A story about burnout in education

I decided to write this article as an attempt to streamline the movement of thoughts in my head. As an opportunity to share with those who want to become a member that thousands of words about the need to actively study and endure hardships and everything will definitely work out do not always reflect reality.

Now I am in the active stage of burnout from the path I have traveled, and this has spun me into a wheel of self-flagellation and hatred. I’m trying to get out.

Sunny 2020

My colleague quits his post as a laboratory assistant and leaves for a java programmer. This was the first, but not yet defining bell. Even then, after 7 years as a marine engineer and being highly qualified, I understood that I was reaching the ceiling. I did not want to do business, but the ability to learn was in abundance. Behind him was 6 years of university and 4 years of graduate school. The first impulse to learn the language ended quickly, the sisharp was given crumpled. Without seeing the general concept of the language, and also without a clue why it was needed at all, educational queries quickly disappeared from the search history.

Already less rosy 2021

Promises and assurances about the need for masters of the IT sector are being attacked everywhere, both from friends, who almost shook with questions about familiar programmers, and notorious programming schools. At that time, the desire for adventure again zagozilo and began to warm up. A former colleague also added oil to this fire, which could both work filigree and spend time with a child. Not wanting to vegetate on the territory of the enterprise, without the opportunity to see even if future, but already beloved children, as well as the desire to grow in skills and salary, I decided to rethink the beginning of my career in the IT field.

Taking a step back, I looked at the areas that divided the information technology sector. Exploring every area, I searched for the answer within myself. A recollection or an echo of annoyance for something that he himself used and that he himself would like to do better. In the process, I learned that my strongest memory was the sadness of statically loading pages in my 2003. When a fifth grader opens Internet Explorer and sees images, texts loading in fits and starts and no magic. The kind of magic he’d seen in sci-fi movies where, even though they were ads, the windows were animated and personalized. Where the transition from page to page was like a transition from one world to another. It was by comparing these two emotions that I decided to get deeper into web development.

The start was neat and inexpensive. Kirup Chinnathambi’s uncomplicated book “JavaScript From Scratch” showed me what the site consists of and did not sprinkle me with particularly complex terms. Having dealt with the book and written several pages, from which euphoria seemed to have no limit, I consolidated my desire to stay in this area. Unfortunately, there was no one familiar with knowledge in this area, and indeed no one willing to tell about the wrong side of the world of studying technology. I made this decision for myself: “I’ll take courses at some site and use them as a skeleton for my own teaching of what I want.” Great plan Walter.jpg. Taking the courses in one hand and the textbooks of Ilya Kantor in the other, I began to climb to my peak.

So, for half a year, I methodically absorbed block after block and chapter after chapter. A still formless and flimsy understanding was already beginning to emerge that the path would not be one thousand steps, or even two. With each term and abstraction I passed, my horizon of self-requirements grew like a shark’s smile. Here, on top of the regular knowledge of the holy trinity (JS, CSS, HTML), you understand that you need the concepts of algorithms, UI / UX design habits, and marketing skills in order to understand: “What exactly needs to be written and done on the page in order to realize that boy’s dream from 2003? Somehow trying to fit this knowledge and pathetic attempts to turn it into a qualification, I suddenly find out about some frameworks there. At this point, resentment was already rolling up. Like a tidal wave, she tickled the nerves, saying, “All the knowledge learned so far has been useless. You couldn’t raise them, but it turns out you didn’t have to deal with them when there was this amazing, like a child’s, fuse. Pulling towards Frontend development, the courses became more and more a burden. Or the material was already irrelevant for me personally. For example, algorithms that I studied a little earlier, albeit not at the level of the great and terrible. Or homework forced you to remember the syntax of the language that you don’t even plan to memorize. With all my gratitude to Java, I didn’t want to study it, but all the courses were held strictly on it. I understand why this language was the main one, I understand that it could be better this way. But going to the courses, I nevertheless reported on my interests in website building. Now everyone is shaved with the same brush for 10 months, leaving only a couple of weeks for specialization.

