Hackathon Beginner Panic

Went to a hackathon, realized I don't know anything AT ALL. I started taking CS courses in fall 22, and I am about 10 courses away from graduating now. My grades in my classes are great, and my school is known for having a slightly more applied curriculum than most. Unfortunately even that is not enough. I can ace data structures/algorithms and discrete math all I want, but I don't have the capability to so much as START a project. Today I went to my first hackathon. I spent 10 hours trying to set up a database on Amazon RDS. I couldn't even do it. I'm not even sure if Amazon RDS is made for projects. I don't know ANY tools for developers (not even the names of these tools). Someone mentioned an "environment variable" to me the other day, I still don't know what that is. Despite the amount of credits I have taken, I am in all honesty, a beginner. Yet, I am on borrowed time. I want to get at least one internship before I graduate but my skillset is seriously concerning me, and I'm panicking. I'm looking for a general direction for someone like me, or at least a list of very small baby steps.

A Reddit screenshot shows a computer science student describing their first hackathon and admitting they cannot start a project or set up a database. The joke is the sharp contrast between strong academic performance and almost no practical development experience, making the post relatable to overwhelmed beginners. It is used as a reaction to imposter syndrome, career anxiety, or realizing that coursework does not equal job-ready skills.

• @gentoomemes / 10135 2024-03-26
• @right_wing_dev_squads / 14002 2026-03-10