Chelyabinsk. 2015 Fifth year student at the Pedagogical College, pre-diploma internship successfully completed. There are two short months ahead until... The unknown. Late summer 2016, St. Petersburg. I'm having an internal debate with myself. No, you need to call your parents immediately, this is news, but they didn’t believe it. But what if something goes wrong? It’s better to wait until the end of the probationary period, and then. But a whole year of unsuccessful search! God, how I want to tell everyone. But you can't. Now I'm full of doubts. Is this my way? I remember the sunny spring of 2015. The students I know, like myself, are running around in joyful excitement. A little scary, but the good weather and the proximity of the end of five years of study are intoxicating. Everyone just talks about the diploma or what's next. I return to the dorm and close the door to the room. Indeed, what next? Am I a future young teacher? Perhaps there was always something in me that said no. Here is my cynicism, ambition, vanity - in general, everything that is strictly forbidden to a good teacher. I’m not trying to insult teachers, but in our country this is one of those professions from which, if you are not an absolute altruist, you need to escape, like from a sinking ship. One day, when I was still a ten-year-old boy, I walked home and - lo and behold! - I saw a computer. Brand new, noisily buzzing Pentium 3 or 4? On the first day, I ran to my friends for their games - GTA, Need for Speed, Warcraft III. Now, a little over a dozen years later, I regret that my parents, like probably many parents of those times, did not see all the possibilities of this miracle of the 20th century, computers. Therefore, after going through countless fights, bans and insults, I became just a typical teenage gamer. Although there is a small plus: due to the fact that my second computer had only 256 MB of RAM (and the rest of the hardware corresponding to it), I constantly had to look for ways to improve performance in games. So, for example, I learned how to reinstall Windows and other necessary software and even made a little money from this, helping students and friends with their computers. I don’t know how it happened that only in my last year, in the face of the ever-increasing threat of “becoming a nobody,” did I think about trying my hand at programming. And I still sometimes ask myself: why not earlier? The first attempts were not entirely successful: in the Russian segment of the Internet there were (and are) for the most part only half-hearted articles and examples of programs that were only slightly more complex than “Hello, World!”, and brought almost no practical value. Then, due to the fact that I am a “foreign language teacher” by profession, I tried to search for information in English. That’s how I found the amazing Khan Academy service with their course on Java Script. I still use this service today, but I’m already studying other subjects. I don’t remember exactly, but at that time there were no courses on the full-fledged Web on Khan Academy (or I didn’t find them). so after finishing their course on JS, I found myself at yet another dead end. And then I discovered Javarush. Like many people probably did, my first 10 levels flew by quickly. I was very surprised and liked their teaching style (the teacher appreciated it). I also appreciated the entrepreneurial spirit of the creators of the service - after all, JavaRush still has no competitors similar in style and content. And how, although this is very banal, their stories at the end of each level about success, education, and abroad warmed the mind and heart! So, almost without hesitation, I bought the courses. It was especially hard when I got to levels 15-16. Working with threads, threads and other incomprehensible things was all discouraging. There were times when I gave up studying because it hurt. It hurts that there are 20 attempts and the task does not pass the test. I obviously sinned - I copied solutions to problems from github, without always thinking about what I was copying. So I got to about level 25. Against the background of self-doubt, self-examination from the fact that I was not the most “honest” student, another not very pleasant feeling arose in me. Something haunted me until I finally realized what: I realized that despite level 25+, I still don’t know anything and can’t really do it. What this means is that I still couldn’t just sit down and write something really important and useful. I didn’t see the big picture of how large, powerful applications are built. It’s one thing to solve an interesting logical problem, and quite another to write a game, a messenger, or your own website. I program without knowing how to program. Here I made one of my very important, but naively absurd, even in some sense stupid, narrow-minded decisions: I am moving to St. Petersburg. I’m moving to St. Petersburg for a reason: there are no vacancies for Java programmers in Chelyabinsk. Moscow was intimidating by the number of people living there, the prices and all those “tales” that people who have never lived in any of the capitals like to share. At the same time, St. Petersburg seemed mysterious, alluring, a kind of refuge stuck in the 19th century for romantics who had not found themselves. The suffering that my girlfriend and I had to go through