/b/ - Random

I'm still in school for CS but some of the main reasons I'm attracted to a programming job and why I'm choosing one are:

1) Not customer-facing wagie. Wagie customer service jobs are absolute hell. You can get micromanaged about anything - from how you dress, to how fast you work, to how early/late you clock in. I had to come into work every day in a shitty uniform, always be forced to do other shit if there was no one coming in, and would literally get chewed out for clocking in 1 minute too early. At most dev jobs, you at least get to dress business casual, browse online/walk around/eat something/etc. outside of your lunch break if it is not busy, and can get flex time so no one will give a shit if you need to go home early or happen to be slightly late one day. And if salaried - no bullshit clocking in system anymore. You can just enter your hours once per week and even get paid when not at work. There's a world of difference in how you are treated at white collar jobs vs min wage shitholes. That's not to say there aren't ones of the former that treat you like shit, but they are more rare and you can still move to another one that is better. You will be treated as an actual professional that is much less disposable. You will have higher, in demand skill and companies know that so they will be forced to treat you better if they want to keep you.

2) High potential for remote. I want to travel and try living somewhere I don't work. Maybe even another country, because they have some remote dev jobs like that too. I'm originally from a poor euro country where tech jobs are like the only ones that don't pay like shit. So this could even give me an opportunity to move back there again. Also I don't like the idea of working in an office forever and don't see why I should. Once they are experienced, there is nothing for devs that absolutely requires them to be in-person in order to do the job.

3) Going from the previous point, if you're remote you can actually:
- Talk to family during work.
- Nap during work.
- Jobsearch during work.
- Work from your phone.
- Do anything else non-work-related that would have otherwise gotten you immeadietly chewed out in the office or completely fired in a min wagie one. This is assuming you are not doing it constantly, during busy times and not being watched of course.


4) You get to work with smarter people. I used to work with mostly ghetto coworkers. One of them vaped inside the building and another thought it would be cute to ask me how many dicks I've sucked. One of my managers once just suddenly asked my boss how dry his wife's vagina is (That was hilarious though, not going to lie). No one is going to talk like that at white collar jobs. If they did, they would get immediately fired.

5) More disposable income AND time to actually use that disposable income. I could never do another high earning profession, like being a doctor, especially because I don't see the point to making alot of money if you can't enjoy any of that money. Programming is one of the only jobs where you can make more money and keep your WLB at the same time.

I'm not super passionate about programming and some days I even wonder how I've managed to learn how to turn on a computer, so I will not be a great dev by far, but these are very strong reasons why I've chosen it over another profession.

>>223298
NTA but I'm studying computer science for pretty much the same reasons, the remote job opportunities attract me, and there's a lot of money you can get from working in programming. My area is ridiculously expensive, if you want a shitty 1bed apartment the landlords ask you to be making around 3k-4k USD a month. I honestly want to just grab a remote job and leave for somewhere cheaper.

Oh, and I guess working with computers is cool, too. I think programming is fun but it's definitely challenging. I have much more experience with the physical side of computers and repairs, but unfortunately that doesn't pay as much. I do think I´m on the lucky side when it comes to schools and employment at least, my area makes a fuck ton of money and my schools are among the best in my country.
What year are you in with your studies, nona? Have you gotten internships yet?

>>223509

>What year are you in with your studies, nona? Have you gotten internships yet?

Hiya. I'm a senior and yes I just finished a SWE internship this summer! I can answer any questions if you have any.

>NTA but I'm studying computer science for pretty much the same reasons, the remote job opportunities attract me, and there's a lot of money you can get from working in programming. My area is ridiculously expensive, if you want a shitty 1bed apartment the landlords ask you to be making around 3k-4k USD a month. I honestly want to just grab a remote job and leave for somewhere cheaper.

For sure. It was still during COVID, but the offices during my internship were a complete ghost town. More than half of my team worked remote. And those that did come into the office only did so once per week. Even then which was kind of pointless because they worked exactly as they did from home - talking through a Zoom call with screensharing. lmao (I mean when the team is mostly remote I don't see how they wouldn't)

>I honestly want to just grab a remote job and leave for somewhere cheaper.

That's a good idea. The places I want to leave for are all more expensive but in turn, they usually pay more because of it. Honestly, after a few years of experience as a dev you should have the freedom to work from almost anywhere you want. Freelancing is also an option, but that might provide more unsteady work if you aren't really good and complicate taxes/health insurance/etc.

>>223509
OP here. I'm actually a first year student. No internships yet.

