Nowadays just condense your life to a backpack and travel while you can. Making money or going into debt for school is great and all but your true wealth is your time and your's alone. Sure you can hawk it out to the highest bidder but you can never buy it back no matter what you do. You code so go experience the world and find over looked problem facing real people and solve them. By not having a schedule and being self reliant you'll be forcibly giving yourself the time to do so.
Ask HN: Burned out 21 year old software developer, what's next?
51–60 of 118 posts
Re: Ask HN: Burned out 21 year old software developer, what's next?
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm currently in college, what else is it about? (I'm genuinely curious) I'm studying mathematics (it's the only degree I could see being worth while in a purely intellectual and educational sense)
Consider that you're spending $X on college, when you could probably just as easily buy the text book (or not!) and do courses online for free. So what is it that you want to get out of college? If you don't know, why are you paying? I'm not hiring, but I'd personally rather see someone who self taught themselves some specific discipline, and then used the money they would have spent on college to apply their knowled…
Now in terms of math I can only speak for myself but it would probably take me 10x longer to learn what I have learnt, if it wasn't for being surrounded by professionals and a peer group where I can have my assumptions tested against.
Now I'm not saying it's impossible to self teach yourself advanced mathematics, but without tutorials, office hours, students to talk to, professors to talk to, it's going to be a very difficult road and one I'm not sure I could do the self-taught method.
Re: Ask HN: Burned out 21 year old software developer, what's next?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow. I also live in a city where tech is not popular. How many people here have found the same thing when moving to SF?
I live in Seattle but the people hear are all in institutional tech, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Not too many truly innovate startups here either, mostly B2B. Was in The Bay recently and really liked it.
Re: Ask HN: Burned out 21 year old software developer, what's next?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Programming skills is not the same as CS degree
A CS degree is not real software engineering experience (;
You could take Trevor Murphy for Classics 10B, Intro to Roman Civ. You could learn to sail or windsurf down at Cal Sailing.
BTW, applying to Berkeley from out of state is more dicey. And expensive (Tuition and Fees: $13,509 (in-state); $40,191 (out-of-state)). Again, moving here and going to a CA JC will dramatically improve your chances.
Big point: you really need to learn a LOT about the application process and requirements. Not a little, a shit ton. This is not for the faint of heart. It isn't an easy path. You have to take it very seriously. You're probably two years away.
Re: Ask HN: Burned out 21 year old software developer, what's next?
#55Re: Ask HN: Burned out 21 year old software developer, what's next?
#56Re: Ask HN: Burned out 21 year old software developer, what's next?
#57College college college college. Your 20s are when you figure out what you want to do. College is expensive but a great way to dabble in tons of stuff, socialize, and get ready for the next step. Being 21 isn't too late, plenty of people go to college at 21-22 after stints in the military. You'll be popular as you'll be able to buy your friends beer (legal disclaimer: don't do that).
Burn out is not really something physical. You probably need some rest, but it is less than what you think (measured in days). Your own mind is dissatisfied with some of what you are doing and it is raising red flags. You need to figure out what is it.
Do you like writing software? This is the first question. If you do, keep going, but you need to focus on something else. Maybe a slightly different industry, or smaller companies, or even something on your own.
I agree with the comments about college. You don't know what you are missing out until you do. It's great that you are self taught, which is an important skill for college.
There are a few reasons to enroll. You are unlikely to be implementing data structures in your day job. However, some algorithms are very hard to understand, and it forces your brain to work really hard to crack them. Then algorithmic problems at work become rather trivial. And the remaining non-trivial can be reduced to one of the problems you already know.
Second, there's the exchange of ideas. You'll notice that many billionaires are college dropouts. Meaning that they did enroll and took classes, and decided to quit because they found a big opportunity. Odds are you are going to leave college in debt instead of a billionaire, but you'll leave with knowledge and connections, which are worth more.
And of course, your CV will be better for it.
Re: Ask HN: Burned out 21 year old software developer, what's next?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow. I also live in a city where tech is not popular. How many people here have found the same thing when moving to SF?
I live in Seattle but the people hear are all in institutional tech, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Not too many truly innovate startups here either, mostly B2B. Was in The Bay recently and really liked it.
Re: Ask HN: Burned out 21 year old software developer, what's next?
#59It is normal. We recently finished a big project at my company. I barely had any sleep during the process. It took me 1-2 months to recover and begin doing useful work again. Just take it slow. If in addition to being burned out you don't like what you are working towards, just choose a different goal. I found that working toward Artificial General Intelligence is a very motivating goal. I have been pursuing it for t…
I'm very interested in ML but have had a hard time getting started. Any advice on a good entry point? I've gone through Andrew Ng's course but haven't found a great resource passed this level.
Re: Ask HN: Burned out 21 year old software developer, what's next?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm currently in college, what else is it about? (I'm genuinely curious) I'm studying mathematics (it's the only degree I could see being worth while in a purely intellectual and educational sense)
Consider that you're spending $X on college, when you could probably just as easily buy the text book (or not!) and do courses online for free. So what is it that you want to get out of college? If you don't know, why are you paying? I'm not hiring, but I'd personally rather see someone who self taught themselves some specific discipline, and then used the money they would have spent on college to apply their knowled…
Heh. I got a specially tough mathematical logic professor and failed multiple times. It literally took me years until I finally passed the class. And several textbooks and nights with little to no sleep. I had to rinse my brain and put it back a few times until I finally got it.
Sure, go with a textbook if you are ok with some superficial knowledge. But it's nonsense to compare that with spending months studying a single subject under a tough teacher.
It is not something required to be successful, but I'm getting tired of hearing stuff like "just buy a book, it's the same thing". No, it's not.
It is, however, a good idea to do so, and use that to figure out if going deeper in those subjects would be worthwhile.
Disclaimer: never learned calculus properly. Teacher wasn't strict enough, and I didn't care at the time. Big mistake.