Ask HN: What's Wrong with Me?

After college, I taught myself programming. I started with web - PHP, JS, etc. Landed a job, and eventually learned backend Java. Did that for a few years, and then jumped into Android Dev. Been doing full stack web/android/backend now for ~9 years.

I lost my job (company downsizing) 2 months ago and I'm in the biggest rut of my life. I FEEL DUMB.

Every job nowadays requires solving algorithms. So I set out as a goal, to get better at algorithms. My progress has been absolutely dismal. After 1 month of trying to solve problems on leetcode.com, while taking a coursera course ... I am NO BETTER at solving these problems.

Every problem seems different from the last. Even if I can find the 'common thread' ... the solution is still generally quite different enough that I can't solve it completely. It seems I'm a "C Average" person, and that's just how it's going to be for the rest of my life.

My memory sucks. I forget solutions within hours of learning them.

Every day I sit down to study. I struggle. I get frustrated. The frustration causes me to get distracted, and want to quit. An entire day goes by and I will have only struggled through 2 problems. TWO PROBLEMS in 1 day.

Please, HN, what can I do? I'm desperate at this point to not keep sucking at this. I need to see improvement, but it's just not happening.

I appreciate your response.

I'm 32 now, and I've had a long time to think about this question. Here's what I think is the answer:

I lack the focus over time which is required to build a deep knowledge or skill.

In other words, I get bored or frustrated quickly. Once bored, or frustrated, learning tapers off VERY quickly. I'm not a child prodigy, so learning anything takes focussed effort over time. The second it gets hard, or boring, my ability to stay on task diminishes rapidly.

It's not as simple as "grin and bear it", trust me I've tried. In college that's all I did. Grin, and bear the struggle. That's no way to learn. I need to be able to sit, fail, learn, sit, fail, learn, succeed, over and over and over. But for every sit, fail ... a frustration builds. Even the slightest frustration / anger, saps you of focus.

If it's not frustration/anger from struggling that derails me... It's sheer boredom. I can sit and read a boring book, for example. But after a few pages, I'll straight up forget what I was even reading. It's like my brain just goes offline whenever I encounter something boring. I have to stop, and re-read whatever it was I was reading.

That's truly what it comes down to. I can't sustain focus on something long enough (hours, days, weeks) to become really good at it.

For what it's worth - I've been prescribed and have taken adderal. It's a miracle for focus, but I HATE how it makes me feel. My heart rate jumps 10-15 bpm (from ~50 resting, to 60, or 65). I FEEL my heart beating harder, which is not pleasant. Then, hours later once the drug has worn off, I feel down... Depressed, and still my heart feels 'heavy'. Oh and that's on a "small" dose (5-10mg). I can't take the stuff.

Anything else.

I'm not sure it matters. The boredom is the problem, not having options.

You could lock me in a room with nothing to do but read a book about thermodynamics, or study algorithms, and as soon as my interest starts to fade... my progress slows DRAMATICALLY.

What am I doing in this locked room, other than reading?? I don't know, probably just staring at the wall thinking about something else. Then realizing I'm wasting time. Start reading again... Lose track, get bored.... Stare at the wall and think about something else... Realize I'm distracted, start reading again... rinse, repeat.

Will get through an entire chapter, and barely remember what I actually read.

There's nothing bad about that, especially if you haven't spent half your life focusing on those leetcode type problems. Consider that a typical undergraduate "data structures and algorithms" course runs for a whole semester and doesn't actually (usually) cover that many individual algorithms. You might study one DS / algorithm in one lecture session and then have a few days to spend working on homework involving it.

I forget solutions within hours of learning them.

Fine. You don't really memorize the specific solutions to these things. You internalize the concepts to where you can recreate the solution when you need it. You don't have to remember all of the details, just enough. And that takes practice.

After 1 month of trying to solve problems on leetcode.com, while taking a coursera course ... I am NO BETTER at solving these problems.

A month really isn't that long to spend on this stuff. Give it six months, and if you don't see any improvement, then maybe that tells you something meaningful. But right now, this seems like the equivalent of going to the gym for a couple of weeks and then complaining that you aren't a world class power-lifter yet. It takes time to achieve results.

I need to see improvement, but it's just not happening.

Two things:

1. I'd encourage you to give yourself more time (but keep working hard)

2. Your entire premise might be wrong. Not all jobs require doing leetcode/hackerrank style problems. Now if you're in the SV area, and you're focused on working for trendy startups it might seem that way. But jobs in other areas (the East Coast of the US is where I'm most familiar) don't always, especially if you're willing to work for a company doing something a bit mundane, like retailing auto parts, or life insurance, or something.