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[FK in the Coffee]

This is something I've been dwelling on for a while, and I've really been meaning to talk about it with someone, but I don't know a ton of programmers or game devs outside of these forums, so this seemed like the place to go. I've spent the last half a year on break from college for a bunch of personal reasons, and I'm going back this fall to continue pursuing a degree in computer science. I have a couple of friends in the program there, and the other night I was hanging out in a group with one of them, and he was talking to someone who was interested in switching his major about computer science. At the time, I'd been self-teaching myself programming on and off for months, and I had a pretty good grasp on the basics, though obviously not a very structured grasp. I brought up the imperative vs. declarative knowledge distinction to this guy my friend was talking to, but my friend cut me off and said,

"[FK], I love you, man, but you don't know what you're talking about."

And that really struck me hard. My friend is my age, but he's working on stuff way beyond my current grasp, and I've just been feeling incredibly inadequate about my programming knowledge ever since.

This isn't the only discipline I feel this way about, though. I'm incredibly interested in graphic design/typography, too, and another friend of mine approached me a while back for help with a logo. I came up with a bunch of different ideas/sketches for it, but none of them really did anything for him. I worked on and off for weeks on the designs, and each one was met with, "It's not quite there yet." Then, he approached a design student in LA, and in just a couple days, he fired off a design that blew all of mine completely out of the water, complete with pages of rationale and process breakdown. I looked and it and thought, "if this is what I have to compete with, what am I doing here?"

I know it's unfair to compare myself to all of these people who clearly have been receiving much more structured education in these fields, but when I look at people my age or younger putting out work so many leagues ahead of mine, I can't help but feel like a bit of a fraud calling myself a programmer, or amateur designer, or aspiring game developer.

Can anyone else relate? How do you deal with jealousy, or feelings of inadequacy in your field? How do you avoid comparing yourself to others like this?

[JWK5]

Focus on what you want to accomplish, not what others think of what you want to accomplish. There is a ton of shit you don't know (as is the case for us all, including the people who shot you down there) but you're learning. You don't need to be 'adequate' to get something done, you just need to be persistent. You'll improve as you go.

In other words, fuck 'em.

[s0]

Can anyone else relate? How do you deal with jealousy, or feelings of inadequacy in your field? How do you avoid comparing yourself to others like this?

i would love to get rid of these feelings too. so far my shitty non-solution has been to try to ignore them and soldier on despite them.

[Schoq]

hanging out with pros makes you better at stuff through osmosis but destroys your self esteem, hanging out with noobs makes you stagnate but the ignorant praise feels good
just try to balance them

[J-Snake]

I know it's unfair to compare myself to all of these people who clearly have been receiving much more structured education in these fields

You have made your first important step; you realized there has to be a superior level of understanding. And you hit the point with "structured education", that's exactly what you need to grow understanding.

[MeshGearFox]

Just convince yourself that you're better than them and you eventually will be. It doesn't matter if you know what you're doing as long as you can exude enough confidence to convince everyone else that you do.

[oahda]

I thought you were going to talk about something like what this guy (0:38) experiences due to brain damage:



Anyway, there's always someone better out there and they should serve as inspiration, not demotivation.

[FrankieSmileShow]

Woa, thats pretty harsh. I dont understand why your friend would have just shot you down like this instead of like, explaining to you what you dont understand. It sounds like it must have been a kind of humiliating scene.

Does he think you dont know enough to be worthy of having a conversation about this? Thats pretty weird man. He should be excited to tell you about stuff if he actually knows more than you do. Maybe you caught em at a bad time or something, and he just lashed out? Maybe you were bothering them? Maybe it felt like you were intruding in their discussion so he got a little rude? I can imagine that happening, like if im talking to someone else and a third party intrudes in to talk about something different.

