tl;dr: Encouragement appreciated. Bad experience. :-( Im a CS student, and Ive tried. And practiced. And tried. And practiced......And tried. And practiced. And I STILL freeze up and do horrendously in coding interviews. I keep thinking, THIS time, Ill show my stuff, but they draw a tree on the whiteboard and I just go blank. Worry creeps up, and I remember that I was always the slower one in algorithms. Sure, I got an A in there, but it was because I had to practice twice as hard as everyone else. It wasnt natural. Go from concrete to abstract, and away goes my brain. So I practiced more! And more! I started to feel good about myself and did lots of Codility practice exercises (I highly recommend that site to anyone who wants to get into the software industry). Things were looking up, and I applied to an awesome job. First, a non-technical phone-screen. They liked my ideas, and I liked them. Then, an assignment to write a simple web app. I had never used a web framework, so I learned it in a couple of days and wrote that darn app to the best of my ability. The interviewer was impressed with the games cool appearance, clean logic, and general flow, and I felt great! Next step: another interview. It was back to the whiteboard...and a tree diagram. I froze up again. About 20 minutes into a problem that took most other candidates 2 minutes, I apologized for wasting their time and blamed my stage fright for part of it. They said to just take a breath, do it without us here, and then show us. So I did, and I think I figured it out. But it was clear that I didnt have the quick cleverness they (and the 10 other places this happened at) were looking for. I want to (and will) practice more, but it feels like it might just be a weakness I have to accept. I love coding and the creative process that comes with it more than anything, but getting a job is going to be a long battle, I guess. Sometimes, though, I wonder if I should just stick with what I do well. Some people will never be singers, so maybe some people wont be software engineers. Its a much-needed slide of humble pie for this otherwise smart kid.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 16:00:01 +0000
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