>>223575
How was the SWE internship? Was it difficult to land? I was told I should be applying to internships my junior year, I'm currently only a sophomore. I'm trying to get into summer research programs, but unfortunately, no luck. I'm trying my best to get experience so I could land a good internship. I'm deathly afraid of not being able to land a job once I graduate.

>>223286
I am a cs student but planning to give up because I can't finish a single assignment without help. I hate all the autists from my class that have been programming since they were 12.

>>223286
Yes, I'm a junior developer fully remote. I do like my job and while most of my coworkers are male, they are fine people to work with. There is one other female dev, who I recently found out is married to another woman (based). I think you just need to find a company with a healthy culture and you generally won't have a shitty experience. There is also some selection bias because people who hate their jobs they are more likely to complain about it online.

>>223687
If you really like CS, don't give up just because it's difficult! There is nothing wrong with using resources like help from professors, TAs, etc. You may have to work a little harder than people with more of a background but you are just as capable as them I promise

>>223661
i love this image so much i wish that were me

I got my CS degree after working wage slave jobs for a few years and it was the best decision I ever made. I had no background in CS as an adult so the learning curve was steep and very difficult at times, and I really felt out of place at the beginning surrounded by guys who had been programming since they were young.

I discovered though that males posture a lot, and pretend like they know answers even if they don’t. There’s also a lot of cheating on tests and such. By simply being out of touch not knowing about cheating circles and doing all the homework, I gradually rose to the top of my classes. It was not easy; in fact it’s the hardest thing I’ve done, but mostly it was just a lot of work and time.

The company culture like another anon was saying is really important, and having female bosses and owners makes a huge difference. They tend to hire women more fairly. All the female devs I know are somewhat autistic and very relatable kek. I love all the women I work with.

Anyway, I always say if you think the work suits you, it’s a great career path. And for ADHD nonas I think it helps to take in person CC classes instead of just online boot camps, though those are great supplementary tools.

>>223800
I basically had taken a couple of intro classes a few years ago in undergrad, prior to going all out to get my grad degree in CS, and it seemed hard and boring at the time. There were certainly other things that I was better at and which came more easily.

That is, until I struggled to find full time work and fell back on service jobs. I actually sat down and took career quizzes to start over because my undergrad was something I was good at but wasn’t in high demand. Software engineer kept coming up as a good fit. I am introverted and probably autistic so it made sense. I just never thought I was actually smart enough for it, though. I thought I had to have started as a preteen.

I decided to take CC classes, and if that worked out, to get a graduate degree. The classes were challenging but I asked for help a lot (women are good at this compared to men). I felt proud of myself for doing small assignments. It just went from there. I was shocked when all these smart-looking guys were secretly struggling and even failing out of classes.

The biggest thing was just sticking to it. With each succeeding weeder class, it seemed like half the kids had dropped. Just by continuing to be there, and go on to the next class, and the next, that was enough.

Ultimately this was the career path that was best for me but which I would never have chosen without financial pressure. I made the choice the same way I think men often do— and which women are discouraged from doing. Even my family kept asking the whole time I was getting my CS degree what else I was going to do instead, because idk my “talent” was elsewhere. The majority of men in the program were not passionate programmers. They were just trying to get a good job. A good number we’re not good at it, and some even hated it kek.

So I think for interested nonas, it’s good to take classes and ask lots of questions, as many times as you need.

>>223798
>I discovered though that males posture a lot, and pretend like they know answers even if they don’t. There’s also a lot of cheating on tests and such.
CS degree too and this is so fucking true. For every 1 guy who is just naturally gifted, high IQ, passionate, there are 10 men who also succeed through barely scraping by, cheating, and "faking til you make it." I was very intimidated in intro courses by guys who had already used the command line and could banter with TAs about things like Linux and C, only come to find out when working with them on group projects they were unreliable, poor communicators, and barely passing. To some extent I think women get this impression we are naturally bad with technology and it lowers our confidence and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You must believe you are capable of anything with enough time and effort.

>>223915
Absolutely. A lot of people are probably familiar with stereotype threat and the experiments that showed that simply reminding women that we’re women negatively impacted math scores.

I know that I had to get past a lot of learned helplessness too. Before, I’d get intimidated by even small tech assignments in undergrad, panic and ask techy guy friends for help. I just.. had this mental block like I couldn’t do it. What I was really experiencing was something not being immediately easy for me and freaking out about it. It’s not sorcery, and the logic involved is much more like language (which women are great at) than I would have thought. So a lot of it was getting used to not knowing things, being wrong, being wrong over and over, etc. Which is uncomfortable at first, but worth getting used to, and very helpful for other areas of life incidentally.

