My friend, who’s always been there for me through so many ups and downs, the person who got me into computer science in the first place, once told me, “Get comfortable not knowing how to do something. Just get your hands dirty. But do it now.” And that advice has stuck with me, especially while working on my Travel Planner app.
This friend of mine became a mobile engineer after graduating from UCLA, and when I asked him how he did it, he said, “I didn’t have a teacher. I just sat down, studied, and figured it out. I got my hands dirty.”
When I got assigned the recommendation engine for our app, my first thought was, “I have no idea how to do this.” And my instinct was to reach out to him and ask, “How do I even start?” But then I remembered what he’d said “Just get your hands dirty. If you need help, I’m here.” So, I decided to try to figure it out myself.
I knew enough about databases, and once I stopped freaking out about them, I realized they’re not that complicated, they just take time. I also knew the basics of algorithms, so I found one that might work and watched a bunch of YouTube videos to understand it better. Then I just made a plan: here’s what the algorithm needs to do, these are the stages it’ll go through, and this is the result I want.
Do I know how to use all the technologies I’m supposed to? Not at all. Have I ever worked with Pandas? Nope. Have I ever taken a machine learning class? Not yet. But I’m learning. I’m getting my hands dirty, and I’m lucky to have mentors, professors, and peers who are there to help when I get stuck.
I’m getting more used to that feeling of not knowing what I’m doing at first, but just figuring it out as I go. I’m excited and a little bit scared to actually do this, but I won’t stop until it’s done.
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