This last few weeks has been…really frustrating. I have ~1 month of internship left, and my work was in its chill phase. So, I started looking for a job immediately, built my LinkedIn profile, my resume, sending out applications, etc. LeetCode was like a must in my mind and so I practiced that too.
Today I got a phone call from a job searching service, asking about my information. They said that they found a banking job for me and they’ll apply it after the phone call. Next 10 minutes later, I was hit by a reality I’ve been ignorant about lately.
In fact, I’ve been rejected for this reason before. This was the second time. I was visibly frustrated. I knew that I’m pretty much doing well for a junior, work experience and language wise, except for my education that’s less desirable to hiring managers. I only had an Associate Degree/Diploma. That didn’t stop me from applying for a job right now but disheartening nonetheless.
I’m in shambles. I’ve always believed off-campus education is important, which it is until you need it. I only got it half right. Education is super important off-campus or not. They serve different purposes. While studying in a college helps you with social aspects of your life and jobs among other beneficial things, the willingness to learn after graduation helps you become a more decent person and to better navigate through series of circumstances life decided to throw at you.
I’m getting a Computer Engineering degree now. Still a Sunday-only class, though. Almost every part of the world still needs a Bachelor’s Degree if you want a job, but Thailand cares about this more than any other places I know. Of course there’s people who landed a job without a degree, but it’s harder to find. Aside from getting more connections, I have to sit down and be humble.
Being a mechatronics student, I didn’t have a clue about Data Structures & Algorithms. But fear not, ThePrimeagen has a free course on that. I took it in a heartbeat and holy moly that binary search algorithm is so fun to learn and memorize. This is one of the knowledge gaps that I have. I know exactly what to do with it.
Then, I tackled on LeetCode (and HackerRank because IBM) to get familiar with coding interviews. I’m preparing it in every way I can, but mostly struggled hard.
I remembered I applied for a deep tech startup job that has coding assessment. 10 minutes in and I left, unfinished with almost correct solution. Another at IBM. I didn’t even finished it and left early.
I was so, SO underprepared. I’ve been hit with the fact that I’m not as good as I thought I was. I know that Software Development is hard and it’s the reason why it’s compensated so well. I’ve come to terms with this statement early in my 20’s so many, many times, all the while my friends are still in their sophomore years studying, unknown of what’s to come.
Although facing with these unpleasent realities, it made me appreciated the place I’m doing an internship for right now. If it’s not my decision to join my college’s internship program and this company decided to take me in as their intern, I would’ve been much more doomed and desperated. My manager even supports my decision of looking for a job to, you know, gain different experiences at different companies.
This company I’m working for is not exactly ideal, but it’s still decent enough. Mid-sized corporation, sligtly legacy but cool tech stack, colleagues are nice, and the fact that they gave me an opportunity to break into Software Development world while I’m pretty much disqualified from the start with no degree, are what I’m appreciated about. If I can’t find a job 1-2 weeks before my internship ends, this place is pretty much guaranteed to be my first job ever. At least that’s what I feel 😀