I've been considering doing a program to getting some certs for networking or security but I'm kinda lowkey worried that it won't be enough compared to a CS degree even if I'm just aiming to work for smaller offices/companies anwyay

>>223942
My impression is that big companies prefer a degree, but smaller ones are less stringent. Like you can have a sorta close degree and it’s fine (math, physics, etc.). With certs I think it just depends, some of them should have job placement stats. I know some coding boot camps have those. You could also look at companies or jobs you’d be interested in and contact them to see what they look for when hiring. Sometimes having some tech knowledge plus something else, like people skills for example, makes you an unusual and desirable candidate.

reading through this thread is making me sad since I basically copy pasted and modified code from github and such throughout my CS degree so I know nothing and don't think I'll be able to get a good job. also what >>223687 said, most of the people in my classes already work in the field or program for fun so it feels pretty isolating and makes me feel like I chose the wrong degree. only a few months away from getting my CS degree so I've dug myself into a hole here.

>>223950
Nona everyone copy pastes code from GitHub. It’s efficient kek. You understood it well enough to adapt it to your assignment, that’s pretty good. No one starts off a prodigy (for the most part). It’s not possible to be born good at coding, it’s only been around for a few decades of human history. I did exactly the same thing as you and I was also surrounded by more “serous” coder bros. Honestly, it’s ok.

It’s also ok if you decide you really don’t want to be a SE. you can parlay your degree into other things depending on your personality and skills. Do you like art, music, people? What do you like and not like about coding? There are a lot of jobs in software that are administrative, management, bookkeeping, documentation, testing, UI related, etc.

Given the year running of nonstop tech layoffs and the incipient implosion of 50% of all tech startups from San Jose to Beijing and the bulk replacement of codemonkeys with "prompt engineers" at major corporations including AAA gamedevs and the traditional historical pattern of collapsing wages in any field being blamed squarely on women entering into said field it does not seem like the best time to become a woman in tech.

>>223952
true but the entirety of my assignments were copy pastes of others code, I don't have anything of my own to put in a portfolio and I only have a very basic understanding of code. I'm just freaking out about not being able to get a job that pays decently and the only work experience I had in the past is doing simple low paying HR stuff (nothing related to CS). from what others have told me, a CS degree alone without any internship or portfolio is not enough to land me a job

By the time I got my CS degree I lost passion for this field, Haven't applied to any job and I haven't made any personal projects eventhough I had all the free time in the world.It's been two years now. I don't know what happened to me but I hope it doesn't happen to you nonas.

It took me a few years working in software (not my passion) to realize what it would have taken to be successful in my passion hobbies. I don’t regret the choice I made, because I never really had the drive, consistent effort or focus to be an artist full time. Now that I know what it looks like, because consistency and effort are an absolute requirement for software, I think I might finally be able to do it if I ever decide to switch. I guess my realization is, no matter what you do, you have to put in full effort to be successful. Being a successful artist would probably have taken me the same gargantuan effort as it was to learn software. I guess my point is, no path that would have been worthwhile for me would have been easy.

There’s no job women can do that men won’t have an opinion on. There’s nothing women can do to avoid men blaming them for the economy, culture, their own life choices, etc. I hope women say fuck it and do what they want anyway.

>>223970
Nona I’m sorry you’re going through this. Do you have an idea of why?

>>223970
No advice but all I can say is I relate. I'm trying to apply for jobs in the field but everything felt so scummy and now, i don't know. Maybe I'm just bad at picking jobs to apply for, but now there are no jobs and I just want out of tech. I don't even program projects and haven't for months.

>>224002
It is a truth eloquently put.

>>223970
Awww it can happen, especially given the state of things now. it happened to a couple of my girlfriends irl, one didn’t do so well on her final and graduated with a low gpa. we graduated during the pandemic so this was not uncommon. She was literally a neet for 2+ years and did nothing productive (love that for her) and only recently started working in industry as a developer after spending her whole third year as a neet applying lmao

It sounds like that may be the case for you as well, it’s been a rough few years and despite what the market looks like rn if you’re not aiming for FAANG there’s acc a big need for developers. I’m also super unmotivated to work on personal projects but hackathons etc are a good way to force yourself to be semi productive~ also you can start small! With a degree you’re already head and shoulders above bootcamp girlies (no shade to them, with experience it all evens out) so entry level webdev/support etc roles etc are a great way to get your foot in the door and gain some experience and confidence

>>223661

>How was the SWE internship?

