Impostor's Syndrome
Impostor syndrome (also known
as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome) is a concept describing
high-achieving individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their
accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud". Despite
external evidence of their competence, those exhibiting the syndrome remain
convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have
achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of
deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than
they believe themselves to be.
I started listening to the code-newbie podcast where I was introduced to this
concept of Impostor Syndrome. A frequent question asked to the guests is
"How did you overcome impostor's syndrome?" All of them answered that
after a few months in their respective positions, they realized that they were
not impostors but were functioning members of the team.
This raised an interesting
question that I have had to ask myself.
How much experience and
knowledge do I need to acquire before I feel ready to enter the career field of
software engineering? I am in the second semester of my Bachelor's Degree in
Software Engineering and realize that there are some concepts such as design
documentation and error handling that are new to me. Some of the coding tools
that were covered in the class helped me to see the practical application of
those concepts and cleared up exactly how they functioned in a program.
I started the class a week
late, which is a crucial point to mention. During the first couple of weeks it
became clear that a few students had some previous coding experience. As we
progressed through half the semester, there were four of us who were coasting
through the class. Thanks to extra credit assignments, I raised my grade to
100%.
After the half-way point,
though, things started to get more challenging and we had to spend much more
time on the projects than the estimated 2 hours per week. For the Calendar
project, I spent over 80 hours one week to get my program to display correctly.
Several students were unable to finish the project in time and a few dropped
the class.
The last project in the fourth
quarter was a Sudoku program that I stared 5 weeks before it was due. By week 3
I had a functional program and began work on the extra credit portion. This
included a solver function, differentiating between read-only and read-write
spaces, handling user error input, verifying the input board, and saving it all
to another file. I had a finished project (albeit not a pretty polished
program) well before the due date.
As I perused the
"Developer's Forum" I found several students, (who I considered to be
the advanced students), asking for help with their projects with only 3 days
till the due date. I helped them solve what I consider to be simple issues, and
couldn't help thinking, "If you're only at this point, you're not going to
have enough time to finish this project." My suspicions were confirmed
when an announcement was made on the due date that the project would be
extended another 3 days. Apparently, I was the only one who had turned in the
assignment early, and only a few had turned it in on time.
Now that the class has wrapped
up, I look back and see that even starting late with a deficit grade, I was
able to rise through the ranks to become the top student with over 100% in the
class. I'm not writing this to brag, but rather as a personal reflection on my
readiness to enter the field of programming. I clearly have the basic concepts
down and know how to implement them. I will admit, however, that I often go
back through my code and delete a lot of unnecessary lines and rewrite a good
portion to increase efficiency and cohesion.
I have about a year and a half
of experience in writing C++ of which 80% is self-taught. As I listen to
code-newbies, the guests are all self-taught Ruby Developers who went out into
the job market and were hired within 6 months of their self-education. Why
haven't I made the leap into that career field?
For one thing, as I look at the
job market and the required skills, there appears to be a common list. Here are
the similar requirements for the top 5 job postings on linkedIn for a Software Engineer (keep in mind
these are entry level positions):
Bachelor degree in Computer
Science (Currently working on it)
Experienced object-oriented
programming (Insert language here)
Proficient in Agile (I have to
find out what this is)
Work in a Linux Development
Environment (All of my college work is done in Linux)
Software specific requirements
(Visual Basics, C#, .NET framework, QT, Javascript, HTML5, etc.)
Excellent verbal and written
communication skills (No problem, Honors English)
Excellent Debugging skills
(Working on it, but I'm pretty good)
2-7 years of experience
(Yikes!)
Given this list of
requirements, I have at least another 1-3 year’s worth of knowledge and
experience that I need to gain. So how did these other people find a way into
the career field with only 6 months of experience?
The guests on code-newbie
aren't just low level developers either. Within a year of "learning"
to code through Codecademy, The Odin Project, Meetups,
and other free resources, these guests teach coding, hold conferences, have
written books, and are code giants in their respective locations.
Meanwhile, I am sitting here with a year and half of experience and the heavy burden of Impostor's Syndrome. Maybe I just need to take a leap
of faith and see what's out there? That would be much easier if I was single
and didn't have 5 other people relying on me to provide for them. I'm not
complaining. Quite the opposite. I love my family and I try to sacrifice as
much as I can for them. The last thing I want, however, is for them to suffer
for a wrong decision I made.
I guess my biggest fear is that
my charisma and confidence will get me hired. Then, within a month, they may
decide that I need more experience and knowledge and let me go. Not only will
that look horrible on an application, it will put my family in a very
precarious situation.
Then again, fortune favors the
bold.
Comments
Post a Comment