About Me

Hey, I’m Penguin.

I’m a first-year university student who likes building things, things that not only benefit me, but maybe another two people at the very least. I must say I am not someone who is overkill in computer science and has such passion towards coding that I can make complicated systems in weeks just by curiosity.

If I can build something that makes my own life easier, or helps another two people along the way, I'd call that a success.

I don't think of myself as a programmer yet. I think of myself as someone who wants to become one, maybe the thought is wrong, but that's for others to say.

Why I build things?

I am not the guy with a lifelong pact towards programming, or because I fell deep in love with the web of computer science when i was 10. My only aim is to try and make an idea, for example, I once spent a week making a google sheets for me and a bunch of friends to gamify habit tracking, I just had an idea, and I felt like doing it. It was far from something people sell for $29.99 on notion, but it did the job, and it taught me a lot more about how useful spreadsheets can get. IJust that one project made me real good at making cool spreadsheets and creating tables or managing spreadsheet data, although i will still need to google formulas and macros, I atleast know the logic behind it.

It's not that I want to make hundreds of projects or make a project that changes the world or looks good in a resume, I just wanna make something cool and useful. Building something just 'cause a course told me to is quite boring, I try to create a bigger idea that really puts the concept to a practical use, and that's a great way to learn to build things. For example, learning lists in python can make you a system that stores student details and grades marks relatively, and when you learn pandas and matplotlib, you can plot them.

Half the time, I don't know what to even build, and that might be because I try to find a project for a concept, and not the other way around (project that needs me to learn a concept).

It's not that you have to master all concepts needed for a project to build it, if you try it that way, you probably wont be able to start the project.

Your projects don't have to be structured or anything, just random things that you find interesting, and that's better because every project will teach you something the last project won't.

My relation with CS

Every CS guy I have seen remembers when he started coding, well I don't... It was probably when I figured out how to install an APK, that's when I learnt to get around a phone, or when I tried to install a mod in minecraft that i got to know how games work and where game data is stored.

It's not that child me wanted to code a lot, child me just wanted to get the thing i wanted working, be it installing a mod, or cracking an app from the play store (😅)

I was fascinated by the idea that almost every piece of software had a reason behind it. Like if something worked, someone had taken their sweet darn time to make it work. If something broke, there was probably a reason for that too.

Sometimes, I feel like I barely know anything related to the field I am in, but looking back at those years, I didn't learn as much as I would like, but certainly more than what I credit myself for.

Internet: the double-edged sword

I well remember the first time i touched a computer. When I was 6 on a boxy computer was the time i first used Windows 7, playing purble place and solitaire (i didn't know how to play both).

The internet has a wierd way of inspiring you and making you feel inadequate at the same time. One video you're learning a topic you can get the hang of, and the next, you see someone building an operating system from scratch.

What does "thatarcticpenguin" even mean?

I don't know, but I can tell it's origin. I once kept a pfp of a penguin as my display pic on social media.

And the time i changed to a different one, a lot of people really liked it, so i just made up a niche username of a penguin

Now, people know me as Penguin more often than my actual name, which is kind of weird when you think about it.

I guess that's how the internet works lol.

Ego & Imposter syndrome

I do have something that's been following me for as long as I can remember: an unhealthy mix of ego and impostor syndrome.

Those two sound like opposites, but for me, they coexist surprisingly well.

On one hand, I genuinely believe I can build something meaningful one day. I want to create things that people use and appreciate. Not because I want to be famous or leave a mark or anything, but because I want to look back years from now and point at something and say, "I made that, y'all use it now."

On the other hand, I constantly feel like I'm nowhere near good enough.

It's almost funny. I'll watch someone casually explain concepts that I haven't even touched yet, and the first thought that enters my mind isn't, "That's interesting." It's, "How does he know all this at 16?", every impressive project that I see, becomes less about them, and more about what it says about me and my lack of skill.

I know that thought isn't rational. Every student learns at a different pace. Everyone starts somewhere, and everyone was once a beginner. It's also not that I am the absolute worst at programming to think that way. Yet, the voice doesn't really care about logic.

Because of it, I rarely let myself feel satisfied. Although I'm slowly realizing that becoming better isn't just about writing better code or building bigger projects, it's also about making peace with being a beginner, about accepting that competence isn't measured by how early you learned something.

Conclusion

I just know I want to keep making things. Maybe they'll have ten users or a hundred. As long as I can keep looking at something and say, "I made that, it's cool", I'll probably be happy.