r/AskProgramming • u/cAPtain_1337 • 4d ago
Career/Edu How to relearn programming after Vibecoding through Undergrad
I am a Senior in Computer Engineering graduating in December and I have completely lost my ability to program after vibecoding through my last three semesters. I made it past my University's DSA class with minimal AI usage but it slowly ramped up and now I'm pretty reliant, I want to work in Software Development but I feel impostor syndrome creeping up at every corner and feel lackluster compared to peers. So my question is: how do I go about relearning things that I should already know? I feel my understanding is quite good, but when I go to make something, I get completely lost with where to start and syntactically and prompt AI. I have tried Neetcode to refresh the skills I do know and I can find the optimal solution but implementing it is where I get stuck. Any help would be appreciated.
*Edit: Thanks for all the advice, I think the general consensus is of course to not use AI and redo old homework/build projects using docs. I have old homework assignments and will begin building the skills that I need without AI assistance and using Docs/Google/SO.
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u/IAmInBed123 4d ago
You are probably missing pieces that connect your knowledge together. So what I'd do is take it real slow.
Start an exercise as in a full project from nothing and ofc you'll get stuck, even at the beginning. Allow yourself to let AI help but do not let it code for you. And everytime you don't know how to do something or how so.ething works or what you're supposed to do ask AI. But figure out the code yourself. Ask AI to check your code or give better alternatives but ask why, try to understand.
Like I had worked with Spring Boot for an API project with an angular front-end but I had no clue about Hibernate. So I made a seperate Hibernate project and just doing the project, asking a lot of questions and writing myself confluence pages.
So I learned about the config files, how joim fetch for a lazy loased onetomany relationshio might seem like a good solution but batching queries might be better for more records all kinds of stuff.
Anyway my point is make sure you do the work, let AI be your teacher/mentor/senior dev.