I began my coding journey around October 2020 with quite a number of difficulties as I was coming from a non-technical background. There was no set track to follow, no one to put me through, I was learning, relearning and unlearning all by myself.
Here are some of the difficulties I faced in this tech journey:
- No set track to follow.
While starting out, I began learning Python language as it was the best fit for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, but I had no specifics to follow. I had no idea of what to learn and what not to. It was all just so muddled up.
- The "I-must-get-a-mentor" phase
At a point, I felt I needed to have a mentor who could put me through everything on speed dial, if I did not get that one person then coding will not work out. But there was nobody like that, I just wasted time. I had to find answers to my questions myself, build projects and learn that if I have difficulties, I should reach out to people in the tech space without necessarily putting the mentor tag or having such person at speed dial.
- Doubt and discouragement.
While starting out, I believed I most definitely will become a programmer notwithstanding the challenges I may face, I had total belief in myself. But about three months in, I was already feeling lost, things were not going as I planned, I began to doubt myself if this "tech" or "software development" was actually for me. Fighting those doubts everyday was a real challenge as I began to lose faith in myself.
But after everything, I am still in the space, writing blogs, learning and believing that this "tech" is my thing. On days that I feel discouraged or doubt, I will remember my "why" I got into tech and keep pushing.