Well, it’s been a few weeks since I wrote anything so I thought it was best for me to write something today. I’m pretty sure everyone has felt this way before, and since then. Imposter syndrome is something we as devs will never get away from. I’m learning how to deal with it every day. Here are some thoughts and how I worked past my inner demons with my rails assessment.
I am so excited to report that I passed my Rails Assessment with flying colors! Assessments have been tough for me in the past, and I’ve had such anxiety over them(which I did for this one, and anxiety is never going to go away) so when I scheduled my assessment I internally and externally began to freak out.
What do I, a new coder, know? I kept thinking to myself. Yes I built my app but did I understand the functions and all the code? I spent days up until my assessment going over my app and reading notes. I also asked for help from fellow students(thank you Kim, Yvonne, Razelle and Donna!) And from those who had graduated Flatiron. Their help really made me feel more confident because I felt relaxed with them and thus I could talk about code freely.
The day had come and my assessment was a few hours away. I looked at my code and I read my notes. Okay so I began my app by creating my database and creating models with ActiveRecord associations I thought, looking at the clock. I then went to routes in config/environment so that my app would know where the GET and POST requests would come from. As I talked to myself, I began to think maybe I actually knew what I was doing. I went back and looked at my controllers, realizing that each action is being defined i.e. def index / end, that is for the index page. I went over my ERB and saw that I created forms using form_for tag which helper simplified the process of creating forms. It all seemed to make sense, at least the big picture.
I settled down and explained my project. I knew I was going to be asked about scope methods, and I had one already so I thought of adding in a similar one. The one I had was to show all the drama shows in the database, since scope method queries the database. For my live coding I did the same thing but just for reality TV shows.
Then we played around in the rails console, something I don’t use enough that’s for sure. It took me a bit but I talked it out loud and figured out what she wanted me to do. We met the next day to finish the assessment and she told me she would hire me as a developer because she a) saw my app was working and clean code and b) loved how I spoke out loud to debug my code. That gave me the extra push that I needed after weeks of worrying that I didn’t know my code.
Fast forward to now and I’ve begun searching for my first job in the tech world! I’m now on Javascript and the same feelings I had with rails is happening to me. I’m one lab away from beginning my project and I write this to let anyone reading, and myself, that I know code! Yes it’s super challenging but that’s part of the fun(can I say fun!?).
Coding has helped me change my life and recover from a terrible injury. I am so excited that I get to do what I love for a living(sooner rather than later I hope!).
This is your reminder that you are good enough and you are badass.
Signing off and until next time, Amanda
Originally published at amandarebeccacodes.org.
