I was rejected by Etsy one year into my career. At the end of the a long day of interviews, they asked me to code a CS problem (Conway's Game of Life) in a language that I definitely didn't know (PHP). #shareyourrejections
After the interview, I went home and read everything I could about Conway's Game of Life. I didn't understand a lot of it. So then I started reading about other computer science problems, hoping one of them would make more sense to me.
But even some of that was still confusing. So I started trying to comprehend the fundamentals. How did these algorithms work, and how could I better understand them? I wasn't sure, but I knew that I had to try to find out.
I spent a lot of time lost in the depths of various Wikipedia articles, attempting to understand how these things worked. And I had a hard time finding good, accessible resources that would explain them to me at that point in my learning.
I decided that I would try to learn these things on my own, and attempt to create those resources that I thought were lacking. And that's how #basecs REALLY came to be.
It's been 2.5 years since that interview, and I have taught myself and others so many technical concepts that I couldn't even have imagined understanding back then. And now, #basecs has grown from a written series into both a podcast and video series! 🤗
Not all rejections are bad; they are what you make of and take away from them. My @codeascraft interview/rejection ended up completely changing my career, and I'm really glad for that!
Ironically, I still haven't actually gotten around to implementing Conway's Game of Life since that my interview. But maybe someday I will. :)
#shareyourejections
#shareyourejections
