Sometime last week, I was in a demotivated state of thought…

Thinking to myself, why am I not good at anything.

spiraling…

Sounds a little depressing haha, but it came out of feeling imposter syndrome from work and prepping for an exam I had to take to tutor Computer Science (still prepping).

This exam consisted of all AP CSP and CSA topics. It’s been more than 4 years since I’ve taken those introductory courses and as I was going through the list of topics, it hit me. I can’t even explain some of these topics… I spiraled into a moment of confusion, low self-esteem, imposter syndrome, and more deep and dark thoughts…

I can code. I can make a functional full stack website (without AI). I can confidently say that. But if someone asks me what is the Big O of bubble sort. I freeze. I’ve heard of both those terms before, but I don’t use sorting algorithms for work or for my personal projects, so the entire concept of algorithms and data structures left my brain…

Then I think to myself. I don’t even know what this is anymore… how can I ever teach/tutor Computer Science? (Why I still care about teaching/tutoring is for a whole separate blog…) So I pulled up ChatGPT, (because I do not remember how to study anymore either), and I asked it to provide me with a micro learning study plan. One with no deadlines but a goal to just study a very specific topic on the list of CS concepts for 10 minutes a day. Micro-learning is what people call it (i think?).

As a very curious person, I know that this method would work for me. I won’t become so overwhelmed trying to perfect the topic, but it’s the habit and the mindset. I know that with this technique, I can remain a competent software engineer in this rapidly changing/advancing tech world and not burn out.

looking up

While I spiraled into an ocean of doubt regarding my CS abilities, I asked myself, so what am I good at? What makes people think I’m smart? What makes people think I look put together?

I reflected upon my degree… Computer Science and Business (it’s one degree). I often don’t talk about the Business aspect of my degree because I thought I didn’t use it on the daily at work. Thinking back on it, I think I’ve been able to ask very business oriented questions to my manager and on various coffee chats such as “I know I have this impact for this project I’m doing, but what else? In the grand scheme of things at this company, am I saving the company money? Is this project making the company money? What’s the purpose of this department? etc etc”

I took notice upon myself that I care more about the business value of a project than the technical nitty gritty parts of a project. It helped me think of senior level job titles that I think I’d be good at. I’m definitely not there yet, but I could see myself developing into someone that can bridge the language gap between technical and non-technical individuals.

I’ve learned to adapt my language at my university, having taken both business and computer science courses. Sometimes I have a very technical solution for my business class, but I know that the nitty gritty technical lingo does not matter in that class. All the business cares about is “Is it making the process more efficient? Is it worth spending money on? Is it saving the company more money long term? Is it going to help generate more money for the company?”

On the other hand, I can talk all about business in my computer science class, but it doesn’t matter if the technical solution is using the wrong language, has the wrong design architecture, not optimized correctly, etc etc. Yes they care that the solution should work and function, but aspects like user experience or is this software/contract with a vendor too expensive are often ignored.

next steps

Feeling better from rediscovering my strengths led me to come up with some goals for the next year. Further strengthen my strengths and improve my weaknesses.

I already discussed how I’d improve my weakness in foundational computer science.

As for further strengthening my strength in bridging the gap between non-technical and technical people, I set myself a goal to do a coffee chat a week with someone in a completely different role. I have joined some employee resource groups as I hope to expand my network outside of my technical bubble. With every coffee chat I have, I’ll end it with “Do you know of anyone that I could talk to to learn more about X topic?” and make it clear that my purpose in these coffee chats is to learn more about the company and the variety of roles.

I’ve been thinking a LOT about money lately so my next reflection will probably be on that, unless I have another late night, spiraling thought that becomes of higher importance.

Well, that wraps up my first blog on reflecting for 2026 goals 😀 Two more to come before the year ends.