So I just finished my masters in CS and got a job as a junior software engineer. When I first chose CS for my bachelors, I did so because it was somewhat intuitive for me. But I wasn’t crazy about it. Thought the interest would grow over time. I’ve had undiagnosed ADHD throughout my life and thought the difficulties with CS during my bachelor’s (which took almost 7 years) was due to the ADHD and not due to lack of interest in the subject. Learned coping strategies and did my master’s. Graduated with a 4.0 GPA so I’m not bad at it for sure.

Now I’m medicated and I finally feel like I’m able to be 100% of myself. But despite that, I still just do the tasks at work for the sake of doing it. I like the problem solving aspect but it isn’t something I dream about every day. I see my mentor working in the same company live and breathe this stuff and I can tell there is a clear difference in the thought process between both of us. It’s easy for him to produce great quality work as he’s naturally curious about this stuff. Me, I just try to get it done. It’s not lead by curiosity for me. What grabs my interest is stuff like literature, history, linguistics, philosophy, sociology, movies etc. I don’t need any incentive for those things. I’m naturally curious about those fields.

Now I’m wondering if I should still stick with software engineering where I’m decently okay but not that curious about it . Or should I consider a career more aligned with the social sciences/humanities? I don’t even know what careers are in those fields that would be comparable in terms of pay/growth to software engineering. Is the choice between money and passion or can I have both to some degree in the non-SWE fields?

  • jurassicneil [any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    When that happens I’m just stunned. Debugging queries is this guy’s idea of a rewarding and stimulating challenge? Then wtf is wrong with me then lol. Good for him though lol.

    Dude, this happens to me too with my boss. He’d assign me some project with a new tech/framework even he doesn’t fully understand. That would be my main task while he is busy running multiple teams and doing stuff assigned to him. A bit later I find this guy playing with the framework he had assigned me and his level of proficiency with it is already beyond mine even though I was solely focused on that while he was juggling god knows how many things. I get that its a difference in years of experience but also, this dude was just playing around with the framework cuz he was curious. He didn’t need to touch it at all, but he did it anyways. I would never think that way for computers. Other stuff yeah. Which brings me back to my original problem lol.