3 Life Lessons I Learnt from Programming

In this article, I am going to share with you 3 life lessons I learnt from programming. But first…

Let me take you back. I had just finished high school, and was at this window period between graduating from high school and joining campus. More than 8 months in between. There I was, fresh man from high school, wondering what I could do for the next 8 months. Should I get a temporary job? Should I volunteer at a Children’s Center? Or should I just be and wait for the 8 months to pass. I chose the latter, but in a modified manner. I chose to travel to the nearest towns.

Along my traveling locally, I found myself doing almost all the things that I had given a thought before. I volunteered teaching in a school, found jobs along the way (most of which were odd), and did much more things. But one thing happened along the way, that changed my life forever. Through interactions with new friends that I met, I came to learn about a computer school. So, I asked my friend, ‘How long does it take to finish a course in the computer school?’ He goes, ‘3 Months.’ 3 months? And I have almost 5 months waiting for me before I join campus? I got to explore.

So, I sent my application right away. 2 months down the line, I got my admission (after so many interviews). And I joined the computer school. The moment I stepped in my first lesson, almost everything was new and uncommon. I will tell you why. Here is how the school operated: There were no teachers, only coaches. We were not to be taught, but train ourselves. At the back of my mind I was like, ‘No way. I came here to be taught.’ But the culture was clear: NO teachers – only peer to peer training. To cut the story short, I spent the next 3 months around writing codes and instructing computers to do the things I want them to do, the way I wanted them to. Interesting, right? Of course. And that was just the beginning of my journey in the programming world.

I have been in the programming world for more than 3 years now. But that is not even what I want you to focus on. What I want to tell you is that programming taught me 3 life lessons, that have kept me going. So right now, I am going to tell you 3 life lessons that I learnt from programming. Starting with the first one:

1. Anything Can Be Learnt

I believe learning this first lesson is one thing that opened my mind and myself to more opportunities. When I was joining the coding school, I had not interacted so much with computers before. In fact I dropped my computer classes in high school just because, I was afraid I could never get at the same level with other students whom I thought were computer wizards.

But look at it. For the 3 months I was in the coding school, I was learning most of the things myself. I was going to the internet to do the research, I was doing the brainstorming to come up with ideas to present to the rest of the class (this was always the hardest part – but I penetrated it). I was manually designing the layout of website ideas, and instructing the computer to almost always create the exact match.

The moment I realized I can learn anything that I want to learn, it changed everything. It has opened my mind to explore more opportunities. Which now brings me to the next lesson:

2. Discipline is Key to Success

During my first year in campus, I took an online programming course, with totally a new programming language that I had never learned before. And here is why I took it. So, I was taking a Math course in campus and we were being trained to analyze data. That was something super interesting for me. It was a new thing to explore, and I was just super-excited to get my hands on it. Because everywhere in the internet people were going, ‘DATA IS THE NEW OIL. DATA IS THE FUTURE’.

And I said, alright, to data we are going. The problem however is that I just didn’t see the campus classes training me how to analyze data. Instead, they were telling me the processes of analyzing data. But because I had the first lesson in my mind, I didn’t complain. I went ahead to learn what I want – How to analyze data. And that is how I took the programming course.

But that is not my focus anyway. What I want you to take home, is how I got to take the course myself and learn by myself. It took discipline. I had to plan the time that I wanted to dedicate to the course, I had to design my learning curriculum. And most importantly, I had to have the discipline to actually follow it, so that I get what I want.

What I wanted was to learn how to analyze data using the new programming language. And I wanted it badly. Given the fact that there are always so much distractions in campus, seeing myself having the discipline to finally get what I wanted was a game changer. And since then, I have learnt that to get anything that I want in all areas of my life, I have to stick to the discipline of actually going for it and grabbing it. And that now brings me to the last lesson I learnt from programming, which is…

3. It’s Okay to Ask for Help

So, the world of programming is an interesting world to be. Most programmers will tell you they don’t really have to know everything they are doing. And I learnt this myself during the time I was in the computer school.

When we were doing coding projects to present, we were not computer geeks yet (and I think we have never been). But we were still able to come up with brilliant projects to pitch about. How did we do it? I will tell you how. Here is how we did it. Most of the times we were given the projects, it was concepts that were ‘ahead’ of us. So what were we supposed to do? We went to coding forums and platforms and asked our problematic coding questions there. Then guess what? We will have so many programmers and ‘geeks’ coming out to answer our pain questions. And that’s just how we got help in solving most of our hard-looking projects.

Another scenario is this. When we were getting training in the computer school, we had a mix of different students with different academic abilities (if I am to measure with how the traditional schools are weighing students). We had students who according to high school performance were average, others were below average, and others were excellent. I was in the excellent category. But that did not matter in the training school.

The learning culture in the programming school was different. Most of the times, we were doing our projects in groups that had a mix of all these ‘different’ students. The most interesting part is that, even when we had the biggest projects to work on, we were free to ask and inquire from whichever group – and whichever student. There was no competition. What mattered was making sure we all bring our brilliant ideas to live. And that culture alone of being okay to ask for help was life changing. It made us be open. In fact, the student that made me understand programming very well, was a ‘below average’ student, according to high school rating.

That has been a game changer. If I am feeling stuck, I am okay to ask for help from the right people that can help.

And those are the 3 life lessons that I learned from programming. Let me know in the comments section below, what is one Life Lesson that you learnt from learning a skill you love?