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Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?

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Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?

#81

Post by mettamage »

Let me show you my process, we have some similarities which may be useful to you. I hope it helps.

I also recently graduated (master CS). But I am having strong second guesses whether CS is the right career for me. The only reason it would be the right career for me is because I love thinking in steps, which is what programming really is (procedural programming anyway). I also love debuggers (more steps!) and am full of wonder when my little step by step world gets shaken up by concurrent programming.

However, I don't care that much about creating things. I created a website here and there and one or two small web apps but that's it. I don't care about the mechanics of programming (other than it being step by step). I don't care about learning new semantics, or frameworks. I don't care about MVC. And I hate it how programming changes my personality. If I program 8 hours per day, I only care about truth and don't understand humor. Contrast that when I party all week long (did that when I was younger) and truth is still quite cool and I understand humor and can bring the laughs to other people :D Because of all of this I really am on the fence whether I should become a programmer, I could, but should I?

In order to find this out I am on a month long journey. The journey is slowly but surely beginning to complete. In this journey I decided that in order to formulate the best career plan I can possibly have I need information from three sources:

1. I need to read the profiles of all my LinkedIn connections. My LinkedIn connections show all kinds of profiles and more or less show how they got to where they are now. To me it showed what's feasible, and I'm a bit lucky that most of my LinkedIn connections are 2 years further than I am (I studied more degrees).

2. Read all interesting stories on Indie Hackers. I read 39 interviews that I believed to be really valuable.

3. Do the career guide on 80000hours.org. This career guide made me realize a couple of things.

I now have a list of 46 jobs. Half of them are in things that I feel are pretty obvious choices for me. The other half are more creative (I even have deadbeat in there as the most creative 'job'). I intend to write a blog post on mettamage.com about my whole journey, but for now I'll just leave you with the 46 jobs that I found that might interest me and also the 11 or 12 (lost count) constraints that I believe to be important for getting a job. I hope that my process (scouring LinkedIn connections, Indie Hackers and 80000hours.org) will be helpful. The jobs happen to be ranked on what I now currently think is most suitable to me (except for sales engineer, just added it recently). I do think I still need to inject a little dose of realism into my thinking, but I hope it helps. Also, options are definitely out (e.g. blackhat hacker) but evaluating them may show what you find important.

== JOB TITLES ==

1. Playable post writer

2. Bar/Hotel in Thailand (project already underway)

3. Writer

4. Music Producer

5. Gamification expert

6. Negotiation coach

7. Writing children's books

8. Buyer and seller (ebay)

9. Caring for kids (husband)

10. Freelance HW

11. Tech Freelancer

12. Hacker (blackhat)

13. Dating Coach

14. Bootcamp Instructor

15. Work for a green tea company

16. PhD Student (psychology or computer science)

17. Pentester

18. Virtual Assistant

19. Trader (stocks)

20. Trying to be like Casanova / James Bond (seducing people while influencing government officials)

21. Deadbeat

22. Real Estate Agent

23. Workshop Instructor

24. Serious game designer

25. Behavioral Informatics Dev

26. Entrepreneur (laadpalen)

27. Something with finance

28. Front-end Web Dev

29. Teacher (as employee)

30. Computers & old people

31. Entrepreneur

32. Full-stack Web Dev

33. Data Scientist

34. Marketing

35. SEO Specialist

36. UX Designer

37. Sales

38. Consultant (tech)

39. Tutor

40. Growth Hacker

41. Machinist (employee)

42. Bartender (employee)

43. Cleaner (employee)

44. Bus driver (employee)

The following 2 are not rated

45. Rhetoric (blogging)

46. Sales engineering

== FACTORS I FIND IMPORTANT == Flexibility - time (e.g. 4 days per week)

Flexibility - amount of work (e.g. not everything planned has to be done on the same day per se)

Flexibility (travel/remote)

High Autonomy (freedom in what you do)

Pay

Meaningfulness (e.g. meaningful for yourself or society)

Ability to learn new Skills

Quality of training

Sleep (I have insomnia issues, so I need to know how bad sleep issues will be)

Perceived fun

Social capital (connections are everything)

Amazing colleagues

Cognitively Challenging

Emotionally Challenging (this is a negative for me)

Shapes you into an interesting personality (doing sales would make me more chatty, if I only program I become a humorless person who only cares about scientific-truth, not so fun at cocktail parties)

Risk (high-risk, high reward)

== FUTURE STEPS ==

My goal is to find out more about income opportunities of the more risky things I have. Most if not all of my future steps involve talking to people.

