EveryOne Struggles

It’s officially two weeks working as an Outreachy intern, and I can say these weeks have been some of the most fascinating and reality checking moments of my life. You might think I’m talking about the excitement of my project, but no—it’s been the challenges and the struggles that have truly defined these days.

I am a software developer. Throughout my studies, I’ve built and collaborated on a number of projects, but writing tests for my code? That was something I actively avoided. To me, testing felt like breaking my work apart—like undoing all the effort I’d put into creating it. And honestly, it scared me 😬.

But someone I deeply admire once said:

"If you feel like what you’ve written can’t be touched, then you’ve written very bad code."

Those words stuck with me. They challenged me to rethink my fear of testing. And now, here I am—two weeks into a project that revolves entirely around testing. Talk about life forcing you to face your fears head-on! ⚡️🌈

When I started working on my project, I didn’t know much about testing especially in a Ruby on Rails project. But my philosophy has always been this: if it’s possible, if someone has done it before, then I can too. I’ve never let not knowing something stop me.

But these weeks? They were tough. There were moments when I felt completely lost, like I didn’t know what I was doing or how to come up with the words to ask the right questions that could help unblock me. this brought doubt that raided my mind with questions like , Am I good enough for this? What if I can’t figure this out?

One particularly rough moment was analyzing flaky tests—these test fail inconsistently, with no clear cause. I spent two days gathering data, creating spreadsheets, tracking failed builds, and documenting everything. By the end, I fell into paranoia of thinking I was taking too long.

During a our weekly chat, our coordinator reminded us that we were among only 25 interns selected out of thousands of applicants. That simple reminder gave me a moment of clarity. I realized that my struggles didn’t mean I was failing—they were proof that I was learning and growing.

These two weeks have taught me one powerful lesson:

Little step makes the journey you don’t have to have it all figured out. It’s okay to feel lost. It’s okay to ask questions you don't always have to know it all at the go. Just believe in yourself and in your instincts and your questions aren't that stupid as you think even if they are, these wont be the first or last stupid questions you'll be asking and definitely you'll learn from them.

Reflecting on everything I’ve experienced so far. I know there will be more struggles ahead, but I also know I’ll face them head-on. One step at a time. Thank you for reading this far.