I won! "Most Creative Use Case" Thank you @fal!

I bombed my first technical interview. Like nuclear ☢️ I froze and couldn’t answer fundamental object-oriented programming questions. Felt like my education was a waste of time because it seemed like I didn’t retain or deeply understand anything. This was the spring semester of my senior year. My peers were receiving offers and I was destroyed by my first interview experience. I decided to mentally take a “break” from post-graduation anxieties. After graduation, I took a month to do nothing and worry about nothing but breathing after a stressful year (Covid, newborn, senior year, and work). After that month of doing nothing, I reframed; I prepped; and tried again. I put in many applications and got no follow-ups. The local networking group I participate in (@SWFLCoders) had just announced their first in-person meetup since the pandemic lockdowns began. It was here where everything changed. I learned of a local office that was hiring all levels, including entry-level developers. I threw my hat in the ring again and my preparation delivered my first job offer. The rest is history. Moral of the story: be resilient keep trying and NEVER underestimate the power of your network.