5 years – time for a new IT student to lose orientation to become a software tester (Tester)
Do you believe that humans are just imitators?
…
I used to live a life of imitation.
When I was in high school, because I saw my friends competing for the Information Technology exam because I heard that the salary in school was thousands of dollars, I imitated and started studying in Grade A. I studied day and night, solving all the problems available in the market. At school, taking extra classes until late at night to come home, solve all the problems, then solve them again for fear of losing knowledge while waiting for the exam.
When I went to university, because I saw all my friends applying to clubs at school, I imitated and applied to 4 clubs. Luckily, I passed all 4. After passing the exam, I went back to participating in all activities, events, exchanges and acquaintances with brothers and sisters and friends in the club. Because it is said that it is the process by which students put their time and effort to gain valuable “networking”.
Sounds like an active student, right?
But, after the first two years of college, I was almost exhausted. Exhausted, tired, re-studying many subjects. Imitation engulfed me in deadlines that had nothing to do with Information Technology – the major I studied. When I was in my third year, when I saw a lot of friends who had gone to internships and had paid jobs, I realized that I had nothing in my hands, I felt like I was immersed in a dense fog, unable to see myself. , also do not see the road ahead.
It was all vague, I started not wanting to go on.
But thinking about my mother’s eyes when seeing me off to school, I couldn’t bear it.
So I started fidgeting.
The first thing I did was stop imitating. I started out the clubs to have time to delve into myself. There was a time when I wanted to take a gap year, but I didn’t dare because I had no preparation, no goals in life. So I found a self-help book to read.
I fell in love with the words of author Me Mong in the book: “Living realistically in the middle of a pragmatic life” “This world does not bring coal on snowy days, only weaving flowers on brocade. If you want someone else to weave flowers on brocade, you must first become brocade. But there are many kinds of brocade, I don’t even know what I want to become. Naturally, after reading self-help books, I feel more disoriented.
I started looking for a more realistic environment, to be exact. I became a Developer intern at a software company. Starting from the internship position, I experienced many “novels” of Developer work. After experiencing it all, it seems that I am not very suitable for Developer because the job requires creating code, mastering programming languages, but I am not a creator, understanding languages. Programming is also at the a-ma-ma level because the students were lazy to learn from the beginning and gradually lost their roots.
I realized that I like things about communication, handling situations, which is also the reason why I actively participate in student clubs. “Dead! Do I have to start all over again for another major?” – I’m bewildered.
Luckily, my boss saw that and gave me a broader perspective on Information Technology, suggesting me another position as Tester. After working for a few days, I realized that I didn’t know anything about this job, didn’t know where to start, the company was new, the boss had a lot of work, I was alone. Bewildered Ho Quynh Huong again.
Fortunately, I was introduced to a Tester course by a friend at a technology company. The plus point in this course is that if my academic performance is good, I will become a full-time employee.
Moreover, the course takes only 3 months, a very short time compared to 4 years of university to find a job you want. I decided to apply, if not accepted as an employee, I also have the background knowledge to confidently apply to other companies. Compared to the nearly hundred million spent in college, the amount to attend the course is much less.
The lecturers of the course are all employees with many years of experience in the Tester industry, so the knowledge conveyed is very practical and easy to understand. Time goes by, in the morning I work part-time to earn money to study, in the afternoon I study as a Tester, in the evening I work hard on my homework, after 3 months I have achieved good results in class. Feeling very happy at that time. And at the same time my efforts have paid off, I was offered by the company to become a full-time employee.
But the difficulties did not stop, participating in the company’s actual projects was a bit different from when I went to school, I struggled to know how to apply. Luck smiled again when being directly instructed by the teachers themselves. A close brother told me: “Newcomers don’t be afraid to ask, teamwork with you a lot, the important thing is to give the best quality service to make customers satisfied, if you don’t know, ask, don’t hide it. Ignorance, this profession generates many situations, sometimes long-term brothers and sisters in the profession also have to discuss with young people to come up with a solution.”
Oh, your words are like a strong catalyst, giving me the motivation to stick with the Tester profession for a long time.
After more than 2 years, I have been really attached to the profession, happily advising my teammates in the team how to handle test situations, persuading Developers to sit down to survey the function on a subtest environment. number…
Not only suitable, being a tester gives me a lot of benefits
The first benefit is that I get to know many different business domains and get an in-depth look at the entire system.
For example, a customer wants software for business domain A. As a Tester of this software, I have to understand business domain A and understand what problems my software solves for customers, how to solve them. , not just around how many functions this software has and what these functions do, what is input, what is output.
At the same time, the Tester has the opportunity to understand and see how the software to solve the problem of the other business domain A needs to be designed, how many databases are needed, which functions to build for which services…
The second benefit is that this profession helps me to look at problems from many different angles.
There is a maxim that I always recommend to Testers to be able to see from many different angles, which is “be stupid”.
Don’t expect the user to know what to type, what to do. Once the product is put into practice, anything can happen and anyone can do anything on the software.
But a good Tester needs to look: “If there is data, it will output to a file like this, if there is no data, what is it like to press the export report button? How does the software run? What message appears? Is the announcement user-friendly? Or if a function reports an error, is the message content friendly?”
When you talk about the problem and exchange it with the Bug recipient who happily fixes the bug, it’s been successful.
So the third benefit is that this career has trained me to handle situations. Also indirectly improved my communication ability. At this point, I see that the years of joining the club at the university were not in vain, so students outside of school should join to increase their communication skills. Burying your head in school is good, but going to work has to communicate a lot.
Later, I realized that disorientation was inevitable. But the determination to change one’s original choice is a blessing and a brave one. Students should find themselves a company to try, experience for themselves to understand their desires better.
It sounds easy, but that’s why I was lucky enough to meet my boss to guide me, otherwise I don’t know what to do now. But not everyone is so lucky.
Hope my story can help you a bit in the orientation process. Hope you find your way.
Thank you very much in Techlead company.
(This is the actual sharing of a Tester, coming from a student and working at TechLead)
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