You're a First Year Student; Who Taught You That?

"You're a first-year student... who taught you that?"

That was the message. No context. No punctuation. Just pure, confused audacity. Like I’d committed a crime by knowing how to use a framework.

Like React.js is sacred knowledge only handed out by grey-haired professors after year two; however, let me set the record straight: I built my React.JS portfolio website in 2022, grade eleven - before I had a student ID or took a university lecture or anyone in a tie told me what I was “supposed” to learn.

I did it without your permission, without your roadmap, and without your fragile little expectations. Instead, I've decided to invest my time learning through:

• Genuiene documentation written like IKEA instructions.
• Tutorials at 2x speed because I was too impatient to be average.
• Bugs that gaslit me into thinking I was the problem.
• Layouts that made me question the concept of pixels, math, and reality.
• The solid emotional support of Chrome DevTools, my ride-or-die.

Meanwhile, this guy was out here acting like I needed a permission slip to import useEffect() into my code. Here’s a JSX component in his honor:

const WhoTaughtYouThat = () => (
    <div>
        <h1>Restricted Access</h1>
        <p>You must be THIS insecure to gatekeep knowledge.</p>
    </div>
);

People like this are just annoying — they’re the human equivalent of red squiggly lines; their worldview is so outdated it should come bundled with Flash Player. If your first instinct when someone younger than you does something impressive is to get suspicious, then congratulations, I genuinely believe you’ve officially become the villain in a self-taught origin story.

I didn’t wait for a syllabus. I didn’t ask for your validation. I opened my browser, Googled relentlessly, broke things on purpose, and learned faster than your fragile ego could keep up. So yes, I’m a first-year student now. But I’ve already done more with my high school hours than most do in a semester of “waiting for the assignment.” Who taught me? Nobody; I taught myself, and now here you are — stunned, bitter, and accidentally making me look even better.