Why I stopped being a software developer…

I would like to share about the time where I was training to become a software developer at a nonprofit that provide hands-on experiences to groups that are underrepresented in the tech industry.

Here’s a little bit of background story. I graduated with my associate's degree at a community college in December of 2018. I had plans to enter into an online bachelor’s degree program, but some stuff got delayed and they wanted me to prove what I could do. I started doing the assignments, but I had a really hard time doing them because I wasn’t very good at math and the questions were regarding math. I thought that I wasn’t going to get very far with my online school, and a certain opportunity had arrived at my door. It was free online classes in software development and a promise of a job at the end of the internship. So I decided to take that instead of doing online school.

I started classes in March and ended at the beginning of August. I was offered a full-time position to train with the non-profit. In the beginning, it seemed fine and dandy things were looking really good. I was getting places, before this, I had been just doing the program classes and didn’t have a job because I was really unhappy with a service job. I was sitting around for about 6 months without a job, so there was no income coming in. I was supported by my boyfriend, while I was taking these classes.

After the classes ended I was offered a full-time job at the nonprofit. Sounds great to any person listening thinking it to be a software development job, but it was more of a training job where it’s a hands-on learning experience and was an internship. So I was getting paid 1k monthly as a stipend.

For a while I was okay with it let’s say for 8 months then I started growing restless because my cohort had all gotten other assignments when I was just still on practice apps. I was having a really hard time, it seemed that people were moving way faster than me and I just didn’t understand what I was doing. There were points when I felt like “Do I even belong here?” And the answer I got back was no, but not in a cruel way more of a “the world has better things for you.”

While working on the projects I always got into so much stress that I would take them home, and I would get imposter syndrome all the time. Everyone told me it was normal. At one point I just realized I wasn’t even motivated to get there because doing exactly what I was doing was good enough for me. It was already too stressful enough. That’s when it started to become clear to me that being a software developer just wasn’t for me.

So was there a time you got into something thinking you would have an awesome time and then things didn’t turn out exactly as you expected? Comment down below I would love to hear some experiences.