Okay, my post a few days ago about being an iOS rockstar and doing the coding sample for Cocoa Camp, that was total posturing.

I rode down to CocoaConf Chicago with another programming student from another class. Her name is Emily. She is a decade younger than I am and a better coder than I am. She was showing me all this stuff she’s done and I had an awesome moment of depression. Oh my god! I’m old! I’m dumb! I’ll never figure this stuff out! I suck!

So I swallowed my pride and I asked for some help on the assignment we have due on Tuesday. Emily was super awesome and talked me through a problem I was having. It wasn’t a coding problem, it was simply a logic issue. I felt silly for not figuring it out because it was exactly the type of stuff I was doing years ago.

She told me not to worry about it. She has been doing this longer than I have and she said she felt exactly the same way when she starting doing things for the first time.

So, the reality is, I am not the world’s best programmer. And that’s okay. I am learning. I am trying hard and there are always going to be better people out there in the world. I can’t get hung up on comparing myself to other people. If I make that coding sample, send it in, and I don’t get picked, it’s not the end of the world. I can think of a half dozen people just at my school that are better coders than I am and it was stupid for me to think that I was just going to be chosen because I am somehow inherently special and will do something brilliant that no one else has ever thought of.

So, expectations are reassessed and if/when I am not chosen, I won’t feel bad about it because I had a good experience learning how to figure stuff out and when to ask for help.

I will write some more posts soon about specific CocoaConf Chicago events!