(1) I think I should have a conversation with Nicky Case how I could leverage playable posts into a career. At the very least I could work with him on something. (2) I think I should email Bart Hufen about becoming a gamification expert. And also ask him how to deal with associated risk. (3) I should find out if negotiation coach is actually a thing and do more research on it. (4) I should find a pentester and invite him/her for coffee. I suppose Guillaume is a good person to ask! (5) I need to find a couple of people who are able to tell me about the pro's and cons of freelancing and to what extent a normal job will help. (6) Look more into becoming a virtual assistant. (7) I think I should research more into becoming a serious game designer/developer. (8) I should look for role models / people who I feel are like me. (9) I want to know more about growth hacking. (10 optional) Find out if your love/hate for CS is justified by talking to people like me.

== THINGS I WANT IN MY FUTURE JOB ==

1. Thinking in steps or in processes, sans the frustration

2. Immersive-like experiences (e.g. storytelling)

3. Highly challenging and seeminlgy improbable to even impossible projects

4. A small bit of applied math/arithmetic (e.g. what I experience with professional poker)

5. A touch of playfulness

6. A sense of altruism

Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?

#82

Post by jokh »

awinder wrote: post #65
jokh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I said "pay reasonably well". It seems to me that most places that don't interview and filter candidates by asking algorithmic problems don't pay as well as those that do. That's just been my experience as a student that's interviewed for internships and is going to start interviewing for new grad positions in the fall. Also > (They do exist, even if they're not as common as they should be.) I'm curious wh…

Take home assignments, discussions about work history, problem solving at an architectural level, the list goes on. Programming to algorithms in a live interview setting is about the least realistic way to gauge real job aptitude. Tons of thought leaders write about this, and tons of places implement more rational hiring practices. On the “pay reasonably well” line, the average new college grad salary is 50K. I’d wag…

> problem solving at an architectural level

That's a problem for people who haven't done internships and have just graduated. Architecture skills and knowing how things are/should be designed come from experience, which a lot of people don't have.

On the other hand, algorithms + data structure knowledge and how they're applied do not really require experience, just knowing fundamentals well.

So your method is definitely good for experienced people but not for new grads/interns. And these are methods the industry employs anyway — big companies do stress more on system design for industry hires, less so for new grads + interns.

Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?

#83

Post by unrealchild »

A lot of great advice in these responses, advice applicable to anyone feeling stressed at performing the duties (perceived or otherwise) of their role/vocation.

I echo those who emphasize taking steps to avoid stressing out, and also those who advise considering other roles where your degree could come in handy.

Also, roles that have nothing to do with tech. Something excites you; take a swing at it.

Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?

#84

Post by sdrothrock »

> I experience PTSD like symptoms from the constant barrage of negative thoughts the difficulty and stress of doing these problems are causing me.

There's a book called How to Keep People From Pushing Your Buttons by Albert Ellis (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DRXBJS8), who pioneered an early form of CBT (cognitive behavior therapy).

I would strongly recommend it as thoughtful reading material with the purpose of getting out of this negative loop so that programming isn't so stressful.

Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?

#85

Post by songzme »

You are not alone. As the founder of garage script I've come across a few students who got a CS degree and couldn't find a job. The problem might not actually be your ability to solve algorithm, but rather your inability to communicate. For the students who came to me with similar situations, I had them lead coding sessions at our local library to help them get more comfortable with talking to strangers and they now all have a full time job. From my work experience as a tech lead, I've hired many people who didnt do well with algorithm questions but they were able to listen to my suggestions and get to an answer.

Maybe start a Meetup group and work through problems with other people?

Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?

