Ask HN: 21-year-old coder recent grad has no idea what to do with his life 38 points by thrwwow on Sept 9, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 58 comments I am 21-year-old coder who has recently graduated with the highest degree (like it matters), got a job that starts in a few weeks, and I just don't know... I am just sad. I am not sure what to do with my life. I've always wanted and always believed that I would do something special, something interesting, create my own startup or work for one that I truly believed in even if it had only 1 percent chance of making a huge impact. But instead I had to do a reality check and find a job. And this job of mine just does this software for money, nothing special, it's just business... I tried reaching out interesting companies, but I was unsuccessful, because I am terrible at socializing and blew those interviews even though I was successful at technical stuff. I have to feel lucky I got this boring job at all. And I must take this work, who else is going to pay my bills. I've been coding since probably like 12-13 years old, I've created dozens of projects but they were all unsuccessful. Realizing that you are just an average guy who will be just as everyone else, and you'll never ever create something that truly changes the world and has impact on it is fucking scary. I really enjoy implementing my own ideas into software even if I know it'll be most likely unsuccessful, I can spend hours and hours just coding, and I love it. However, I haven't had any unique (at least a little bit) ideas in months, and it's killing me. And now with starting a 40-hours a week job I'll probably be tired to think of anything new or code something for my own pleasure. I just don't know. I am not sure what I am asking here with this terrible non-sequential writing. Maybe for an advice, or maybe I just wanted it to get it off my chest. Ah, life sucks being ordinary. And it's so funny, people elsewhere have real problems, like what to eat for dinner, or how to survive a war, and I'm just sitting here, being privileged pretentious asshole with self-made problems. Omg, I am an idiot.







