This week we were given the code of our predecessors who used a simpler model compared to the one we are being tasked with implementing (however, we haven’t been given the code for THAT one yet). During the meeting and afterwards, most of the technical jargon our sponsor was flinging at us flew right over my head, to the point where I questioned if the guy was just trying to show off even! I was starting to get scared since I felt like I pretty much knew nothing despite all the readings and tutorials I’ve done up until this point, but also confused because the requirements to get onto the team allowed for 0 experience in machine learning.
My anxiety was alleviated when my teammates also expressed how they were just as lost as I was listening to our sponsor because it reminded me that this was technically a “class”–in the beginning when I was super green to programming the thought of needing to learn new tools felt daunting and I dreaded it. But the more frequently I was forced the learn new frameworks/languages, the less panicked I became when faced with having to learn, them since with experience I noticed that it’s hard to grasp the concepts/syntax as first, but it gets easier.
Even though it’s with a company, this project is still a “class project”, and most classes each quarter required me to learn a new language/framework, so I needed to treat it like one. And this goes for all new or unfamiliar things after college–I’ve had many friends who postponed graduating because they were scared to leave the familiarity of school, or passed up better working conditions/salary at different companies because they were scared of learning new work systems. My advice is to treat everything like it’s part of the “School of Life” and ask yourself “What is the worst that can happen?”. Is that “worst” is really a big deal?