deserves a separate article. I will only say that never move spontaneously without preparing for the place you are going to, without collecting at least the basic minimum of information, such as demand and prices for housing, work, and so on. Ideally, you need to move immediately to a new place of work. Having arrived, I immediately signed up for JPoint - a conference for Java developers (at that time especially for students). I don’t know why I went there with my knowledge, but most likely instinctively, for another good “stuff” on my resume. The search began in October 2015. I found my first job in August 2016. In October and November I was inspired, my knees were shaking at the first interview, and refusals were not so upsetting - after all, I’m still a newbie? My mood worsened greatly in winter. By spring, I found a “dream internship” in a good German company. Failure. Just in March - exactly one year of purchasing courses on JavaRush. And now add here the lack of money, a communal apartment that you wouldn’t wish to live in even for your enemy, the lack of any kind of work at all, and most importantly, any new prospects. And here I gave up. Forgot about programming for 4 months. I couldn't think about him. The slightest thought of “coding” caused feelings of panic, disgust and nausea. And here I am - a promoter on the main street of St. Petersburg. With a diploma as a foreign language teacher, with scraps of knowledge about Java, SQL, Spring, Hibernate, HTML, JS, CSS scattered throughout my mind. Yes, our boat excursions are the best. Yes, we have blankets and english audio guide. Let me take you to the pier. No, because I am accompanying you, the ticket price will not change. Thinking about it now, I realize that I was wrong - I should have prepared better for interviews. And then, as always, as often happens in all banal quotes, in films that are the same as day and books that scream bad taste - a miracle happened that RIGHT NOW you were not expecting. Only, as in the case of films, I didn’t fall in love - my first job as a programmer found me. At the end of July, beginning of August, I decided to “just send a couple of resumes.” A regular test, a regular interview. The usual disbelief that they would even answer me. True, they gave me little time, and with my 14.5 hour shifts, it was even less. Somehow I managed to send it and forgot about it. Then, on a very ordinary day, I went to the post office and didn’t believe what I read. I read it again. And further. And further. First days. I'm afraid of everything. Some people explain what to do, what our services consist of, how everything works. I nod, remembering absolutely nothing. At the end of the working day, I’m exhausted and have no strength or desire to do anything. I managed to complete the first task in 3 weeks (which now I would do in a day). They praised me and said that starting next month I will be a full-fledged member of the team. Here I give myself the freedom to brag to everyone I wanted to all this time, but couldn’t because I was afraid of another failure. There is pride in the voice. Look, you didn’t believe it, but I did it. No, I don’t need an institute, I do it myself. I don't want to waste time and money. I walk down the street smiling, looking at the “little people” with superiority and self-satisfaction. I can't believe I get paid that much for... sitting in front of a computer. This is so strange. It gets easier every month; I'm no longer exhausted at the end of the working day. Promotion. Our team was invited to a hackathon for students. It’s ironic that I’m one of the mentors and students come to me with questions. You feel how your knowledge is expanding, how the ground under your feet is becoming harder. But at the same time, I realize how much I still don’t know. Trying to create your own project with a friend. The first understanding of how difficult it is to bring an application to even just a working prototype. And it's not a matter of complexity. Lack of time, fatigue from “coding” after work, laziness, other excuses. Vicious circle. I remember the lecturer from that German company from which I crashed out; he talked with bitter irony about how many young startupers actually become one in reality, and not just in their thoughts. Now I'm full of doubts. Is this my way? It’s banal, but there is no silver lining. I soon began to realize that although Java is a very powerful language with enormous capabilities, its use is limited. Web Enterprise, so to speak, is not enough for me. And besides, I call myself a programmer, but am I really one, and most importantly, do I want to? Most likely, this is just one of many small stops on the way to a cherished, but hardly feasible dream - to find the real you. Find and demonstrate something that does not depend on the level of salary, prestige and necessity of the profession today. In the end, I’m still glad that, although it was hard, I was able to achieve my goal - to become a programmer, and this against the backdrop of a humanitarian college education and the lack of a technical profile. But I know that this is not the limit. I still have an insane desire to move on, learn new things, look for myself. And even if I decide to devote my life to studying something else, my experience will definitely be useful to me.
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