Learn to code, everybody said. There’s so many jobs, and they pay well. Dumbass me fell for the bait. Graduated with a degree in computer science a year and a week ago. Didn’t get any internships because I didn’t realize how important they are. Graduated with a 2.3 GPA because I always heard people don’t care about your GPA once you graduate. If you’re generous and cut out the hours from when I failed out of college the first time, it’s a 2.6.
I’ve applied to over a thousand jobs by now. Almost entirely entry level, but I took shots at some nonspecified experience level postings once I got more desperate. I’ve managed to get two interviews. To add insult to injury, one of the interviewers said that their main concern with me was that I’d move on to a new job in a year or two. I couldn’t do that if I wanted to, man. I’m so burnt out on how bad applying for shit sucks when I know most of these companies are throwing my application in the trash in less than 5 seconds.
I’ve been able to stay stable so far. I live with my parents, who are the best parents I could ever ask for. They’re understanding, supportive, and want to help how they can. No worries on the living expenses front, at least, but it’s not a situation that can last. In the long term, obviously, they’re not gonna be around forever. In the short term, it’s just going to drive me completely insane. I’ve used my leftover student loans and a generous graduation gift from my uncle for the non-essential stuff and managed to limit my spending to about $100 a month, but the well will dry up on that front, too.
All this is to say that I don’t think I can get a job with my degree. A year long gap is a bad sign on an already weak resume. Soon it’ll be as good as if I had never gone to school in the first place after I spent years forcing myself through math classes I tore my hair out over (why was this 75% of my degree again?) I’ve tried doing some independent game development to maybe transition in that direction, but I can’t force myself to do it because the whole time I just feel like I’m wasting time I should be spending looking for a “real” job. My parents have frequently encouraged me to go get a master’s while I wait for the job market to improve. After telling them for months that I didn’t want to sink any more money in education (read: training) until it showed some returns, I caved and started looking into grad programs. Looks like I couldn’t do it if I wanted to because lmao 2.3 GPA. I’m confident I could get a great score on the GRE, I’ve always done pretty fantastic on that kind of test. It’s the one academic skill I have that I can brag about, honestly. But the GRE for Math would kick my ass into next week, and I’m pretty certain most MS in CS programs would want me to take it.
So I can’t get a job in my major, I’m too neurotic to do anything on my own, my grades are too shit to get a graduate degree. I’m 28 now and not getting any younger. I’m beyond sick of being dependent on others. But what else can I do? Service jobs suck tremendously and don’t pay enough for me to live off of anyways, especially around where I live. It’d be equivalent of choosing to live in poverty. Every road seems closed off to me. I don’t know what I can do to make my way through life and I feel like even if I did, I’d be too much of a coddled loser to take that path.
Sorry for turning it into a blog, I’m basically just some random failson whining. Anybody relate?
Edit: Thanks for the replies, everybody. Feeling a little bit less down. Probably gonna try and make some contributions to a FOSS project and get a job at a grocery store or something while I still live at home.
I hear people saying the programming job market will improve in the US from the low of the 2022 and 2023 era FANG firings, but why would the US job market improve? I don’t see why all those programmers with work experience would be removed from circulation and fresh grads still will compete with them. What would change for the market to improve? The Silicon Valley Bank collapse and bailout way back in March 2023 is probably going to cause less startups to be funded in the long run and solidify FANG monopolies in the US even more. Now that the lock downs have been over for a while, I predict the population is going to be lowering usage of social media over the next few years if they haven’t already, lowering demand. I would expect the job market to worsen in the long run, not improve, much less return to the 2019-2022 glory days. In the US the only programming field I see that is growing is the AI and GPT stuff.
Don’t forget all the offshoring. My company has laid off dozens, if not hundreds of teams just so they can replace them all in India and Brasil. Most companies hiring nowadays has more India positions than US ones
Mostly because the capitalist system needs new markets. It’s a requirement of the system. Most of the real new avenues for capital have already been exploited, so we’ve seen most of them in the past few decades be invented in tech. Presumably, this will continue to be true in the future. If interest rates go back down, then it’s likely there’ll be another boom. So long as capital thinks it has a new market, real or fabricated, that it can get bigger returns from, it’ll bite. That’ll involve creating new products from scratch much of the time. Due in part due to racism and in part due to the very real advantages of a shared native language and timezone, I think investors will find an American most desirable if all else is equal. You’re right that outsourcing can cut costs, but US programmer salaries also have a lot of space to fall.
Sure, it’s entirely possible that things don’t improve and that’s I’m super fucked, but I have no real way to pick apart the odds of that and even if I knew for sure, I don’t have much I could do to act on the information in a favorable way that I can’t do later down the line.