Young & Inexperienced

Mealea Hunter
Aug 27, 2017 · 4 min read

Your New Beginning

A new beginning can be exciting, at the same time, incredibly terrifying. The process to start your career is already daunting enough.
Do I have the experience?
Do I have the education?
What if I do not have enough of either?
What do I do?
Grade school can only prepare you for so much, and then you are thrown into the real world with real world problems. Many go to college right out of high school, but don’t exactly understand the severity of getting a college degree; others do not even get that far.

This blog post is about my experience with starting my career in the tech field, how it came to be, and how I am doing. Beforehand, I would like to say that this is no way a step-by-step guide to becoming a successful young professional. Just a young woman speaking from experience.


Your Start

Your start into the adult life may be as simple as going to college, getting a degree, and looking for a decent career that everyone promised you after college. Your start may not be as simple. Mine was a mixture of both. When you think everything is planned out for you, life throws you in for a loop. What you do in that loop determines your outcome.

Like most, I did not know where to start after earning my degree. I constantly applied to job postings that I thought I MIGHT be qualified for and hoped for the best.
In the tech industry, looking at job postings for an entry level position is disheartening. It is asking for more than 3–5 years of experience, a bachelor’s degree, etc. — Requirements most might not have straight out of college or high school.

I am here to tell you that it is okay. Do not discredit your own work. Whether you attended a tech boot camp, earned a certificate, or a college degree; you learned valuable skills that can be applied to your future career.

Keep learning. Your education does not stop after you are done with school.

As a young professional, you do not have the experience like the professionals that have been in this industry for decades. It is okay. Those professionals had to start somewhere as well and were probably in the same shoes that you are in right now. Get your foot through the door and run with it.


Your Struggle

Imposter Syndrome is commonly known as the belief that one’s success is the product of luck or fraud rather than skill.

You got the job! Congratulations. Now you have to perform. Everyday, you have something to prove. Whether it is to your boss or your team/co-workers, you feel like you have to earn your keep.

Am I really qualified?
Can I live up to my team’s expectations?
Will I let everyone down?
Why did you hire me?
These were, and still are, a few questions that run through my head at any given moment throughout my day at work.

I just started my career as an associate engineer. Started, as in less than a month started. No amount of school or reading prepared me for the anxiety of coming into work every morning, scared that I might mess up on anything and lose the opportunity that was presented to me. I am sure it will get easier with time, but for right now, it is nerve-racking.

You may be currently experiencing the same struggle and we can definitely bond over that feeling. For now, I hope for the best for you and me. All I could say to this is be a sponge. Absorb what is around you. From the knowledge required for your position to the company culture, learn it all and live it all.

Get to know your team. Get to know your boss. Get to know the person in the break room. Learn from their stories and experiences. It is surprising to find out that even the most successful people were in the same boat as you; feeling the exact same feeling you are. It helped me put some of my anxiety at ease, at the same time, get to know the people I will be working with.


Your Future

You have a career, you are performing, now what? What does the future have in store for you? The answer is absolutely anything. If you are not interested, you are only at the beginning so you can change your path if need be. If you are interested and happy with your start, then the only way to go is up. Do not lose your fire that got you here in the first place.

For me, I do have to prove something every day. I have to prove something to my team and myself. I was taught at an early age to work for everything; food, shelter, clothes on my back, etc. Now I need to work in order for my children to have the same. I was lucky enough to have found my passion early on and act on it. I am very lucky to be at a company who promotes a great work culture and a team who helps me grow, professionally and individually. There was an abundance of luck that played a part into me starting my career or maybe the universe was just looking out for me. No matter what, I have the skills and the passion to run with this and become a better person I was yesterday.

My last piece of advice is to stay confident. Be confident in your ability to work and do great things for your company. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and bring in new ideas (that is what they want anyways). Life gets rough, you are young & inexperienced, and that is okay. It is only the beginning to something great.

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Mealea Hunter

Written by

Associate Engineer at The Remi Group

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