There is a memory from university that comes back to me whenever someone says I'm naturally smart or genius.
We were doing basic programming exercises in class. One of my friends could finish them pretty easily, while I was still going back through the material, reading it again, and testing things before I could get to the same point. I'd come from a vocational high school where I studied software engineering, so programming wasn't entirely new to me. Still, that background didn't seem to make much difference at the time. My friend could understand something in minutes that I sometimes had to work through several times.
I was jealous. I wanted to be able to read something once and immediately know what to do with it. Instead, I needed another attempt, another explanation, and another round of trying things myself. But I never saw that as a reason to give up or accept that I would always be behind. If anything, seeing what my friend could do made me want to get better. I kept going back to the material, trying different approaches, and wondering if the next attempt would finally make things click.
That was how a lot of learning went during those years. Sometimes I'd stay awake until morning because I still couldn't figure out something I'd been working on. And there was always something else to do. Beyond my classes, I was looking for experience through competitions, student organisations, and teaching assistant work. I'd spend late nights working through Udemy courses, while the list of technologies and tools I thought I needed to learn for the industry kept getting longer. I didn't have the AI coding tools I use today. Most of the time, it was just reading documentation, experimenting, getting stuck, and trying again.
Looking back, university was exhausting. That routine wasn't particularly good for my health, and I certainly don't miss that part of it. But I genuinely enjoyed what I was learning. Even when it took me hours to understand something, my curiosity usually won over my frustration.
By my fourth semester, I started noticing that things weren't taking quite as long to make sense. I was getting more comfortable with learning unfamiliar subjects. I also began entering competitions in areas beyond programming, including UI/UX, cybersecurity, business analysis, academic paper writing, machine learning, and data science. Some were individual competitions, while others involved working with a team. I managed to get a few first- and second-place finishes along the way.
Those results gave me confidence, but what mattered more was seeing how much I had improved. I still remembered struggling with basic programming exercises, yet I was now finding my way through subjects I hadn't studied before. It made me realise that all those hours of practice had probably done more than help me understand specific technologies. I'd gradually become better at learning things I didn't know.
I notice that difference quite often now. When I encounter an unfamiliar topic, I don't feel like I need to understand everything before getting started. I'll break it into smaller parts, read the documentation, try a simple example, and build something with it. Sometimes, trying to make something work teaches me more than reading through the documentation several times. I also know how to approach problems differently. I have a better idea of what to search for, what questions to ask, and where to look when something doesn't make sense.
I still rely on trial and error. The difference is that I have a much better idea of what to do when things go wrong.
About two weeks before writing this, I started a freelance job as an AI Benchmark Engineer. I'd never done that kind of work before, so there was plenty I didn't know. But I found the work interesting. I started reading, looking for patterns, experimenting, and gradually getting familiar with the tasks. It was interesting to experience being a beginner again, but in a completely different field. I was still learning from scratch, yet I wasn't as overwhelmed by the process as I might have been a few years ago.
After dozens of freelance projects, that opportunity also became a financial milestone for me. I was genuinely happy about it. It meant a lot to get the opportunity, but it also felt good to realise that I could take on something unfamiliar, figure out what I needed to learn, and eventually do the work.
These days, friends sometimes tell me I might be overworking. I understand why. With everything happening around AI, especially AI agents, there's always something new that catches my attention. Sometimes I still get carried away and end up learning until morning. The difference is that it's usually because I've found something interesting and want to explore it further, rather than spending hours struggling to understand one concept. I'm genuinely enjoying what I'm doing.
That said, I don't make those late nights a regular habit anymore. I know what that kind of routine can do to my health. Just because I enjoy learning doesn't mean I should neglect everything else. I can appreciate how much those university years taught me without wanting to repeat every part of them.
So when people call me a genius or say I was born smart, I know they mean it as a compliment. I appreciate it, but there's something about that description that doesn't quite match how I remember getting here.
I remember rereading the same material because I didn't understand it the first time. I remember being jealous of a friend who could finish an exercise before I even knew where to start. I remember how much time I spent trying to catch up, and how, little by little, things started getting easier.
I'm happy with how far I've come. But I think the part I'm most proud of is everything that happened before people started calling me smart.
That's the part nobody sees.