I really appreciate all the discourse around imposter syndrome even though I feel like I’m ACTUALLY an imposter you’re all... imposter imposters! I’m the only one who REALLY isn’t capable of doing this work.

I love programming so much but I cannot force myself to believe in myself????? I cannot imagine being able to do this as a career. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to drop out of school or even if I don’t drop out I won’t be able to find a job cause I just suck at this. Ugh

Same. Same same same same. I don't have any advice since I'm also just an imposter hoping people won't discover that I'm useless. I'm sure you're not half as bad as you think you are, though. You're the imposter imposter here 😉😅

@Elyz it’s like the one thing that gives me hope is knowing that everyone else feels this way too

It gets better. Don‘t let yourself down! You can always learn and improve! ;)

@Elyz @baeovvulf I'm sure you're both great at what you do!

That being said, remember that there's junior positions out there, and lots of them. They're specifically designed for people just out of education with no "real world" experience. They *want* you to ask questions in those positions, however basic.

No-ones expecting you to jump out of uni straight into a lead developer position!

Trust me, it's much more annoying if you're managing a junior employee that's just out of school and is trying to tell you how you should do things.

I used to feel that way when I first started. But after a while (they say it takes 10,000 hours to get proficient at a musical instrument, who knows what it is for coding) it will start to shift and you’ll start to feel everyone else is the imposter instead.

Honest though the best way to believe in yourself is to accomplish something. Do a side or personal project and actually get it working. Achieve some goal you set out to do, and hopefully learn something in the process.

The more you accomplish towards your own personal goals, the less of an imposter you will feel like.

@Elyz @baeovvulf I still have this too 😅, although its getting less and less with especially the Linux engineering part, with backend development I still have it 😅

Like with everything else in life, you will always have a WTF moment and doubt yourself. Nothing wrong with it, it's perfectly normal!
Regarding being the imposter, I'd say it's like being stupid..stupid people don't have the knowledge that they are stupid, doing dumb shit..they never doubt themselves or wonder if they are stupid.
So.. if you are doubting your skillset, you are probably not a total failure just by doubting that. If you doubt yourself, you will always try to know more, learn new stuff. Which is good!
If you think doubting yourself is an indicator that you chose the wrong profession, I think you are wrong. If you doubt this is the right thing for you because of some x y valid points (like you hate spending 8h behind the computer every day or you hate learning new stuff) then you might be right.
I see this as any other sports, you can be great at something but will never go to the olympic games. Does it mean you suck at it? No. You are just not as dedicated or don't have a predispostion to excell that much above others as some people. You can still be great at what you do and enjoy doing it, but don't make it a pain for yourself. Not everyone can be elons and teslas amd linus of the world, but that doesn't mean they are shit at what they do. If you enjoy it, than it's the right thing for you to do.
There will always be some jobs that you won't be fit for, either of skillset or you won't like it. So? Nothing wrong with that, it's the same for every profession.. Unless you are trying to be a ski instructor in the middle of sahara desert (this one might be tricky), you will find something that suits you.

Another thing.. what do you all do?! You write code! What is the worst thing that can happen? You write a bug instead of a feature! You are not a heart surgeon! You can sneeze, nothing horrible happens, maybe you put some bodily fluids all over your desktop..what happens if a heart surgeon sneezes during open heart surgery?! Well let's just hope he retracted his hands before the sneeze.. My point?! Most devs will never face a job that can kill a person or people..unless you are in with the surgical/medical stuff or writing code for nuclear powerplants..but then again, that shit actually gets tested and abused before deploy to prod/real life and not many juniors get to work with it anyways..so the worse thing your fuckup can do is cost your eployer/clients a couple of grands.. no lives are in danger (ok there are extremes when they will execute you if you fuckup, but not in many countries)..so why fear anyway? Yeah if you do it constantly you will get fired, might get sued even..but?! You alone cannot kill, you alone cannot be respobsible for the bugs that cause money loss/death. If you are flying solo (self employed) then yeah, but then again (sorry if I am wrong and insluting someone) you cannot be writing sth that can cause death or major financial losses.. So my point is, there is nothing to fear, you write code..even if you write some bad code, no lives are in danger!