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?
Is this a well-known feature of ADHD? I’m not clued up about it at all.
It is very easy to end up thinking about alternatives that are more desirable than the current one. Everybody has the novelty-seeking inclination but people with ADHD have it worse.
When I switched majors to something I was interested in and that didn’t involve writing papers, for a while it worked but then I ran into the same motivation problems. To this day I know I can’t work a job that involves being at a computer, and I’ve only had one job (out of 8+) that I’ve held for more than 2 years- and even then, it was part-time and I put at most 1.5 years of full-time equivalent into it. YMMV though.
Have you been diagnosed with ADHD? Hope you don’t mind me asking
Yes, in fact before everything I mentioned in that last comment.
Sorry, I didn’t see that. Have you found your diagnosis to be helpful? I’m starting to suspect that I have ADHD as the more I hear about it the more it seems to describe things that I’ve struggled with.
Ehh. I’m not super compatible with this economy and I’ve made peace with that. My career is not a stack of acceptance from selective colleges and companies; my career is taking entry-level jobs to better understand the economy and then reverse-engineer some business plans.
The only situations in which I haven’t felt depressed and underachieving have been staying on communes. And yet, compared to 10+ years ago, my life has looked less like “constantly trying and failing” and more like “constantly tripping and tumbling in the right direction”.