> be me, sick, in dire need of money for surgery and recurring eczema-like infection (non-sexual wart maybe? I’ve never touched anyone), also jobless '22 CS grad, didn’t learn shit in 4 years
> staying with parents not frowned, but being jobless, to an extreme level in my culture
> Wannabe elitist me - “Windows is for normies, time to embrace GPL baby”
> REEEEE, muh privacy! - I am become geek, embracer of mediocrity. Delete as many normie apps as possible.
> wasted time on learning C, because I wanted to be a pro like my idol Linus, couldn’t understand shit about pointers and malloc, gave up
> was working on Svelte project recently (stupid decision, no one near me hiring for that), got tired of CSS shenanigans with Tailwind and building my own web components (another stupid decision), git push changes and abandoned another project
> no project to show, haven’t touched DSA since April, garbage resume apart from a few open source contributions here and there
> See ping from Whatsapp, classmate bought a bike from the money he earned, they have gone on a group trip to Shimla/Goa/Ladakh/insert-cool-places.
$ sudo ./depression.sh
Are you having negative thoughts? [yes/no/maybe]: m
Get rekt lol, exiting....
> deletes every last social media I had, phone number, screw social life, screw networking, screw negativity, try to embrace Zen
> only three numbers in my phonebook - my mom, my dad, my younger sibling, yet I haven’t talked to them properly in the four years living in their house.
> bored after testing bugs for “superior Linux”, tries looking for a language superior like C, modern and not cringe like Rust
> comes across a new programming language, functional, beautiful code
> weeee, I wanna learn OCaml now
A year has passed, didn’t learn shit apart from mashing keyboard for shell commands, learning garbage computer stuff like Docker, React and some niche OLAP database like DuckDB, also building OSS apps on my device to try them out and contribute to bugs. Didn’t get out of my room during my b’day thinking about my failures, spent sleepless nights; my younger cousin will marry soon, apply for master’s degree in the US, also has a rich fiance because birds of a feather; while I’m stuck in my parent’s house penniless, no ancestral land, no savings, born to a broke family, struggled since birth. I’m an ascetic, yet to achieve enlightenment. Stuck in the cycle of learning useless crap. Even mid-teens are smarter than me, writing their own Arduino, compiler and stuff, like wtf.
Anons, what the hell is wrong with me?
Sounds like untreated ADHD mate. Frequently starting projects and then giving up is a common symptom.
Do you have tonnes of 5% to 15% done projects?
If so, it’s because the dopamine hit of (current project) has worn out, and the dopamine hit of (shiny new project) is more enticing.
Do you often burn yourself out early on in the project, your first few days you stay up til 4 in the morning grinding, you progress wicked fast, “this is easy!”
Then suddenly you crash, burnt out, exhausted?
You have to set pace limits on the first days, purposefully stop and take a break.
That rapid fire burn out on week 1 is a big productivity killer, instead literally set the kb+mouse down, get out of the chair and go for a walk. Yes, even though you could keep going, save it for tomorrow.
Try buying an egg timer and force yourself to stop and get up and stretch every hour, and go for a walk after 4 “sets”
Yes. I have several projects I’ve abandoned. Like for example:
I’ve wasted a lot of time, '24 grads are working in office, while I’m still doing nothing. Right now, I’ve been looking at this OCaml project called Dream, which is a micro web framework. I have been itching to learning this functional language, which is an entirely different paradigm, but no one is looking for this in my local job market.
It’s typically a good idea to first focus on a stack in demand, then once you have some $$$ you can enjoy the hobby of learning esoteric stuff :)
My recommendation is always the same:
Contact a couple local tech recruiter agencies in your city.
Ask them for what are the top 2-3 tech stacks most in demand the past 2 years, as well as any relevant certificates companies were looking for, and expected entry level wage for each stack.
Analyze those 3 stacks, pick the one that seems best for you.
Go learn it, make an easy application for it full stack with an open source DB like Postgres or Mongo
Bonus points: setup a basic dockerfile for it and docker compose
MOST IMPORTANT: Make detailed “how to install manually, how to compile, how to docker deploy” guides on the github README. Include pictures of your app in the README, make it look good to a cursory glance.
Aight now that you have a simple working app on your guthub, pin it on your profile so it’s first thing people see. Link your github to your LinkedIn, add this project to your LinkedIn profile.
Now go look up those certs you found about in step 2. Look up the price to get em solo proctored from home. Usually they are a couple hundred bucks.
Do it, study, get a cert or two and add to your resume.
Okay now go back to that recruitment agency, ask them for help with optimizing your resume. This is a free service they offer, you don’t have to pay as the dev, the companies pay the costs to recruit you, the process is free for you.
They will now find jobs for you, negotiate wage for you, and find interviews for you. Keep applying on your own and improve your app you made, study the deeper nuances of your stack, etc
When you do get an interview, spend the days prior studying their stack and try to get to the point you can hold a convo about . “Oh yeah, you guys use Fwibble.js? I’ve been really excited to learn Fwibble.js, I have heard cool things about how it is good for wumbling tuples!”, etc etc
Excellent guide.