There's something funny about the way we approach technology.
We tend to think that if we're going to build something, it has to be big. Something innovative. Something that solves a problem nobody has ever thought about. Something we can proudly put in a portfolio and say, “Look what I built.”
But sometimes, the best place to start is with something incredibly mundane.
Maybe you're tired of manually calculating your expenses every week. Maybe your class timetable is unnecessarily confusing. Maybe you keep forgetting assignments, or you wish there was an easier way to organise your notes.
These problems might not sound groundbreaking, but they are still problems.
And this is where vibe coding becomes interesting.
Vibe coding has made it easier for people who aren't traditional programmers to experiment with building things. With AI tools, you can describe what you want to create, get help writing or understanding the code, test it, break it, fix it, and gradually figure out how everything works.
But I think the real value of vibe coding goes beyond simply getting an AI to write code for you.
It's the process of trying to solve something yourself.
There's a difference between knowing that a tool can build something and actually taking the initiative to say, “I have a problem. Let me see if I can build a solution.”
That mindset is a skill.
And for students especially, this matters.
Going back to school usually means going back to assignments, group projects, deadlines, presentations, packed schedules, and the occasional “Why did I register this course?” crisis. There are already countless small problems around us that we've simply accepted as part of student life.
Vibe coding gives us another option: What if I tried to solve it?
You might not build the next Google. You might build a tiny web app that helps your class keep track of assignments.
And that is still useful.
With vibe coding, an idea isn't just something you think of at 2 a.m. after watching a motivational TikTok and lose interest the next day because you suddenly realized that you have to learn x, y, and z programming languages .
Starting small can mean using VS Code + GitHub Copilot. You describe what you want in natural language, an AI helps generate the code, and you run, test, and refine it. The fun part about vibe coding is that you actually have to know what you want. Think of AI like a powerful tool at your disposal.
So let's say you want to create a simple dashboard by uploading a CSV file. You type in the command and run it. Most times it doesn't come out the way you want it. So you go back to the drawing board, do more research, find what's missing, then run a new command.
Little by little, you learn something new, faster and more efficiently. The dashboard you created is a great visualizer, and from that you get insights.
You can grow something from a single idea to an actual project and learn so many things along the way.
Because competence is not built by waiting until you are good enough to attempt something. You become competent by attempting things, getting them wrong, figuring out why, and trying again.
There's also something valuable about solving seemingly “stupid” problems.
When you build something small, you get to learn the fundamentals without the pressure of creating something revolutionary. You learn how to break a problem down. You learn how to communicate what you want. You learn how to test an idea. You learn how to debug when things inevitably go wrong.
And eventually, those small skills start connecting.
The calculator you built because you were too lazy to calculate something manually might teach you how to work with data.
The timetable generator you made for your class might teach you about logic and automation.
The random website you created at 2 a.m. because you wanted to see if you could actually do it might become the beginning of a portfolio.
The point isn't that every tiny project has to become a startup.
It doesn't.
Sometimes, the project can just be practice.
We spend a lot of time looking for opportunities to prove that we're competent, when sometimes we should be looking for opportunities to become competent.
So as we head back to school, maybe the challenge shouldn't always be to build something impressive.
Build something useful.
Build something silly.
Build something that solves a problem only three people have.
Build something that breaks.
Then fix it.
Because you don't need to wait for a big problem to start becoming a better problem-solver.
Sometimes, all you need is a small problem and the curiosity to ask: “Can I build something for this?”