It was solid. Like most internships, there wasn't much work for me to do except very menial tasks so pretty much all the value I got from it was just having more connections and a big name on my resume now. To be honest I was very uncomfortable asking questions because I didn't know what to ask (It was so hard to understand the techspeak anyone was saying that 99% of it just went through one ear and out the other) so ultimately I ended up just asking whatever to at least keep making myself look interested. As an intern, appearances are going to be what matter more because no one will really expect anything practical from you, after all. You just want to show you will not be a pain in the ass to work with.

>Was it difficult to land?

Not really. They hire alot of CS students from my school. I know at least two coworkers from my current job that have been hired by them and at least four or five different classmates that have been. It could also be that we are located in it's headquarters, so they are more biased for people they don't have to relocate.

>I was told I should be applying to internships my junior year, I'm currently only a sophomore.

Yeah, that's going to be hard because most recruiters prefer people closer to graduation. I had also tried looking for internships as a sophomore but had no luck and didn't find this internship until junior year. Your response rate should increase once you become a junior.

>I'm deathly afraid of not being able to land a job once I graduate.

I can speak personally that even though I did an internship, I'm still afraid of this so it hasn't removed that fear. This company gave me a return offer and I already accepted but I'm about to blow them off soon for pursuing something that is my dream and a once in a lifetime opportunity. This may put me at risk for whether I'll even be able to still use them on my resume or not. That means nothing really will remove this fear, so best you can do is just keep trying. lol

I started getting responses on job applications once I shortened my first name to sound gender neutral instead of obviously female. Sucks but it did help. Also just like any industry I guess, connections made a huge difference as well.

>>224018
Where do you live? How big was the difference between before and after?

>>224029
I live in a progressive blue state. Sexism is still alive here I guess. I was blindly sending resumes and applying to job postings. Difference was no responses vs. like three. One resulted in a job offer. The bigger game changer was being put on a “list” of some kind that gets sent out to companies who are hiring. I got put on that list because of a connection I made simply applying for an internship (I didn’t actually get it). After it got sent out, I was getting three calls a day from companies for like two weeks. It was shocking. So I’d say if you’re applying blindly, the name change does help (I got the idea from an article on women in tech). But taking advantage of connections has always been how I got jobs in the past and this was no exception. I wonder if headhunters might provide a similar service, though I never tried them before.

I'm working a dead end job. I'm going to start leetcoding since this job didn't ask me to do any. Are programs to get women into tech dead? I'll go to any US tech city.

>>223286
>Software development
I highly advise against this. Between the H1Bs and AI, the future of development isn't looking very fun.
Go for cybersecurity instead

>>224031
Do you put a male sounding nickname or just the first initial?

>>224044
Just a gender neutral nickname, like Jess instead of Jessica. I also added my middle initial to seem more distinguished. It seemed to actually help.

>>224043
Same nona. My coworkers are very smart and nice, and the women are exceptionally cool.

>>224051

How did you get past that when getting background checked? Do you still just provide your legal name on it? I've confused HR departments before just by adding one letter to my legal name, since that's how I usually write it even though it is legally without that letter. But I imagine something like leaving several out like that would be even worse.

>>224055
Yeah legal docs and forms required my full name of course. It was just a way to get my foot in the door for an initial interview. People are understanding of nicknames.

>>224061
I should specify, I put my nickname only on my resume (and cover letter if applicable). For any legal forms I used my full name.

I wish I had majored in CS and not in a useless major where I have to fight for scraps to even get a job that pays barely above minimum wage

>>224051
Good idea, thank you nona

>>224102
Whats your major?

>>224199
I majored in biochemistry
By barely minimum wage jobs i mean those jobs where you're basically a lab monkey and running instruments. The pay sucks because anyone with half a brain can do this job and the hours also suck because you're often in graveyard shifts since the company needs to keep the instrument running 24/7. There are some R&D jobs that pays a bit better but the amount of availabile roles is not as bountiful nor lucrative as CS is. There's more opportunities if you have an advanced degree and I knew exactly what I was getting into it but I'm just burned out from coursework before I think about pursuing school further.

Tech anons don't know how good they have it. It's basically an employer's market for them.

>>224391
basically everyone who does biochem goes to med/professional school or grad school. You can also go the self taught route or bootcamp and hope for the best.

>>224391
Mfw I’m doing bioscience now

>>224036
How's your progress?

>>232062
i do not recommend med school to anyone unless you're extremely extroverted and really, really love patient care.

>>224391
Most of the code monkeys will be out of job while you will still keep yours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pspsSn_nGzo

I mean look at that!