Or maybe you talk a lot about subject matter that you dont understand, in a tone that feels to him like arrogance? You know, like you talk in length about things you dont fully understand, and maybe its been a pet peeve of his for a while, so he just blurted that out when you were doing it "again"? Sometimes its just a thing about tone of voice.

haha I dunno maybe I am over-thinking this, but it just seems so baffling to me that someone who is knowledgeable about something would be so dismissive of someone else who has that interest. When you really like a subject matter, talking about it should come naturally, it should feel unthinkable to say something this rude/frank to a friend in public about a shared interest.

[oahda]

it just seems so baffling to me that someone who is knowledgeable about something would be so dismissive of someone else who has that interest. When you really like a subject matter, talking about it should come naturally, he should be happy to talk about this.

gamergate syndrome~~

ya, that's weird

[Cobralad]

Sparring with best is the only way. I saw many people closed in the compliment echo-chamber and then remaining with amateurish level and quiting into some unrelated field.
Of course there are many things i dont know to adequately answer your question. Maybe your friends are dicks, maybe you approach discipline with novice bravado that makes them dislike you and so fourth.

[FrankieSmileShow]

maybe you approach discipline with novice bravado that makes them dislike you and so fourth.

gaddam, you got all the right words, thats exactly what I was trying to explain in my third paragraph. I am an english language user impostor, the real deal's right there

Also, about impostor syndrome, I still get that from time to time whenever I need to draw something a little bit out of my comfort zone. My comfort zone being reaaaally narrow (cartoony monsters in pixel art), this can be a problem.

[J-Snake]

Anyway, there's always someone better out there and they should serve as inspiration, not demotivation.

Claims like that might provoke a misleading motivation to get as good or better than someone else. While the real point is the realization that there is something fundamentally flawed in my understanding, I need to "correct" that.

[oahda]

While the real point is the realization that there is something fundamentally flawed in my understanding, I need to "correct" that.

I didn't say otherwise.

[FK in the Coffee]

I don't think I ever really gave off a “holier-than-thou” vibe before he said that. We were pretty drunk at the time, though, so I mostly marked it up to a lack of filter. I've been friends with this guy for a year and a half now, and he's always been a really great friend, but I still feel in a lot of ways that I use his current level of proficiency as a metric for where I should be, and it makes my whole pursuit of a computer science education seem fraudulent to me.

[oahda]

Just focus on your own projects then.

[JWK5]

...but I still feel in a lot of ways that I use his current level of proficiency as a metric for where I should be, and it makes my whole pursuit of a computer science education seem fraudulent to me.

If you follow in his footsteps you'll only reach the same conclusions. It might feel like you are just trailing behind but in reality your path is different than his and you may not reach the same places or reach them at the same time. In the end you could learn things he missed or make conclusions that he wasn't able to arrive at. If you measure yourself by other people chances are you'll pick up their flaws in the process, learn from others' examples but let experience be your teacher and your actions be the measuring stick. After all, what good is knowledge not put to use?

[oahda]

 

[SousaVilla]

I have this problema too sometimes. It's hard, but you gotta try to put those thoughts away, ignore and distract yourself from them. One thing that I try to do, instead of measuring myself with others, is to set personal milestones in whatever thing I'm interested in improving, so if I want to become a writer I say to myself that I need x pages until the end of the week, if I manage to do it I'll try to finish a short story until the end of the month, then work in a novel, then in making a better novel, etc.

Keeping your eyes in these small achievements and working your way to gradually improve yourself may alleviate this feelings, especially when you look back and see how much you've accomplished. When you look at your friends you see them after a long and gradual process of learning, but feel like you need to become like them right away. Don't worry about their age and yours, different people have different stories and learning curves, try to focus on your own. And when these feelings come back to bite you again, try playing a cool game or watching a movie to relax and forget.

I hope this helps you somehow.
     

[oahda]

You can do it like me and have no friends so that you can do everything in isolation with nobody to even accidentally compare yourself to.

[quan]

Don't feel bad about feelings of jealousy or inadequacy, they're just signs that you can and or should rise above your current circumstance and improve.