I’ve studied computer science for around 4 years now, and I can say with absolute certainty that it’s the single most depressing career choice in the world. Everyone sells it to you as ‘oh its very hireable, there’s loads of job openings for it’, but they don’t mention that the reason for the job openings is because the engineers at Nvidia keep deciding that death is a preferable alternative to Javascript.
All that’ll be left of him is a note at his desk saying, “I never should have learned more than scratch.”
And there’s me, that’s what I have to look forward to in life, an endless life of barely credited work, a load of tired afternoons of dealing with shit and every issue under the sun, and the creeping realisation of why my student card doesn’t let me get onto the university balcony.
Previous flatmates of mine have often come to me asking for computer help, and it really frustrates me. Someone asking me how to operate Microsoft word makes me look into their soul a little bit and see the darkness in people. When asked how to make something bold for the 5th time, you start seeing why people IT people aren’t very sociable – it’s learned. If you get fired for playing too much World of Warcraft at work, then fuck it, you don’t have speak to anymore people asking if you can google Google.
When talking to people about what you do in the course, people always say, “yeah, but I bet when you work out a problem that’s been bugging you, the feeling of satisfaction is so good”.
Not really, programming is staring at lines of code with faulty logic, but you felt proud enough of coming up with that logic that you could never spot the fault in it.
You stare at the code wondering what went wrong for hours on end, and you realise that you called the wrong function in one place, and you’re not filled with pride of solving it. There’s mild relief that you found the solution, and an overwhelming sense of defeat that you’re just going to have to do it all over again.
Though it’s better that people ask me these things than not know. I’m incredibly glad my dad is good at tech, because I would dread having to teach him how to clear his internet history. I know people who have had to do that. The parent filled the history with idle google searches until the unspeakables are just one little scroll away, and though they know it’s there, they can never bring themselves to scroll down. How could you? Seeing your dad’s taste in porn is a scenario that has horrifying implications, that being that you may find it an area you have a shared interest in.
One time someone said that it’d be fine, because they’ve seen their dad’s internet history and it’s completely clean. Their face dropped harshly when I told them that in my experience, the only difference between someone with a clean internet history and a sordid internet history is technological aptitude.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is, if anyone asks me a question about IT after I’m done with this course, I’ll just have to glare at them. Sure my course can get me places, but if it isn’t a raised platform with a convenient diving board, then I don’t much care for it.