I need some advice guys.
I graduated in April with a CompSci degree, but I can't program. I scraped by to get the degree with a 2.1 GPA, mostly getting my marks through tests, since I understand compsci theory very well, but I always failed or did not complete the actual coding assignments. I've been unemployed for 6 months now. I have no experience, no coding skills, and a godawful transcript that would instantly ruin my chances at any job. I'm so depressed and I don't know what to do.
I failed amazon's coding test miserably, and just now I failed indeed prime's coding test miserably. I wasn't even close to solving the problems. What happens is I read the problems, and if it's easy enough I can think of a reasonable pseudo-code solution, but I just can't put it into code. Sometimes it's because I don't know basic syntax, sometimes it's because I don't know what built-in functions/methods are available or how to use them, sometimes the solution I thought of is difficult to implement. The harder questions just completely stump me. I will try to google for information and then get some code out, but then end up getting a bunch of errors that I can't solve and I give up. This is how most of my projects in school went too.
I want to give up on CompSci altogether, but I don't know what else to do with my life. My goal is to get a lucrative, intellectual, 'creative', problem-solving job. Programming could have been that if I didn't struggle with coding so much. I wonder if my hate for coding is due to the struggle, or if hating the struggle means I hate coding. (Does that make sense?). I should have seen this coming earlier. I stuck with the degree because I had already switched majors 3 times and was either going to finish this time or drop out. Now, I don't see what options there are for me. I have a degree with none of the skills that are supposed to come with it, my applications are getting ignored, I have zero confidence in my ability to do well in technical interviews or coding tests, and I'm spiraling deeper and deeper into depression because I'm so lost and worried about my future.
Based on what I have described, should I give it another chance and try to get better at coding? Or is it clear that I am not cut out for it/will not enjoy it?
What can I do with a CompSci degree that doesn't involve coding? Can I go into IT or QA? Is there some completely different field I can get into with a CompSci degree and a shitty GPA? Do I have to go back to school for something else? What would I go back for? I don't really want to do more school, it took me 7 years to get my bachelor's. But if I have to, I'm willing to do a year or two max.
Please guys any advice is appreciated. Thanks
UPDATE: I had a few people in similar situations PM me to see how I had made out since this post. Here's a big update on how my life's been going since then. Things are going great and I'd like to explain in detail how I got to where I am for any other wanderers who find this thread. I want it to be as useful as possible so I haven't spared any detail, but hopefully it's interesting and relevant enough to keep your attention.
Here's a timeline: - April 2017: I graduate and spend the next 7 months unemployed. I've dealt with depression since my teen years, and being unemployed with no clear path out brought me to a new low. I had no sense of purpose or worth, I wasn't contributing anything to the world, I had no routine. We hate routines but during this time of my life I definitely learned that unlimited unstructured free time, which is what most people dream of having one day when they retire, is in fact a very depressing situation to be in. Jordan Peterson explains it way better than I can. I also did Jordan Peterson's future authoring program and although I could never keep to the goals I set, it taught me an invaluable way to think about my future which I still use to this day, even if I don't follow the program exactly. It's worth looking into if you're as lost as I was.
November 2017: I wrote the OP post. I realised I had to get going on this job thing if I wanted to escape this hole of a depression. I didn't find any advice in the replies useful, but one user /u/adhi gave me an integral piece of advice, he recommended a book by Cal Newport, "So Good They Can't Ignore You". I'll talk more about that later. I ended up deciding that I should apply for IT helpdesk positions. I wanted to use my degree as leverage to get me into a field that had nothing to do with coding.
I had one interview where they wasted my time completely. I showed up suited up and they asked what computer science was, I told them its about programming. They asked if I learned about any networking stuff and threw out some terms I didn't recognize. I said no, I just learned programming. They said oh okay, thanks thats it. Could've easily been a phone call instead. But this got me worried about if I could even get into IT. I had no IT experience or training so I had to be humble and accept what I could get. The next IT helpdesk job interview went better, I told them I was looking to start a career in IT and they welcomed me as the padawan to the sole IT guy at the company. An hour and a half commute each way, but a 40k salary which I was grateful to receive. It would get me a routine and some money. And It seemed like a
December 2017: I often refer to this as the worst month of my life. I go through the whole orientation and things aren't too bad. They make me read some powerpoint tutorials about microsoft office products, 99% stuff I knew just from using computers growing up. The boss treats me like more of an assistant than a mentee. If printer jams or frozen monitors or other computer-user issues pop up he sends me. Otherwise he sits at his desk all day doing I don't know what, gives me bullshit unfinishable tasks like 'visit everyone in the company and help them update their email signature', and doesn't let me do anything truly valuable because he doesn't trust me or want to invest his time in me. He's also just as asshole and a bad human being.
So here I found myself in a very special kind of hell. Wake up at 7am to get ready for work. Home at 7pm, exhausted and depressed from another day at the job where 8h felt like 16h because I was so completely unengaged or challenged, and wasn't even learning anything. And this wasn't a job I really wanted, it was just what I saw as my only viable path. So I was putting up with this hell just for a paycheque. I was very blessed in that I did not have any children, or rent to pay, because it allowed me to quit this torturous job after 1 month. I am very grateful to my parents for supporting me, allowing me to live rent-free so I could have the freedom to quit on a whim.
January 2018: Immediately after quitting that job I go back to the grocery store where I worked for years and ask for my old job back. I wanted to avoid that unemployment depression hole again. This job was minimum wage and a dead-end, but it would help me stay on my feet while I made plans to avoid landing in a job like in December ever again, because in the future I might not be able to quit on a whim, and I couldn't imagine being trapped in a job like that with no way out. So I took my pride down a notch and asked for my clerk job back because I knew it would be good for me. For someone to graduate university and end up at a grocery store seems pathetic from the outside, but it was right for me at the time. Stocking shelves was more engaging to me than that IT job ever was, and I got to work with good people, my years-long coworkers and friends, instead of a miserable asshole mentor. During this time I spent a lot of time thinking about what qualities I enjoy about work. There was a rule I saw that says you should aim to have 2/3 of: good people, good pay, and good work.
