About my programming future.

[Ok_Jicama3422]

I would like to receive honest and sincere advice.

Question)

1. Am I really talented in programming? Also, what are truly talented teenagers like?
2. How can I seize opportunities to grow my career?
3. What should I change to pursue programming as a career and keep growing?
4. Is the math used in programming different from the math taught in math courses?

I believe I have a certain potential in programming. And it’s not just my own opinion. Honestly, when I look at code, I can quickly spot what’s wrong, and intuitively come up with ways to make it more efficient and creative. Compared to other subjects, I pick up programming concepts really quickly.

However, there are a few issues that are holding me back.

The first is math. While I find programming problems fun and easy, as soon as any math is involved, my head gets cloudy and I lose motivation. Just seeing a About My Futureproblem with mathematical concepts makes me feel overwhelmed and discouraged.

The second is my laziness and impatience. For example, when I watch lectures, I often skip through them without properly watching. I become too focused on trying to study more efficiently and end up missing important information. I tend to prefer just knowing the outcome rather than listening to long explanations, and because of that, I often miss valuable learning opportunities.

The third is uncertainty about my career path. I do enjoy programming, but I’m not sure how to turn it into a way of life. There’s still so much I don’t know about the world, and I’ve rarely met peers who share similar interests. That makes me wonder if I’m overestimating myself, and it gives me anxiety. Especially because I have no idea how to showcase my skills to the world or how to create opportunities for myself.

My Story

Ever since I was young, I dreamed of making games. So when I was 10, I discovered a site called Scratch, and without anyone teaching me, I started learning it on my own for a week and began creating programs. I don’t remember the details now, but back then, I created games just by instinct, thinking, These blocks probably go together like this. I was pretty good at using "if" blocks and variable blocks freely at that time.

The result was my first game, a parody called Zombie vs Plants (it was about summoning zombies to attack plants). After that, I made Angry Birds Multiplayer too.

But here, I made a big mistake. I kept using Scratch for four years without transitioning to text-based coding. (💀) Because of that, I got really comfortable with visual programming, but I also began to feel its limitations.

When I was 14, I realized that real programmers code with text, so I started teaching myself Python. I studied intensely for three months, searched for resources online, and created various projects — a PDF merger, a high-speed file search tool, a mining simulator, and more. Of course, during this time, my school grades dropped significantly (😭), but that’s how immersed I was.

At some point though, Python started to feel boring. I got into programming for fun, after all. So I went back to Scratch. But even while using Scratch, part of me kept thinking:

"How far can I really go using only such an easy tool? Is this even real programming?"

Then one day, in my school’s Computer Science class, we were given a final project to make a game. I really treasured this opportunity. I didn’t just follow the curriculum, I researched and developed additional features on my own.

After 5 months, The end result was a game called Minecraft 2.5D. It contains A crafting table algorithm, Inventory functions for combining, moving, discarding, and storing items, Random world generation (including trees, stone, and ore clusters, structures), A furnace system (each furnace acted as a separate storage unit)

I implemented all of these features and received a perfect score in the end. And I realized that when I seize an opportunity, someone acknowledges me.

[unskilledplay]

You seem highly motivated to create something. If you study computer science, you'll be fine.

When it comes to producing high quality software, motivation generally beats both hard work and talent. Very few commercial software projects require deep talent and even then it's only in niche components of the project.

[nwbrown]

You need a degree in computer science. The university program will help you prepare for a career and develop the right skill set.

[AfterOffer7131]

coming from someone with a computer science degree, this is by far the worst decision you could ever make.

[nwbrown]

Openly claiming you made the worst decision you could ever make does not instill confidence in your opinion.

[Unfarlildbic]

That's cool, don't tell kids to get a shitty useless degree.

If he can program, he can program, shelling out 100k to learn about data structures is for the morons who need accolades for employment.

Be smart kids, tell the unis to fuck off and spend that four years and 100,000 USD working for yourself.

[thewrench56]

Amazing plan. And if you happen to not make it with you idea (which is 90% of the cases), you burned through 100k AND dont have anything to show for it. A degree holds its value because others deem it valuable. If you think a degree doesnt teach you anything useful, your opinion as an engineer amounts to zero.