Start 2022

So everything would have continued, and it would have resulted, I don’t understand what, if it weren’t for a fatal accident. In early March, I suffered a serious leg injury (ACL rupture). This required an expensive operation and a lengthy rehabilitation process from me and my loved ones. In order not to go crazy at home, I decided to take the bull by the horns and sit down firmly at the framework with all the elements of containerization, styling, methods of working with databases and methods of organizing SPA that accompany it. So I eagerly absorbed lesson after lesson, my working day was 8 hours of continuous study, practice and skill polishing. In two weeks, I completely swallowed the ReactJS YouRa Allakhverdov course.

Next came the English-language course on patterns in working with the framework. At the same time, taking layouts from freelance sites without accepting the order itself, I began to typeset, so that the portfolio would be filled and my hand would be full. Feeling the power, I gave myself up to creativity in my personal business card website. Everything seemed clear and understandable. Working with states, functional and class components. It seemed that any interview was mine, and I would be able to embark on a new dizzying path without any difficulties. I matured so much that I went to the stock exchange and sorted out questions from interviews. It seemed that I was close to my goal.

After operation

Already in April, I spent 3 weeks on preparation and postoperative recovery. For a number of reasons, it turned out to be more difficult. I won’t dive deep into this step. I can only say that the key complication was the “Post-Puncture Syndrome”. Believe me, the head at this time does not belong to you at all.

So, I was able to sit and work with my head again. “Well, now how will I continue my ascent, and in general I will become the best,” I thought naively, sitting down to my favorite thing. I forgot to say, I streamed my processes on Twitch. So there was no socialization, and they suggested what was best done where. And so I sat down to make a layout of an eco-products store, cheerfully throwing ideas on, I spent more than one hour with pleasure. The next day, inspired by the previous day, I started streaming again and found that I couldn’t even raise my fortune. For me, resentment and disappointment rushed, knowledge dissolved in just a couple of weeks without practice. Reading and viewing tutorials was useless. I, having apologized to the audience, ended the stream and realized that everything had to be started from the beginning.

Continuing, which already seemed useless to me, studying the courses and reviewing what I had passed, I gradually sank into the burnout syndrome. Starting over, I found TypeScript to be a more strict but successful language. Which, of course, again hit me with frustration. “The previously studied again turned out to be only a step (if not a waste of time) to the desired heights and did not become that plateau of knowledge stability, improving which you can enter the labor market.” So I concluded, sitting down for courses from Ulbi TV on React and Typescript from Anton Larichev during a break reading a new work for me by Kirup Chinnathambi “Learning React”.

With each new chapter of information, layout made up, I understood that I was learning out of habit, but headache, apathy and indifference haunt me. At the same time, the quality of education was actively declining. Apparently desperate, I described my problem to ChatGPT and received the answer that was already in my head: “Burnout”. Having clarified with the program the difference between laziness and burnout, I decided to describe my experiences in this form of retelling. Now I feel the meaning in my education. I see that each previous stage still filled the foundation for new knowledge and helped to assimilate repeated knowledge, realizing and consolidating the rethought.

I would like to publish this material for several reasons:

1. People who want to enter IT Co. after reading the article will see that even with a lot of free time and strong motivation, they will not be able to master a full-fledged technology stack in a couple of sittings. That the study of programming is the same process of assimilation of knowledge and the formation of skills, like mechanical engineering, medicine, music. And the process of obtaining skills is long, laborious and requiring endurance. The concept of monk syndrome for 3 days fits perfectly here as an indicator, a litmus test for people who are not ready to become loggers.

2. I have been isolated at home for too long, studying forums and materials that have lost touch with the world. Therefore, maybe in the comments, I would like to receive feedback. See if someone has gone through a similar path, and cheer up. Or maybe they hug, but then I will know that I’m just limp and behave like a rag. Any form will show me like a mirror, like a measure of where I am, who I am and what to do next.

Thank you for your time, good and peace to you.