Computers are fun in many ways. Maybe you can buy one wacom tablet and use your computer mastery into drawing beautiful art? A CS degree will ease anything computer related you go into but having the professional skill you want will always take you a lot of time. See what you feel you can do best and make you feel better, cuz if you are lucky and find something you can give yourself this is what you will be doing for more time than you lived until now. Patience and persistance. Good luck
Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?
231–240 of 324 posts
Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?
#232I don't know if this helps, but I personally find coding interview practice sites/problems to be extremely boring, difficult, not fun, and frustrating to work on. I'm saying this as a 13-years-of-experience software engineer; I've been called a rock star or ninja or something similar in almost every company and team I've worked in (big and small), and throughout my entire career and the numerous times I've job-hunted…
> “really easy interview and we just talked about my experience and projects“ This is what interviewing is like in 99% of other sectors, even engineering. You might be asked some competency based questions at a larger organisation but the whole “dance like a monkey in a high pressure environment while we watch” whiteboard/coding test feels like cruel and unusual punishment to me that is nothing like the job of actual…
It's a hazing ritual. Let's call it what it is.
Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?
#233Degrees are worthless. A degree courses is designed to be easy to grade, not to teach you anything useful. The point is to show you are capable of learning, not to make you capable of doing a job. This makes them fairly portable, while jobs may ask for a degree with a specific subject they will generally consider anyone with a degree, unless its marine biology or some shit.
Code camps and uni are a good start, but if you want to actually know what you are doing, it takes years of experience, there is no way around this.
> Easy problems take me 2-5 hours
This is fairly typical of someone learning programming for the first time, it is also typical of someone coming out of uni with a degree. I wouldn't worry about it and just keep at it.
> Even if I get a problem right, I gain little to no satisfaction at this point.
Then quit this is the only reason people actually like programming.
Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a medical student who also happens to have a CS degree, might I suggest that a councillor is an excellent idea, and a psychologist or psychiatrist might also be worthwhile.
As someone with dreadful experiences of the metal health system, I think the very last thing you want to do is see a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists are expensive and look at brain chemistry, more than likely you’ll end up on some sort of medication which you likely don’t need. By all means see a counsellor or a psychologist, but unless you have deep psychological issues where you are getting to an unbelievably unbearabl…
Was covering the bases as I'm not familiar with the US primary care system - here in Australia a general practitioner can refer you for CBT and start antidepressants themselves, but I'm not sure how that extrapolates around the world.
For what it's worth, antidepressants have a very valid part to play in the treatment of depression, as do various other psychopharmacologies. I've taken medication for performance anxiety in the past and it helped me overcome some real challenges.
That said, talk therapy with a good psychologist is also very useful both alone and in combination with drugs.
Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone with dreadful experiences of the metal health system, I think the very last thing you want to do is see a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists are expensive and look at brain chemistry, more than likely you’ll end up on some sort of medication which you likely don’t need. By all means see a counsellor or a psychologist, but unless you have deep psychological issues where you are getting to an unbelievably unbearabl…
I don't know where you live, but generally that is applied to people who have all the other things and are still unhappy. Psychiatrists will generally try to steer you towards healthy fulfilling social lifestyles, and only then if you are still unhappy then usually you have some chemical imbalance that can be fixed, why be too proud rather than just fix it.
Antidepressants are a first-line therapy. They're often very helpful in enabling people to make the changes that will help them improve their long-term health. They're excessively stigmatized however, which is incredibly unfortunate.
Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?
#236> Easy problems take me 2-5 hours.
I'd chime in to say take it easy. Remember: interview problems are very, very far removed from actual, day-to-day software engineering work.
Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?
#237>>I recently graduated and have been grinding for interview prep (leetcode and CTCI mostly)
So basically academic exercises on rote memorizing Math theorems which have no remote influence to real software development.
>>but I’m getting no where. Easy problems take me 2-5 hours.
I know ace developers with several years of experience who would fail at these problems.
>>I experience PTSD like symptoms from the constant barrage of negative thoughts the difficulty and stress of doing these problems are causing me.
Do not waste 2 minutes on this, because those problems are no reflection on your abilities.
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Please try to understand this. People who invented these algorithms, took years to arrive at working solutions with several years of academic career behind them.
You and I are not going to crack the solutions to these algorithms in hours.
Those who do, build upon memorized patterns. If you consider this algorithm ability you might as well start handing fields medal prize to every joe who has memorized multiplication tables.
Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?
#238Degrees are worthless. A degree courses is designed to be easy to grade, not to teach you anything useful. The point is to show you are capable of learning, not to make you capable of doing a job. This makes them fairly portable, while jobs may ask for a degree with a specific subject they will generally consider anyone with a degree, unless its marine biology or some shit. Code camps and uni are a good start, but if…
> marine biology or some shit
Highly ignorant comment, makes everything else you're saying less credible. I'd say instead that STEM subjects are more conducive to instilling a certain style of thinking that's helpful for certain careers.
Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?
#239If you enjoy writing, your CS degree would be an asset if you want a career in patent law as a patent agent or a patent attorney.
Re: Ask HN: Got a CS degree, but I’m unable to be programmer. What can I do?
#240i've seen many "pivoting" to Project Management.