Where am I?
“Tail of a dragon or head of a snake” is a phrase that is commonly used in South Korea. It is basically a metaphor for the situations where you being the insignificant person in a high ranking community vs. being the most important person in a low ranking community. “Well, I want to be the head of dragon!!!” -said 10 year old Amy. Unfortunately, 26 year old Amy has learned that life is not that simple.
I often get scared if I choose a wrong path. I was basically close to the head of a snake when I was in engineering: bunch of internship experiences, good grades, and a good job. I got 3 years of scholarships, got into international internship that was like 200 vs 1 etc, selected to graduate program where the company’s accelerating my career. I was basically on the right path. (Although Engineering is still considered as a dragon industry, I’m talking in terms of my passion) But I was not thrilled. When I think about work, it was okay, and I could do it forever, but I wasn’t excited about it. So then I started to draw, read books, making videos etc. Hobbies were fun but I still didn’t like the fact that I’m spending more than 8 hours a day doing something that is completely irrelevant to what I do after work. I wanted what I do after work can strengthen what I do as work as well.
Long story short, I moved to do software, and I’ve been pretty happy with my decision. However, it hits me once in awhile that I’m so behind in this field. I’m not a CS major, I don’t have any experience in software, and I’m not even a good programmer. I’m basically a tail of a snake in software, not even close to being any part of dragon. I see so many smart programmers and the gap between me and them feels like an endless ocean.
Tail of a Dragon
Recently, an intern joined our team. We became pretty close, and the more I talked to him, the more I got surprised. Oh my god, this guy knows so much stuff. The greatest part was that I could tell that he genuinely loves what he does. I didn’t realize that having a friend who’s passionate about the same field (and also he got such cool stuff done!!!) would make me feel so encouraged. Then I thought, hm, I'd be competing people like this guy rest of my life. I will always be asking for help and I will always be the one who's behind. But even the, my excitement towards the fact that I will have people like him to talk about cool projects and learn from them was greater than the fear of being behind. So I thought, ‘wow despite the fact that I’m just a tail of whatever, it’s just so much fun that I can ask about the cool projects that I didn’t even think about.’
Well, as there are snakes like rattlesnakes, that have a distinguish feature on their tail, maybe I can be a tail of a dragon that has a distinguish feature too. Anyways, I think I’m happy with where I am right now. I’m learning a lot and enjoying so much talking about DevOps with the intern and I’m glad I found a good friend at work.