Joy of Being a Beginner

When I first started programming, I felt so frustrated with how long it took me understand loops. Or figure out how to nest conditionals. Projects were Frankenstein monsters with patches of copied code. Yet when they worked, I felt invincible. As I gained more experience, those same problems that used to take me eight hours now could be solved in one.

I felt proud of myself for improving. Unfortunately that pride turned into arrogance. My curiosity evaporated. I thought after just two years I knew all I needed to know.

Since I know how to build a responsive webpage, I know everything about HTML and CSS. Since I know how to build a React app, I know everything about single-page applications.

The insecure self wanted to believe so badly I had reached the top. I chose the easy projects over the hard ones. When I read documentation I couldn’t understand I dismissed it as bad writing.

I had become the student who learned to draw a circle and declared herself a great artist.

I lasted a year before I couldn’t stand the boredom anymore. It was either taking on challenges and risking discomfort or solving the same problems ad nauseam. I chose to explore again. Like a true beginner, I start learning whatever interested me.

I never took computer science courses so I took CS50. Machine learning also sounded fun! I took a course on that too.

The most humbling experience thus far has been working with Clojure, a weirdly elegant language with one hell of a learning curve.

Even though I’ve been out of my rut for over a year now, I still need to be vigilant about not getting too comfortable. Learning the basics doesn’t equal mastery. My goal isn’t to draw circles, but to create art.