I thought about this philosophical concept of 'the good life' aka Eudaimonia and decided that I wanted to have a job that allowed me to use reason, so my reason will always be exercised, and I can then use my reason to live this virtuous eudaimonaic life of striving to be the best most authentic version of yourself.
I read "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport which enlightened me about how I was thinking about work all wrong. You don't choose a career based on passion, you choose a career based on skill and fit for you, and you learn to love it and the process of mastering it. All the profs who said that if I don't love code this is not for me, that if I'm not passionate enough about it to code in my spare time then this is not for me, well they were flat out wrong. Cal Newport's logic is undeniable. I linked to the book because I checked out on summaries to refresh my memory of it and they really don't do it justice. If you are in a position similar to what I was, this is a must-read. It changed my whole outlook on work. I wish I had read it earlier, and I plan to re-read it in the future.
I also just reflected on what made good days and bad days at the grocery store job. I felt good when I did a lot of work in a day, felt accomplished. I felt good when I was it was a challenge to get things done because I had to stay 'in the zone'/in a Flow) state, so time flew by rather than dragged like in the IT job. I felt good about helping customers, doing my part to help the store, and taking my fair share of work plus more off my co-workers backs. I felt good when I connected with my coworkers on a more intimate level, having deep/vulnerable conversations while on lunch or while stocking shelves. And I felt good when being tasked with more detail-oriented tasks like building displays which is when you plan to fit a certain amount of product on wooden pallets but you have to do it in a pattern that is sturdy, shoppable, and looks good. Not everyone could do this well, and I took pride it being able to do it and doing it well.
I also started experimenting with psychedelics. I won't delve too deep into this topic but I will say they were an extremely useful tool for me. I would go into a trip with a list of things in my life that I hoped to gain insight on, then I would sit with a blank word document and just start typing my thoughts about those topics, reasoning and problem-solving with a clarity that is hard to describe. It's also just a ton of fun, but be careful to not get caught up with trying to solve the mysteries of the universe. You aren't going to solve the unanswerable: where do we come from? why are we here? where do we go after?, although the acid will make you want to try. I found it useful, but I fully believe you can transform yourself without it.
All of this knowledge culminated in the turning point for me. After working back at the grocery store for 6 months, I summed up all the knowledge I learned from the sources listed above, and came up with a plan that was based on completely solid logic and reasoning, so that if I ever encountered doubts along my path, I could simply remember the reasoning I had laid out and persevere. All the signs pointed to computer science. It checked all the boxes. It's challenging, uses reason, something I can master like a craft, and something that I felt would put my birth-given abilities to the best possible use for the world at large. I was now certain I wanted a career in programming. Once that was settled, the rest was just problem-solving. Problem: I had a relevant degree but no skills to match it. Solution: a coding bootcamp! Problem: the bootcamp costs 10k. Solution: I took out a loan.
July 2018: The bootcamp was purely practical and applied, much different than university courses. I found that my degree knowledge did help me outperform my non-compsci bootcamp colleagues, so it turns out I did learn something at school. I learned to push myself to the limit when debugging code, staying in that uncomfortable and frustrating headspace without giving up until the bug was solved. But also sometimes losing that battle and having to give up and take a break. It was 10 weeks of hard work from 9am to 9pm, so with the commute, my life was literally just work. And yet I felt so much better than in that IT job in December. I was on the right path now, I had a clear vision of my goals and future, so all the struggle was worth it. The struggle even felt good.
The coding bootcamp was just what I needed. It complemented my degree perfectly and allowed me to meet some cool people and work hard together on some group projects. It gave me good on-the-job software development skills training. I gained confidence in my ability to be a developer. The bootcamp helped with the whole job hunt process afterwards and offered some good connections. I finished the bootcamp in October and in November I got a 5-month contract as a software developer at a startup making 23.5/hr salary.
November 2018: I was grateful for this entry point into my desired career. I had doubts about if I could really perform well at this job, and was worried that despite school and bootcamp, I might not be fully prepared for the real world. After starting this job I can say that it was indeed stressful and challenging at first, and there was of course a learning curve to begin with, but I can say in hindsight that I was fully prepared. My bosses' are really good people who I look up to and they had reasonable expectations for me as a new dev, so I was able to meet and exceed their expectations.
Now(September 2019): My contract got extended and I have worked at this job for 10 months now. I just signed a new contract that will last another year at a 56k salary. I have learned a lot and am confident in my abilities now. I no longer fear the job hunt. I plan on working here, but am already thinking of the next career moves I can make. I think it would be good to get some experience at a large company instead of a startup to see how things are different there. It would make me a better developer to have had both experiences. I am also looking into getting a post-grad certificate online/in-class part time after work hours. It is an Artificial Intelligence certificate, since that is a good skill to have in my toolbox, it makes me more qualified and more in-demand, and it is a domain I always found interesting and makes a good candidate for a career focus/specialty. It feels so good to have a career. It feels so good to have a path plotted out for my life. I still have bad days and good days, but I no longer have those days full of existential depression, confusion, and hopelessness.
So there it is! Quite the long read. But if you made it through, you now have the blueprint for how to get out of such a situation. It is just a blueprint, in the end only you know what is best for your life, and what path is right for you. At the very least you know it is possible to escape this situation through pure reasoning. To anyone in as dark a place as I was when I wrote this first post, may you have the strength and resilience to push through this phase of life and onto a better one.