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

Do nonprofit work and implement a solution solving a real problem, this is what I am doing atm.

I hadnt done it before but its actually easier than i thought it would be, really its just alot communication and coordination on slack

Thats a long list i personally just grab the lowest hanging fruit and run with it. I can sum up all my goals in one sentence or even one praragraph

For me its anything dealing with automation or building things to automate things. Doesnt matter what the job is bc if it doesnt fulfill me so long as hours are okay i can do side projects

I don't know if this will be helpful, but when I was in college, I failed a very basic CS math class because I was very anxious, comparing myself to others, feeling inadequate, feeling like I had wasted my college tuition (I took on a lot of debt, and my family isn't rich. The whole reason I got into this was for some semblance of financial security.) I thought I had ADD and that maybe if I got diagnosed I would be able to get some of those magic amphetamines that everyone else seemed to be using. Instead the psychiatrist I saw recommended I seek therapy for anxiety and depression. I was putting so much pressure on myself to succeed and take care of my family that it was impossible for me to succeed in school or even really live my life to the fullest without addressing my thought patterns and emotional state.

I don't know your situation, but there are plenty of respectable jobs you can get with a CS degree without being a master of CTCI. It won't be Amazon or Netflix but it's okay, most people don't work at a Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Netflix/Google.

There are a lot of public sector jobs that require any degree. My mother had a long and fulfilling career in the food stamp program, starting out helping people sign up and moving into training, supervision, and eventually became a county director. This is with a degree in anthropology. You’d be surprised how many jobs there are whose qualifications are like “be able to type and spell and generally help make things get done” which are impossible to staff because nobody who can do the work would do it for the pay on offer. These jobs tend to be lower stress anyway, better confined to 8-5 too.

People will joke that you should go into management. Maybe, but I’ve never heard of anyone going from a CS degree to managing programmers directly.

If I were talking to someone who was one year into a degree and hating it, I would really push the idea of getting a technical vocational training in something like HVAC, plumbing, or electrical. Those careers require a lot more from you physically, but not as much mentally and the pay is really good. Better than you’re likely to get as some kind of administrative person. But there are other trade offs.

I think a lot of people here are calling your bluff, because if you really didn’t like it, why are you reading HN? But you should know that you can have a good and fulfilling life not programming. But understand that you will probably make less money, often a lot less. You are the only person who can decide if it will be a better life for you to do something else with less money or to do something you dislike for more.

There are lots of people who cannot program or dislike it who nevertheless manage to eek a career out of it. I can’t in good conscience tell you to do that, because they cause the rest of us a lot of stress and what kind of life is that, where you spend every night sleeping fitfully trying to convince yourself that you fooled us yesterday (you didn’t) and just need to fake it a little longer. So don’t. Find something that you enjoy and do that instead.

You 100% have time to do something else. Just stop and do something else. Don’t torture yourself. You are what, 23? Go get some more loans and get a degree or certificate in something you want to do, and live your life for yourself.

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