You can learn what you need to learn.

As I closed the second half of my whirlwind journey into software development – that is, after 3 months and before only 3 more of school, several people asked me how it was all going.

I feel like this sums it up very aptly:

I have learned so much in these three months; I simultaneously feel like I know almost nothing at all.

I know how to do things I never really planned to be able to do. And yet as in any act of surface-scratching, I could only in learning this stuff become more and more aware of just how much there is to learn.

I will never, ever know it all. But, I can learn what I need to know. I really believe that.

 

I previously saw my entry into this field as stemming from a negative — this in order to get away from something else. But enrolling in this school was also predicated on the firm belief that I can learn anything. That even I (who doesn’t care about technology and waits for slow devices rather than upgrade, who loves to unplug and be outside, who takes notes on paper) could learn to develop software, even before I knew what developing software was.

Because this field is rather different than a lot of the disciplines I’ve spent pursued, it has sometimes felt like trying to pry my brain open and shove new stuff inside it. Some of the concepts we have learned came easily and quickly, others slowly and painfully, and even others haven’t fully sunk in all the way yet.

But here, I don’t feel the pressure to learn everything and everything fast. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older and I’ve finally got my head around the fact that there really is just more to learn than ever can be learned. Our program is 6 months, but I’ve heard plenty of people say you can’t even begin to be considered good until after 2 years. Not as a challenge – mind you – not to say “I dare you to try to be good sooner,” but more as a comfort, like don’t get too upset when you feel like a n00b. You are one, and that’s okay.

The fact that it’s okay to be a n00b may not be a revelation to anyone else, but it’s fairly new on my list of things I actually accept.

 

Can learn anything. People will teach us. No one expects you to crush everything forever from day one. Or week one. Or year one.