5 ms·
CS graduate, no knowledge, 50K in debt. Any advice is appreciated.
Hello everyone,
I apologize ahead of time to the community, but this is a throw away account, maybe. And I promise you that this is not a joke.
I'm a college graduate with a BS in computer science from a decent university. I'm 50K in debt, and have almost no experience/knowledge. I have some working experience and am currently working a very basic job. Not much to it, though it is related to programming, and definitely has potential.
Long story short I just had an epiphany/life crisis. I realized that I didn't really do anything with my life thus far, and I would like to change that starting right now. I'm a farley sharp person. I'm not saying that I'm at the level of a genius, but I can assure you I have more capabilities than I currently present to anyone, including my employer.
I have made it a point to try and make myself the best I can be, starting right now. Not 'the best', but the best I can possibly be. Already admitting to not knowing much, I'm here to request some guidance. If you are here to only remind me of how big of a failure I am, please keep your peace. Thank you.
I'm here to ask you, because I know that most of you here are very sharp and amazingly accomplished, so please treat me like a college freshman and advise me.
I would like for you to show me a few routes that would potentially spark an interest in me. I find programming very amazing, but due to procrastination and basically wasting my life, I really don't know much at all. Treat me like a 60 year old who just heard about computers (though I pray to God that I know at least a bit more than that).
I am definitely interested in programming, but I have not found something to be passionate about. And we all know passion can move mountains.
Please advise me on where to begin, what to read, and how to learn. I believe that to be a programmer one must think in a certain way and I'm hoping that I can work and build myself to think that way. Maybe this piece of information would help; I'm a visual learner.
Also, please advise me on how I can begin to impress my employer and prove to them that I am a capable employee. Any advice is greatly appreciate. I appologize for making this a long post, but I've for once been sincere about this, I would appreciate it if you would do the same.
Thank you,
EDIT:
Thanks to gsivil!
I really just did enough to pass classes. So most of my college is just a blur, but I do recall finding Operating Systems very interesting.
Looking at my bookshelf nothing makes me want to run to it, but I've always been fond of C++, Java, and Python. Not because I've worked with them a lot, but because I've seen them do amazing things.
Please ask me for any kind of information, I will continue to add them here or below your post.
Thank you for being so kind.
- gsivil 16y agoI wish you the best. Since you already have a degree in CS and you like computing you could be a little bit more specific on the topics and courses that you relatively enjoyed. This could possibly help the HNers to give you solid and useful advice.
- watmough 16y agoTell us about a couple of projects you did that meant something to you.
- betterfuture123 16y agoI enjoyed my OS class working with semaphores, shared memory, and some process scheduling was fun. I wish I had a chance to take a class that took me deep into computer hardware, but unfortunately my curriculum didn't have any hardware focus at all...
- zck 16y agoPick something small and write it. A firefox extension? An iphone app? A website that randomly picks toppings for nachos? Some task with an Arduino, since you are interested in hardware? Just work on it until you're satisfied with it, or come up with a better idea to hack on.
- pdelgallego 16y agoThis is a good advice but I would have said: Just work on it until it's finish.
- CyberFonic 16y agoI hope it was sex, drugs and rock-n-roll that had you so detached from your classes. I'm finding it difficult to reconcile your claim of being rather sharp and then having such a foggy notion of what your classes were about. Couple of questions: How do you learn best? Reading, tinkering and learning, being shown how to? What are you passionate about? - I mean outside of programming, perhaps connected to the opening comment. Have you become self-motivated? or still need a mentor to guide you? I think if answer the above questions you might discover a path forwards. If you share the answers with us on HN, then people might be able to chip in with suggestions.