I Started Coding at University While My Classmates Were Already Freelancing. Here's What My First Month Actually Looked Like.
My classmates were sending invoices to clients while I was still searching "how to install Python" and reading three contradictory answers. I am a naval architecture student in Bangladesh, well past my first year of university, and in my first week of coding I could not make a 5-line program run. Here is my first month, week by week — the error that ate an evening, the first thing that worked,…
My classmates were sending invoices to clients while I was still learning how to install Python and reading contradictory online answers. In my first week of coding, I couldn't make a simple five-line program run. The error message was daunting: "IndentationError: unexpected indent." After a full evening, I learned that Python treats indentation as grammar, and a stray space is not a typo but a syntax error.
In week 2, I finally wrote a tiny grade calculator. I input my real and imaginary marks, and the program ran every time, printing the correct average and GPA. This experience was rewarding and confirmed that despite the challenges, I was making progress.
Week 3 was the most challenging. My classmate posted about a freelance job, and I compared my progress to theirs, feeling discouraged and contemplating quitting. However, the grade calculator kept me motivated, and I started writing my first functions and noting the errors I encountered in a notebook.
Week 4 was a slow month for major breakthroughs. I worked on a terminal to-do list, learned to write functions, and started documenting my errors. Comparing my progress to my classmates, who were freelancing, made me feel like I was falling behind. Nonetheless, I recognized that starting at university meant having a specific reason to learn coding, and limited hours forced me to be more intentional with my sessions.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.