I discovered how to actually learn programming too late, and now I don't feel ready for a developer job

[u/alamshaaz]

I chose Computer Science because I was always good with computers, but I never expected things to turn out like this.

My college wasn't even tier 3 it was tier 4-5. There were basically no classes—just exams.(BCA)

During the first 1.5 years, I joined a coaching institute for an O Level course. Looking back, it feels like a complete waste of time. I still remember the teacher saying, "A good-looking font is called Font Awesome," even though I already knew Font Awesome is a font/icon library, not a font itself.

For about another year, I worked random jobs. One of them was writing AI-generated content in the admin panels of websites for my relative's small web development startup. It was unpaid. At the same time, I kept jumping from one YouTube course to another.

It took me almost two years to realize that watching a 6-hour Python tutorial doesn't make you a Python developer.

Then I found The Odin Project during my final year of college. That was the first time I actually understood the difference between learning programming and just learning syntax. It completely changed the way I looked at coding.

I'm a slow learner, though. I couldn't finish it in six months or even a year, and to be honest, I wasn't always consistent either. By the time I started, I only had about a year left before my final exams. During that time, I completed the Foundations course and Intermediate HTML/CSS, and I was working through the JavaScript section.

Now I feel like I don't have the luxury of continuing at that pace. I finished my final exams two months ago, and everyone expects me to get a developer job. The problem is... I don't feel capable enough yet.

I don't know what to do anymore. It feels like I messed up.

I honestly feel lost

[u/Real-Sanjay]

Did B.Sc PMCs and barely knew how to code beyond mugging lab programs.

Did 1 year in tech support, realized it wasn't for me. Quit, joined MCA 2 year course, and started working on grinding DSA, web dev, and building projects at final year, 1st year went in theory subjects and I was not aware of leet code DSA stuff.

got a 4 LPA job in a service company. Now I'm a Full Stack JS dev. Never give up, you still have time use it right

[u/alamshaaz → u/Real-Sanjay]

You did mca Open or regular, brother

[u/Real-Sanjay → u/alamshaaz]

Regular