My name is Michael Johnson and I have been studying Web Development for around 5 months now. I come from a background of relatively weak study so I have always struggled, although I have never given up. It was all so frustrating until I found Exercism. My gosh, what can I say about this site that hasn’t been said already! Even though I still have many gaps in my knowledge, I am actually starting to move forward. By completing the challenges with absolutely no help other than documentation, it has forced me to go beyond tutorials and seek to fill those knowledge gaps. I can’t overstate enough how important sites like this are for growth. I don’t want to ramble so this is just me expressing my thanks and love for this space. I wish you all well on your coding journey and remember, if you are struggling, odds are that someone else struggled with the same thing and eventually succeeded by perseverance.
And big congrats on the progress with your journey. I can confidently say that you will never fill all your knowledge gaps - programming is a life-long learning process - but the attitude you’re approaching this with means you’ll thrive in coding
We’re currently starting to build out a Learn to Code site aimed at total beginners, which aims to take a lot of what we’ve learnt from Exercism and package it for people with zero experience. We hope to launch it towards the end of the year. When we’re a bit further we’ll be reaching out to people to get insights about what they found easy/hard, so please look out for those messages so we can absorb all your feedback!
May I offer you a suggestion? I am SURE your post will resonate with so many learners who are doing this just like you. So I would like to suggest that you keep track of every insight you get and write about it. Then, I would like to suggest when you go to a conference that is attended by many other persons who have gone from beginner to professional, if there is an opportunity to give a short talk, (AKA “a Lightning Talk”) speak about your experience there. It could really magnify the reach of this fantastic site and literally help people all over the world learn about Exercism and how it can help them become the professional programmer they dream of becoming!
HI @mikej321 - I really enjoyed your story. To echo @iHiD we are excited about building Learn to Code based on lived experience. Would you be up for an email chat with me about your experiences?
You guys have made me feel so special, it’s almost like goosebumps. It’s been so long since I’ve had positive interaction like THIS! I write alot, so I can definitely do that! One thing I think I struggled with when I first started was that while there was plenty of positive reinforcement, I didn’t think that it was absolutely relevant to me as I always felt ‘dumber’ than everyone else. While I know that my writing wouldn’t be relevant to everyone just like I experienced, I would like to fill some gaps for others and be useful to other people. Thank you all for believing in me! No, thank you all for believing in all of us!
@SoldierCoder I wanted to include you in the post that I just did but I had a limit of people that I could link, haha. Thanks for your strong words of encouragement!
Ok, from my experience helping completely new learners at DC Rails Girls, let me tell you something. Professional developers, to a person all feel this way. It’s called Imposter Syndrome. Go watch Dune, or memorize this:
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Hi I am Jawad, and i am 18 and i don’t trust college and other things with my education so i do self studying to go into the fieds of machine learning but i just want to say that man just how amazing this website has been, istg i still cannot belive that this is all free and see just how amazing everyone especially the mentors are, omg i cannot cannot THank you so much i hope this place stays like this and even when i am loooking for some other learning website now, I am like chatgpt tell me of a websiter for learning dash which is similar to exercism.
Definitely keep at it, @Jawad6942 …always remember that you are your biggest motivator and continue to push forward! I look forward to seeing your works in the future
@mikej321 I might be late to the party here, but I want to thank you for sharing your story.
I’m a contributor to Exercism - I mentor on some tracks, and I’m a Go and Java track maintainer. It’s stories like yours make me realize the impact Exercism can have and one of the main reasons that push me to keep contributing
