Life lessons learned through my software engineering journey
In my life, there have been many failures and different times where I feel like life is just too challenging or overwhelming. I keep making mistakes and I'm constantly being introduced to new problems every day which many people can probably relate to. After starting my coding boot camp it felt like many of my problems would become worse but thanks to the awesome community and friends I've made it has helped me look at life challenges in a different light.
Out of all the things I've learned at this boot camp so far, the most important thing was to think like a programmer. What this means is to really think about what you're doing inside and out. A good programmer doesn't go into a new project or starts debugging without a plan or a general idea of the outcome they want first. When faced with a lot of errors, the first step isn't to rush in head first and get to solving right away as this might confuse you or make things more complicated which can be said about life too.
Another lesson I've learned through this journey is that because choosing software engineering as the pathway I've decided to take career-wise, I will be learning for the rest of my life and an important skill I had to learn early on was how to “learn” and fast. Most people think they know how to learn, myself included, but the fast-paced curriculum has shown me I'm not as good as a learner as I thought I was. Over time I became more comfortable with not knowing and understand as a software engineer I can't know everything but everything can be learned. Knowing this has brought me more peace and makes the learning process fun instead of grueling.
