Programming was the first “hard” class I took in high school.I did miserably in it, barely scraped by with a C. Despite having a ton of interest in it and a des

Programming was the first “hard” class I took in high school.I did miserably in it, barely scraped by with a C. Despite having a ton of interest in it and a desire to learn, it was just so hard to get started. I decided it wasn’t for me and studied something unrelated in college. I took a dead end job out of college because I had no idea what to do with my degree. I randomly met some professional software engineers through a local run club and started doing online classes/coding challenges with them through edX and project Euler. The spark came back and I decided to entertain the possibility of doing this full time. I made the leap and have been quite happy with my decision. I think I was put off because I struggled so much with programming compared to my other classes. I didn’t see other people struggling with it, because the smart kids were the only ones getting called on. In hindsight, most of the class was struggling and I fell somewhere in the middle. I like the idea of explicitly saying programming is hard. But it’s double edged, it will put off many people who may have an aptitude for it because most beginners are full of self doubt and humility. To the authors point, we should work towards changing the connotation around the word “hard” to be more positive.