK, but there are many different ones out there. I can definitely recommend watching videos that explain data structures visually. They'll make much more sense.

Good luck!