Hi, I’m not sure if this is the right community to ask this, but I got yelled at by my mom today for not having a job and I thought it might be worthwhile asking what sort of strategy I should pursue from a community of people with skills I would like to develop. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from a mid-tier state university in the US before the pandemic, but didn’t really do anything to develop my portfolio. I had good grades and got two interviews for software engineer positions, but didn’t get the job in either case. I didn’t really care too much. I was still an enby egg and everything felt off, so I never looked very hard. When the pandemic happened, it made finding a position out of the question because my parents are high risk. Unfortunately, I have had trouble developing a portfolio. I don’t know if my education is lacking or I missed something or it is my ADHD or I am just not talented and got fooled into thinking I was okay by grade inflation, but I could never focus for long enough to figure out anyone’s project and make a contribution. I did a bit of Cracking the Coding Interview, but got bored a chapter or two in and haven’t gone back to it in a while. So I guess specifically my questions are:

  1. Am I correct in trusting the common advice to contribute to open source projects to build a portfolio?
  2. If so, how do you figure out how to gauge your skill level so that you pick the right projects to contribute to? 2a. How long does it take you to get up to speed on a new project before you feel comfortable contributing? How long did it take before your first job?
  3. Am I correct in thinking that any credit I get from employers from having a CS degree is strongly outweighed by 5 years of not having a job and no contributions?
  4. Should I consider looking into the resources I (and my mom) have heard about offering autistic people help getting into technical fields? I don’t think my autism is that bad, and I’m not particularly talented either, so I’d dismissed these for the most part.
  5. How do I avoid positions that don’t either build my skills or lead to a career?
  6. I am prescribed and taking medicine for ADHD. Is there anything I can do beyond that? My mom has talked about hiring a “life coach,” but it has always sounded like a good way to spend money for no benefit.
  7. How do I motivate myself when I’m probably mediocre and will be treated like shit if I “succeed?”
  8. Am I thinking about this all wrong somehow?
  9. What are the best resources for someone in my position? Despite how it may sound, I am willing to put a fair bit of effort into self-improvement, it has just been spread far too thin because of the ADHD.
  • OceanEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    Any company worth working at is going to understand your concern about your parents’ health.

    Definitely doing something and being consistent with it is more important than having a finished thing at the end of it; like, challenging yourself and having fun with it. Open source projects are just one way to do this, it’s kinda like volunteering where you can earn bonus points with people for being invested in collective good and working collaboratively. Being able to effectively collaborate is a really valuable skill to have (and companies know it) and worth finding ways to include in whatever you’re doing. There’s other ways to do this. For instance there’s nonprofits and local communities that look for volunteers to build websites for them.

    I also recommend finding community if you can. Dunno where you live, but I’ve had a good time getting to know the folks at Out In Tech, which has chapters in various cities (more generically, they have a slack that anyone can sign up for).

    Also, for me, finding motivation in isolation has always been hard for me; joining a company gave me that external motivation I kinda needed to get started. If your goal is to find a job I recommend not creating artificial barriers for yourself just start applying to stuff. Interviewing is a skill and you probably need to develop that by just interviewing a lot. Try setting a goal for yourself of number of companies to apply to per day (10 a days and you’re cooking with gas, but at least 2 is respectable). Volume is kinda your friend until you get your foot in the door.

    I hope this is helpful. You got this!

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      I completely agree with you about motivation in isolation. I’ve been doing a bit more this past week, but I need to keep pushing myself to stay focused on the same project after a day or so. It was easier in college because I had more external motivation. I did have the idea recently that I could learn a bit of graphics and get a bit more motivation out of what I code. I’ll probably stick with that for a couple of months because it is a fairly versatile skill to know how to tell the GPU to do things. Additionally, thank you for letting me know about the Out in Tech group. It sounds like it would be helpful.