#86

Post by godelski »

throwaway613834 wrote: post #64
flocial wrote: post #44

"Easy problems take me 2-5 hours." Are you sure you're not reinventing established theories and algorithms? Those problems are supposed to be hard because they're based on ideas discovered by the most brilliant minds. If you can do them in 2-5 hours with no background you might actually be real good. Depending on what level of familiarity you have with the material, you might be selling yourself really short. Deliber…

>> "Easy problems take me 2-5 hours." > Those problems are supposed to be hard because they're based on ideas discovered by the most brilliant minds. If you can do them in 2-5 hours with no background you might actually be real good. Putting myself in the OP's shoes, this would be really frustrating advice to hear. The OP literally said they already got a CS degree and that these are "easy problems" taking them 2-5 h…

I think you underestimate how common imposter syndrome is. It may be that the OP just isn't good at programming. But it may also be imposter syndrome. Having the degree suggests that they did something and gained some skills. So it isn't unlikely that the OP is selling themselves short. Plus it is better to encourage people than put them down. Most people can learn most skills, but some people require less time to learn some skills. That's really the only difference. And there's no clear evidence into which camp OP is in, but it's unlikely that they can't learn the skills.

Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?

#88

Post by gojomo »

I'd echo the other answers that anxiety may be the real factor here – specifically some sort of performance/evaluation anxiety.

So if you face that head-on – talking to a therapist, reading about anti-anxiety strategies, etc – you may find that you are able to perform as a programmer. And even if programming itself isn't your best role – either because it triggers performance anxiety, or just doesn't match what you enjoy doing – addressing the sort of anxious-thoughts-under-pressure you're having will help in any other challenging interview/job role you find.

There are lots of roles in software that aren't constant intense programming, but require some familiarity with software lingo, tradeoffs, processes, etc and may involve small sessions of less-challenging programming. (These can involve various kinds of integration or demo work, project-management, "sales engineering", marketing, and so forth.) And you wouldn't need to "knock-it-out-of-the-park" on interview-style questions to qualify for such jobs – just show some ability to engage and improve.

But you may also have built things up in your mind as being worse than they are, leading to a self-reinforcing cycle of imagined doom.

Do some anti-anxiety research/coping practices. Maybe try to go into some low-value interviews even if you're scared – places you're not keenly interested in – as practice. You might find it's not as bad as you think, or that after a few it's no longer as scary. Consider other entry-level roles at software-type companies that let you learn about the industry and profession without needing to feel fully competent on day one. After you've interacted in a real environment you may find it easy to slide over into some useful closer-to-programming role, without the stressed-out ("PTSD") brain freezes you're facing now.

Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?

#89

Post by throwaway613834 »

godelski wrote: post #86
throwaway613834 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "Easy problems take me 2-5 hours." > Those problems are supposed to be hard because they're based on ideas discovered by the most brilliant minds. If you can do them in 2-5 hours with no background you might actually be real good. Putting myself in the OP's shoes, this would be really frustrating advice to hear. The OP literally said they already got a CS degree and that these are "easy problems" taking them 2-5 h…

I think you underestimate how common imposter syndrome is. It may be that the OP just isn't good at programming. But it may also be imposter syndrome. Having the degree suggests that they did something and gained some skills. So it isn't unlikely that the OP is selling themselves short. Plus it is better to encourage people than put them down. Most people can learn most skills, but some people require less time to le…

You call out impostor syndrome when you actually have evidence to suggest it is the case, not completely baselessly. Like when you give someone a role because you believe in their ability (whether through prior interviews with them, or seeing their prior work, etc.), but they don't feel up to the task. In other words, we know they actually can do tasks that we believe to be of similar or greater difficulty, but they somehow don't believe that that's the case. But we have no single shred of evidence that this is the case here... or if you think we do, well, I don't see it, and neither did the parent comment point to any.

In particular, having a CS degree and finding that you're having trouble with what you believe to be easy interview problems (to emphasize: actually having trouble, not merely thinking that you might have trouble if you were to try) is not in any way evidence that you're experiencing impostor syndrome, of all things. It might be evidence that you don't have enough practice, or you didn't learn the material well, or that you lack motivation, or that you just don't find the topic interesting, etc... but the one thing it does not mean (in the absence of extra evidence) is that you're actually brilliant and yet also incapable of assessing the difficulty of interview problems accurately.

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