Everything You Want is on the Other Side of Fear
I remember how several years ago, when I was still living in New York, whenever I would run into Flatiron School website, I would always feel so jealous of the graduates featured on its pages. I would always get upset and say to myself, “Olesya, you will never be able to do this”. I definitely had the calling, but my fear to lose was stronger than my desire to learn.
I discovered my love for coding in the last year of college when I was taking a web design class. It was a good introductory HTML and CSS class. I found it fascinating how with a few lines of code you could create colorful graphics and see it in the browser! I ended up teaching myself web design and even managed to get a couple of jobs. At my last job my supervisor, who was a senior software engineer, tried to teach me how to program. It was futile. I realize now, after graduating from Flatiron, the main reason it didn’t work out was the lack of structure.
After that I had another attempt to become a programmer by applying to Access Code program at Coalition for Queens in NY. Coalition for Queens’ mission is to transform the tech industry by empowering under-served, low-income, and underrepresented communities with skills, networks, and opportunity through its innovative Access Code program. The application process was very rigorous, it included math and JavaScript tests and had three stages. I made it all the way to the end but didn’t pass the final test. The fear of writing code and not being able to understand the material was always in the way. That’s when I gave up and completely forgot about the idea of becoming a developer and decided to give myself time to figure out what I actually wanted to do with my life vocation-wise, meanwhile working as a bartender.
I moved to Puerto Rico two years ago thinking of doing a career in the hotel industry. I ended up getting hired for a restaurant manager position. After having been on the job for several months I started realizing I had absolutely no passion for hospitality industry.
One afternoon I was having dinner in San Juan with a friend who was a cyber security specialist. We started talking about work and he suddenly told me, “Why don’t you take an online cyber security course?”. And at that moment I had my moment of epiphany, I thought, “Yes! How had I not thought of that before, that I could actually take some online course and change the field of work!” I thought about Flatiron school right away. I submitted my application the same day and started working on the introductory Ruby course on Learn.co. I decided to make a final attempt to become a programmer. But this time I had a right mindset and determination. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew I would.
Just like you don’t need to see the whole route in front of you to make it to your destination because the headlights illuminating the stretch of the road in front if you is enough to guide you to the end, you don’t need to know how you are going to do something as long as you are moving forward.
Throughout my Flatiron journey, in the times when the material seemed incomprehensible, I had internal struggles, demons would always appears in the way telling me it was a terrible idea to become a software engineer. I guess what kept me going is the mindset. I would always tell myself, “Try again.”
As a Flatiron graduate I have learnt not just how to code but also how to overcome fear, step out of my comport zone and believe in myself. This is the advice I would give to new students:
“Don’t panic. During hard times think constructively. Programming is learnable, you don’t have to be a genius to learn how to code. Mindset is the most important thing. Be persistent. When demons start attacking, tell yourself, ‘Try again’.”
Had I passed that final test at Coalition for Queens several years ago I’m sure I wouldn’t have made it through the program. I was too afraid.
Remember, everything you want is on the other side of fear.