I tried
After finishing my first programming tutorial series on HTML, I was reminded of the first time I got my hands on programming. So I thought to myself- "Hey, why not rant about it". After all, this blog is called "HKT's rant".
About one year ago, I decided to myself that my dream of pursuing linguistics was growing kind of trite, and I just couldn't imagine myself reading a dictionary from day to night. That's when I recalled telling my father when I was 9 that I wanted to become an engineer to create weapons for the military. Well, don't ask why I wanted to contribute to war - I just randomly picked an occupation. I remember that kid who enjoyed building things and would just mess up any electrical toy exploring what the circuit board looked like. Perhaps to satisfy that long-forgotten passion, I bought an Arduino set.
Within just a week, I completely demolished the book that came with the set, trying out every exemplary project written in the book. Surprisingly what struck me as difficult was actually the fact that my fingers were too big to plug in the wires to the breadboard. I picked up the programming part really fast despite having no programming background whatsoever. Maybe Electrical Engineering could be a potential career path for me. Welllllll, that did not last long as I searched the tuition fees for Electrical Engineering at University. Hey, what about programming?
It was in June of 2022 that I picked up my first programming language - Java. Yes, Java. I absolutely hated it (and still do now). There was some "staticness" to it. It's like teaching Math to a kindergartener - you have to describe each step in UNECESSARILY GREAT details. It was a couple of days after that I decided to switch to C++. Algorithms and competitive programming appeared. I was so enthusiastic. The whole concept of designing an algorithm to automatically solve a complex problem and having to learn new things to find a way to optimize the algorithm provided me with some sense of "passion". But that "passion" came with a "bubble".
I felt so safe with competitive programming. Having my program accepted for a problem on Codeforces gave me that sense of achievement. It felt so good. So good that I didn't want to rid of it. So good that I was scared to not have it any longer.
On February 2023, 9 months until University application season, somebody asked me: "Hey, what do you want to major in Uni?" Without any hesitation, I answered - "Computer Science."
"Cool, are you doing any projects?"
That question struck a chord of silence in me. What have I done in these two years? Sure, I like programming, but what do I have to show for it? Maybe I am being a little "petty", trying to get validation, but why am I doing this if I have yet to create anything? I abandoned Linguistics for this path for I appreciated the whole concept of "creation." I embarked on this journey for that insatiable little kid that had always dreamt of creating something so powerful, so revolutionary that it may change the world. Where is that little kid now? Stuck in some bubble of false satisfaction? Or is that little kid fearing failure and trying to poison himself with some "dopamine of success"?
I had the audacity to neglect the path my parents had oriented for me all my life. I had the audacity to rid of all the achievements and fame I had gathered for years. I had the audacity to promise that little kid that I would be able to create that revolutionary something. Why would I stop here?
From February of 2023 till now, I have attracted a couple of internship offers as a developer, a few research opportunities, developed one of the best websites I have ever programmed for TEDxYouth PTNK, met friends and companions that in the future, we will work in conjunction and create big things. In that 3 months span, I made more than 300 commits in comparison with just 2 commits last year and this blog.
I know there's not much to flex about, but it is something that I am proud of. I'm not talking about some websites or projects that I have created. I'm proud that I tried. I'm proud that I had to audacity to step out of that bubble I have made for myself.
Well, that's pretty much all to my story, actually. GO CHECK OUT THIS REPOSITORY ON GITHUB, I AND MY FRIEND ARE COLLABORATING ON A CP GUIDE: https://github.com/hkt456/The-Not-so-Average-Competitive-Programming-Guide
