How to take baby steps in Computer Science

while I was undertaking my Engineering course in Computer Science, I truly needed a kick-starter for being a good coder/software engineer. As a person who was a complete novice in the field, I encountered a lot of difficulties.

Let me highlight exactly what the situation was:

I really wanted to be a good coder. But did not know where to start.

There were many good coders in our college and I always wanted to be like them. However, I did not know where to start. I didn't have the foggiest idea where to begin. I required exertion and took part in numerous forums and workshops, yet it actually felt like something hard to break.

I was not aware of even the most basic things!

I was determined to embrace the field and participated in technical talks and tried to take my classes seriously. Regardless, the greatest hurdle was that I was not familiar with the “basics”. So it was without a doubt hard to grasp the concepts presented at the technical talks and workshops. I had such countless questions, however, I was afraid of ridicule. I mean, not knowing the basics is quite shameful, primarily when you’re a student of the field.

I was afraid to code alone!

Yeah, I was not brave enough to write a piece of code alone, even during our practical classes. I was afraid of making errors. I copied programs from other geeks. Also, I constantly needed guidance. I would shiver if I was asked to implement a simple objective. Sometimes, I would work up the courage and attempt a code. However, if an error showed up, it was like the end of the world for me. I didn’t know how to debug, nor did I know whom to ask for help.

I was doing well in my academics, yet at the same time don’t know to practically implement the things we learned in theory classes. I was left with two options, like a “Do or Die” situation.

1. This is rocket science and my curriculum and classes are never going to help me. These things are meant only for born geeks.
2. Try harder. And be dangerously optimistic that I will find that key eventually.

I selected the second option. I tried loads of things and I failed. I failed because I took the wrong steps. So I decided to shake things up a bit. Here is all that I gained from my endeavours!

I began to say “I don’t know”

That was the first and the most effective step. At first, I was ashamed of being in a talk, workshop or class because of not knowing the basic things. Then I chose to ask doubts all the time. I was reluctant to say “I don’t know.” But it was better to say it in the first year than pretending to know things and being a dunce in the final year. It really helped me to face the technical geeks and tech talks and all. I began to ask doubts and suggestions. Even now I follow this motto — don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”. Because it will maintain our self-growth.

I decided to code alone

I began to actively participate in workshops and gained some rudimentary lessons and built some confidence. I made a good team with peers who were better than me in the field and decided to do an internship. I began to ask doubts all the time and requested assistance for help for every error. They were extremely baffled by me and were getting bothered by exclusively relying upon them for each uncertainty.

So for our project in the third year, I decided to make a team consisting of people just like me and decided to take responsibility for that project. I did not know-how. However, settling on the choice was the initial step.

Every Objective has a solution

This made me confident enough to do the code single-handedly. The problem will definitely have a solution, so why should we fear it? We should deal with that issue and if there is an error we should debug it. Furthermore, there comes the other question — “How to resolve errors?” The answer is very simple. Such countless individuals in the entire world have gone through these comparative mistakes before you. Yeah, start Googling. You can learn anything, ask doubts, read things. Stack Overflow, GitHub, YouTube, Medium and a long list of sites are there for your assistance.

These are the amateur steps that I took to make my start in this field. I still cherish my learning voyage, the code I have written so far, the differences I have made in my commit messages etc. The journey from relying on “unknown copied code whose only purpose was that the program won’t run without it” to writing better code with good practices of the language is really overwhelming.

Seriously, it’s not rocket science. Happy Coding!!