There will always be opportunities to learn. Because there will always be more things you don't know than things you do know. So its ok to not have all the answers and its ok to be asking questions.
If you are starting a programming bootcamp (or starting anything new, for that matter) it can be daunting to think about all of the things you don't know. Because that's one thing you definitely know...that you don't know a lot of things! But who expects you to know everything? Especially if you are new to something. True there are some people that pick up a skill or a practice very quickly and it seems like they are a natural. But even they don't know everything. Time and experience are the greatest teachers and they cannot be rushed.
So how can you avoid this trap of focusing on the huge list of things you don't know? For me, I have a couple of techniques that do help me when I feel like I'm never going to make it in the tech industry. One I already mentioned is that I just take a second to realize that I've been developing for a grand total of 9 weeks. That's not even a semester at college, or a full season of Game of Thrones. Nobody expects me to be a grand developing guru at this point.
I also take the time to look back at how far I've come in that 9 weeks, and I suggest that you do it too. Don't just look back at the things you've done in that 9 weeks. It is easy to be your own worst critic and pick apart your beautiful creations and cast them to the flames. Look back at the kinds of questions you are asking now versus the kinds of questions you asked when you started learning. Think about how much courage it took then to ask your mentors to explain why something works or how it works. Today, while working on my instant messaging app, I needed help with what I knew was a missing connection somewhere between my login form and my backend. After working through the problem I realized that the me of just two weeks ago would not have even gotten that far in the project, much less be able to narrow down the problem and understand the solution.
And if all of those techniques fail I think about how everyone in the tech industry is, in some way or another, just like me and full of questions about something. People who dominate the cybersecurity field might find nothing but headaches trying to make sense of SQL queries. The most adept React expert might need a million smoke breaks to get a handle on Bulma. There are some great JavaScript programmers out there that can't make sense out of PHP, and vice versa. All of those experts were just like me in their own fields of expertise, and are currently like me in some other areas. So its ok to not know everything. Just keep that passion for knowledge burning because that fire lights the path for your long-term growth.
There are just a few more areas in my MVP checklist that need to be completed. And I'll have questions on Wednesday for sure. But after that, I'll have answers.
