Here's a snippet of my background and my experience so far. Enjoy!
Let's get Real
I've been avoiding writing this blog for a while now. Where do I start. What do I say. So much that I might as well say so little. So here I am on squibler.io forcing myself to get my mind to just spit it out.
So you're asking me how I feel right now? - t i r e d. How about that. And I don't mean just your regular old "oh I need a coffee ill be fine" tired. I mean the "I think my mitochondria and my soul needs rest" type of tired.
No but truly.
How I feel is : exhausted, about to crash out, behind of everyone... but boy do I feel more alive - more structured, disciplined, awake, focused, optimistic.
It's been so long since I have worked this hard - last time was last spring during my masters? Although none of that hard work stuck to me. AI has really messed with my ability to grasp concepts in 3D.
So what I'm trying to say is - why was this week hard? Let's dive deep.
Dive In
It was hard because what do you mean I have to think for myself and know the ins and outs of my whole application myself? And not just the application, but also myself and why I am the way I am as an engineer.
Prior to this bootcamp, I was in a pretty dark place where I didn't know what to do with my life to get where I wanted to.
did I know where I wanted to go? yes....?
did I know how to get there ......maybe? ..... no.
I was trying to do 10 things at once just attempting to find my footing in this world - " What do I know best, what am I good at, what does the industry need, how can I conform myself to be what they need, but wait, I should be myself no? I should just be an expert at what I like? Especially if I know I have skill, but how do I show them on paper? I'm a creative in a technical field - how do I tap into that? I knew I liked HCI, front-end and ML but what do I do with it - the industry expects so much more these days. But wait if I'm just focused on that, aren’t I too narrow sighted? Do I trust myself to make it if I just focus on what I like? Shouldn't I be the jack of all trades - especially in tech? Ok but how do I do that. Is that even in my scope. Who do I ask for direction and help. ok no. Everyone SHUSH - school is my first priority, I'm doing a masters. ... but is it really? Isn't getting my foot in the industry my first priority? Ok so how do I do that ... annddd I've come full circle. " I was this ^ but on repeat, for 3+ years.
I’ve been to 12 schools in my life. I hated moving around back then, it hindered my ability to trust myself. I remember I moved 3 times in my first semester of Algebra in middle school - this messed me up till junior year of high school. I was constantly confused about what I wanted to do in life, and when you’re confused, you end up listening to your trusted advisors in life.
I entered Undergrad as a timid Undeclared major attempting to get into computer engineering. I switched to Biomedical in my sophomore year for a semester, then switched to Software because well, I figured it gave me the flexibility to end up in a position I wanted to later in life.
When your whole life has been people thinking for you, then AI thinking for you, you never really know how to trust your own thought process. You never trust yourself to make it in the world.
The one thing I learned from being exposed to so many bubbles at such a young age was to be aware of the people surrounding me - I got excellent at reading people and being intuitive. Today this helps me immensely with thinking from the other perspective, the user's perspective. This helps me gauge what the user wants and deciding how the user is going to feel the most comfortable interacting with my application.
Become a part of a Fractal
Then, here comes Fractal. an once in a lifetime opportunity knocking on my door at the right place at the right time - a safe space for me to be as messy as I want. In fact, push myself to not be perfect - practice failing and I will be rewarded for it.
This is a quite tough concept for me to work around. Fear of failure is deeply rooted in my instincts. To go from the typical hours of doom scrolling as a comfort mechanism, to being faced with the yourself everyday from 6:30 am - 9 pm and only experiencing discomfort, is an insane mentality shift. In a way, it truly forces you to be your own therapist and tackle the problems you've been avoiding.
At the beginning of this week, any slight error, any red on the screen and boom - anxiety sky rocketed, avoidance tendencies to the max, failure beliefs confirmed. Let's go back to what was working. But what was working wasn't the best.
So how do I get to a better iteration, a better product? Turns out, going through the errors, untangling the tangled, was the only way.
This past week has been messy and rewarding in multiple ways.
I was able to make sense about a lot of concepts I didn't think I would be able to understand for a while - what 6 years of college didn't do, 1 week at fractal did.
Now you might be thinking - Pushpal, what the f**k. Because I do too. Every day at Fractal my self doubt doubled.
“What have you been doing all these years”
"If you couldn’t make it in 6 years, what makes you think you can make it now”
“Look at everyone around you, most don’t even have a technical background and they’re doing better than you”
“UGH what was that lecture about sockets last year teaching?? Why don’t I remember - oh because well duh you’re not competent enough”
Friday morning was the most tough. I had truly convinced myself I didn’t belong there - maybe I should just pack up and leave. That day I went on a longer walk for lunch, talked to a friend, and came back thinking “what’s the worst that can happen, I’m already at my lowest low. Let’s just give it another shot”
Surprisingly I left Friday much more optimistic. I asked for help, and the dots started connecting. I felt like I was entering the world the monitor in front was presenting to me. Finally, instead of looking at it as my enemy, I was entertaining the idea of shaking hands with it. So while I can’t say that my self doubt has gone away miraculously, I do feel that my ability to soothe myself has grown because I trust myself slightly more than I did last Monday.
Your environment plays a huge factor in how you grow. For me, it was simple. Sure I was attending classes, but eh they're hard, nothing makes sense - some things do, most don't, I'm not motivated because I don't see the end goal and AI is my buddy. People around me weren’t the best examples of SWEs either. This was my life in Undergrad. I worked harder in Masters, but none of the dots were connecting. My classes gave me a higher level view of what's happening, but I was not passionate enough about school to dive deep on my own time and most teachers will not explain how the concepts in their class connect with concepts outside of their class. So sure I took a cybersecurity and networking class - but what does that look like IRL and connected to concepts outside of class?
Fractal truly reminds me of an organization I was passionate about in undergrad - Software & Computer Engineers Society (SCE). When I first joined SCE, everyone was so helpful, so welcoming, and had a deep desire to make it in this world. I remember falling in love with that space - I was addicted. COVID changed quite a few things, but my desire to find a place like that again never changed. Fractal is that, but make it 10x.
Conclusion
I'm so excited at the idea that by the end of this summer, I might just become a part of this amazing fractal.
Surrounding yourself with curious minds, and hard working people has made it easier for me to be the person I've always wanted to be - a detail oriented, creative and persistent individual. I forgot what it was like to feel like this, it's addicting - I’m still getting there. I don’t know if I will leave the bootcamp as some great magician, but what I do know is I’ll leave it feeling 100x better about myself than when I came in. This first week has perfectly portrayed that.
It's hard to find an environment that truly cultivates you as an individual, so when you do find it, you take it and you don't let it go.