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Ask HN: What choice you made in your career you regret the most?

ratfacemcgee 11y ago
discovering hackernews? but seriously, probably thinking i had to "pay my dues" before I begun my career. Thinking I wasn't good enough to get a job, and I had to spend time at Uni first. It wasn't until I was mid way through my masters before I realised that a job wasn't going to magically appear the day I graduated. I dropped out and never looked back. Also, thinking I had to shoehorn myself into the industry by working my way up to it from tech support. That was fruitless.
scmoore 11y ago
Quitting jobs and moving without having the next job lined up. I always figured I was a smart guy, I could land on my feet wherever I ended up. And that was true, but it took some time and effort to get a job that lined up with my career goals, and while that was happening I was pretty stressed out. I also feel like I've lost about a year of growth (and salary!), which is hard to let go of. I realize that this isn't really a big revelation, but it didn't really hit home for me until I got into a real "career" -- it wasn't such a big deal when I worked retail jobs.
re_todd 11y ago
Taking such a long time to get my degrees. When I finally had the educational background I wanted, I found it's difficult to get those entry-level positions when you're over 35. And if you can't get those entry-level positions, it's extremely difficult to have a career in the field you want.
rajacombinator 11y ago
Not learning web coding earlier. Although it wasn't a conscious choice, just something I wasn't exposed to.
fenier 11y ago
Not taking Statistics in high school. Ended up taking it in College, but found I enjoy it quite a bit and would have been able to enjoy it nearly a decade earlier.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Statistics should replace algebra II or maybe trigonometry as a high school requirement.
  - fenier 11y ago
    I think High Schools focus to much on theory and not enough on practical application to make it interesting. They do the same for most math. Always learned math better when it was being applied to actual things I cared about personally.
- deathtrader666 11y ago
  I'm making my way through "Statistics for Dummies" right now..
mswen 11y ago
Not buying that Perl book at the college bookstore in 1994 and not really digging in deep when I first encountered RDBMs at about the same time. At the time I was learning grad level social science with a quantitative focus - lots of statistics with SPSS. Around 2012 I started adding in HTML, PHP, Javascript, SQL, R and now working on Python. I was right on the verge of putting together the multi-disciplinary skill set that serves me well today as early as the mid 1990s.
deathtrader666 11y ago
Accepting the first offer that came through, every time I went job-hunting. Nearly drowned in toxic work culture..
jcfausto 11y ago
work for more than 10 years on the same company and almost with the same technology. bad mistake.
gonyea 11y ago
That time I had to call a lot of SOAP APIs. Not Java SOAP, but .NET SOAP. There's a difference and I regret having had to know what it was.

discovering hackernews? but seriously, probably thinking i had to "pay my dues" before I begun my career. Thinking I wasn't good enough to get a job, and I had to spend time at Uni first. It wasn't until I was mid way through my masters before I realised that a job wasn't going to magically appear the day I graduated. I dropped out and never looked back. Also, thinking I had to shoehorn myself into the industry by working my way up to it from tech support. That was fruitless.

scmoore 11y ago

Quitting jobs and moving without having the next job lined up. I always figured I was a smart guy, I could land on my feet wherever I ended up. And that was true, but it took some time and effort to get a job that lined up with my career goals, and while that was happening I was pretty stressed out. I also feel like I've lost about a year of growth (and salary!), which is hard to let go of. I realize that this isn't really a big revelation, but it didn't really hit home for me until I got into a real "career" -- it wasn't such a big deal when I worked retail jobs.

re_todd 11y ago

Taking such a long time to get my degrees. When I finally had the educational background I wanted, I found it's difficult to get those entry-level positions when you're over 35. And if you can't get those entry-level positions, it's extremely difficult to have a career in the field you want.

rajacombinator 11y ago

Not learning web coding earlier. Although it wasn't a conscious choice, just something I wasn't exposed to.

fenier 11y ago

Not taking Statistics in high school. Ended up taking it in College, but found I enjoy it quite a bit and would have been able to enjoy it nearly a decade earlier.

maxerickson 11y ago
Statistics should replace algebra II or maybe trigonometry as a high school requirement.
- fenier 11y ago
  I think High Schools focus to much on theory and not enough on practical application to make it interesting. They do the same for most math. Always learned math better when it was being applied to actual things I cared about personally.
deathtrader666 11y ago
I'm making my way through "Statistics for Dummies" right now..

mswen 11y ago

Not buying that Perl book at the college bookstore in 1994 and not really digging in deep when I first encountered RDBMs at about the same time. At the time I was learning grad level social science with a quantitative focus - lots of statistics with SPSS. Around 2012 I started adding in HTML, PHP, Javascript, SQL, R and now working on Python. I was right on the verge of putting together the multi-disciplinary skill set that serves me well today as early as the mid 1990s.

deathtrader666 11y ago

Accepting the first offer that came through, every time I went job-hunting. Nearly drowned in toxic work culture..

jcfausto 11y ago

work for more than 10 years on the same company and almost with the same technology. bad mistake.

gonyea 11y ago

That time I had to call a lot of SOAP APIs. Not Java SOAP, but .NET SOAP. There's a difference and I regret having had to know what it was.