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Ask HN: Completely lost interest in CS in college ,any way to get back?

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Ask HN: Completely lost interest in CS in college ,any way to get back?

#1

Post by packetdata »

I used to have this burning passion for computers in Junior high, i was the only kid in HS that knew more that a sophmore in college,ran bunch of servers at home,did it conusting. They depression hit me,dropped out of high school i was still coding.Freshman year of college rolls around I had all these hopes and dreams of making it as a dev,working on small-medium scale projects contributing to the linux kernel etc.

But the system in my country is kinda rigged and forces freshman year students to take up general sciences like math,physics,engineering drawing,chemistry. I was unable to code the first year due to this, i did do some C embedded stuff but that was way to lame. By the time i hit second year i had lost all of my passion the only thing i wanted to do was study whatever that was thrown in front of me and have sex.

I lost myself somewhere along the way,in my third semester of Comp sci engineering i simply studied all of the 4 computer subjects like data structures,basic programming which i already knew in Hs like a zombie would scored some marks and literally did nothing,got involved with multiple other vices and kept ignoring what i liked since i never felt like it.

Only in my fourth semester did i realize what i had been missing but now the problem is i cant seem to understand what i used to easily and what came to me naturally,even though i worked on some exciting small projects i can't feel the passion i had before. I have been reading some OS books and i feel dumb as a nut,this stuff used to excite me before,i used to easily understand this.

i ended up getting a management intern at a tech firm since i thought i have reached the end of my programming career. Didn't really like it,and i do want to get back to development,that is what i want to do but i feel dumb,really dumb.

I was the only freshman in my univ to win a inter-college hackathon in my freshman year,i cant even seem to recognise that person anymore.

Re: Ask HN: Completely lost interest in CS in college ,any way to get back?

#2

Post by anoncoward111 »

Based on your story, I would advise you to get a day job that pays you a liveable salary and isn't too stressful. And then on nights and weekends, focus on building something that is fun and useful.

Make it a goal to get tons of users. Once you have those users, you'll be qualified to get a job in tech, or attempt to turn it into a biz

Re: Ask HN: Completely lost interest in CS in college ,any way to get back?

#3

Post by uuoc »

Step one, learn how to use punctuation correctly:

This: "college ,any" - incorrect, the correct usage is "collage, any".

This: "collage,ran" - also incorrect, the correct usage is "collage, ran" (space after the comma, comma adjacent to the previous word).

This: "coding.Freshman" - incorrect, the correct usage is "coding. Freshman" (you sometimes find two spaces after the period, that is also acceptable).

The rest of your post is riddled with errors of these kinds. That and spelling/grammar errors, all of which make you appear sloppy. And a sloppy language using programmer is often a poor programmer. So step one is to begin correcting these issues.

Re: Ask HN: Completely lost interest in CS in college ,any way to get back?

#5

Post by Satam »

uuoc wrote: post #3

Step one, learn how to use punctuation correctly: This: "college ,any" - incorrect, the correct usage is "collage, any". This: "collage,ran" - also incorrect, the correct usage is "collage, ran" (space after the comma, comma adjacent to the previous word). This: "coding.Freshman" - incorrect, the correct usage is "coding. Freshman" (you sometimes find two spaces after the period, that is also acceptable). The rest of…

Wtf does this have to do with anything?

Re: Ask HN: Completely lost interest in CS in college ,any way to get back?

#6

Post by oisdjfdsf »

uuoc wrote: post #3

Step one, learn how to use punctuation correctly: This: "college ,any" - incorrect, the correct usage is "collage, any". This: "collage,ran" - also incorrect, the correct usage is "collage, ran" (space after the comma, comma adjacent to the previous word). This: "coding.Freshman" - incorrect, the correct usage is "coding. Freshman" (you sometimes find two spaces after the period, that is also acceptable). The rest of…

"Step one, learn how to use punctuation correctly: This: "college ,any" - incorrect, the correct usage is "collage, any".

This: "collage,ran" - also incorrect, the correct usage is "collage, ran" (space after the comma, comma adjacent to the previous word).

This: "coding.Freshman" - incorrect, the correct usage is "coding. Freshman" (you sometimes find two spaces after the period, that is also acceptable).

The rest of your post is riddled with errors of these kinds. That and spelling/grammar errors, all of which make you appear sloppy. And a sloppy language using programmer is often a poor programmer. So step one is to begin correcting these issues."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/collage

Don't be an asshole.

Re: Ask HN: Completely lost interest in CS in college ,any way to get back?

#7

Post by gitgud »

uuoc wrote: post #3

Step one, learn how to use punctuation correctly: This: "college ,any" - incorrect, the correct usage is "collage, any". This: "collage,ran" - also incorrect, the correct usage is "collage, ran" (space after the comma, comma adjacent to the previous word). This: "coding.Freshman" - incorrect, the correct usage is "coding. Freshman" (you sometimes find two spaces after the period, that is also acceptable). The rest of…

Please read the HN guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Ask HN: Completely lost interest in CS in college ,any way to get back?

#8

Post by beegeezuz »

Why do you want to get back?

Don't force yourself to do something you obviously don't want to do. If you have to motivate and convince yourself, it's clearly not important enough. You're just pissing against the wind making yourself miserable.

Lucky for you IT is one of those fields where a university degree isn't a requirement. Just do what you want to do. If you want to be a developer then start a project, contribute to one and put that on your CV and look for a Dev job.

No person is the same they were years ago, stop obsessing over what you believe should happen and just go with the flow of the moment. Instead of planning your life to the detail ask yourself how do you feel in this very moment and understand that's is perfectly acceptable to change your mind many times down the road.

In this day and age with the freedom of choice and information overload we tend to be prone to short attention span. Suddenly we learn that we can do everything so we keep changing interests all the time and never finish anything. We want everything and want it now, then we learn we can't have it and we get depressed.

It's OK not to do something! It's OK to leave IT and come back to it later, it's OK to work hard to become a Developer and then quit suddenly and work as a gardener. It's OK to start programming when you're sixty. As long as you accept that, you'll be just fine. If you have to fight with your inner self and force yourself to do what you and others believe you ought to be doing, then you'll never be at ease. You'll always be depressed, demoralised, unmotivated and anxious.

Re: Ask HN: Completely lost interest in CS in college ,any way to get back?

#10

Post by rkhassen »

I'd think it could be helpful to flip this question on its head: find things that excite you, that you intrinsically find motivating. Put some energy into getting re-acquainted with that energy within you rather than trying to get excited about something you have lost interest in and learn to cultivate that energy and see where it takes you.
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