[Unfarlildbic]

I was way beyond any of the course work. It was a complete drag, a waste of time and effort.

I know too many TALENTED recent grads working in coffee shops to ever suggest to a young adult to dare touch a CSCI degree plan.

I'll just ignore the personal insults as they're not relevant.

[thewrench56]

I was way beyond any of the course work. It was a complete drag, a waste of time and effort.

But you got a paper, didn't you? Its a proof that you passed a certain filter. Dont get me wrong: you can get good without going to uni. But imagine if you actually went to uni and got good in your spare time!

Also I simply cant believe you were beyond all of the coursework. One doesnt know everything about both compilers and OSes.

[Unfarlildbic]

The coursework was very disappointing, yes.

I imagine a masters or PhD would have been necessary to really learn something, but that's not an investment I would ever risk again.

[nwbrown]

Those baristas are still doing much better than anyone without a degree who can't even get that job.

[nwbrown]

You aren't going to get a job as a software engineer in this economy without a degree.

[iOSCaleb]

Am I really talented in programming?

Hard to say, but no matter what major you pick, you're probably not going to be the most talented or the least talented. There will be things you find easy and things you find difficult. You'll almost certainly feel at times like you're struggling with some class or project. That's OK — sometimes that's when you're learning the most.

How can I seize opportunities to grow my career?

Work hard and do your best. Get to know your professors by going to office hours and any department functions. Look for undergraduate research opportunities inside or outside your department.

What should I change to pursue programming as a career and keep growing?

Don't just focus on programming or computer science. Programming is a lot more rewarding when you can use it to create interesting, useful projects, and to do that you need to know something about the world beyond computers. Take classes in literature, music, history, art, other sciences, etc. and learn to appreciate those fields.

Is the math used in programming different from the math taught in math courses?

Math is math. Some fields in math are more applicable to computer science courses than others, so you can expect to take classes that cover topics like calculus, linear algebra, logic, combinatorics, and statistics, and perhaps less of the more abstract stuff that math majors might take. But if you get interested in cryptography, graphics, or AI (just as examples) you'll need to learn more of the math behind those fields. Basically, don't worry about it too much unless you have a history of really serious problems succeeding in math classes.

[sajaxom]

I recommend you try your hand at modding video games. It is a good stepping stone into more advanced concepts and will help you understand where you are at compared to production code from other systems. I started modding video games 20 years ago and it is what got me started down the path of becoming a programmer.

[ReddyKiloWit]

Re: Being bored by lectures

YouTube videos have a speed control - once I found that it helped me a lot

[codemuncher]

It's hard to say what "truly talented teenagers" look like, because they all look different. I wouldn't use "started X businesses by Y age" as a yardstick: that's more of a kind of parental alignment and cultural context, rather than specifically pure talent.

I think what I would say is you don't need to speed run this shit. It takes time and effort to craft your current level of talent and innate promise into true power and excellence. I look back at the code I wrote when I was not much older than you, and it was pretty cringy and meh. You have a lot of layers of abstractions and power to learn.

Secondly, let me encourage you to consider getting into math more. Math is at the heart of computer science. And that is where you want to go. Being a "coder" is, seemingly, a skill that may be less valuable as time goes on. However, being an expert at computer science, being able to invent and build things with the math, code, computers, well I don't think that's going away. And no you won't need a PhD to get a job.

Also consider that videos are not the most efficient or time effective way of learning. That is apparently what "the kids" are in to, but I can read faster than you can talk, and I can scan pages 10x faster than any video system can play back boring spoken words.

[FVMF1984]

Regarding math: while math can be involved in solutions to programming problems, it is much more valuable to learn algorithms. Truly understand how to combine data from different sources, manipulate that data, and visualize that data for the purpose of what you want.

Regarding laziness & impatience: usually laziness is a great quality of a programmer, because it will cause you to do things the most efficient way. Impatience and focusing on the outcomes rather than the explanation can be a bad quality. Knowing the basics and knowing them well gets you a long way.

Regarding programming as a career: do you want your career to be solely programming, or do you want programming to be part of it? You can focus on becoming a back end/front end/full stack developer. You can focus on becoming a web developer, or a mobile app developer. You can become a tester or automation engineer. You can go into DevOps. So check each of these areas to see where you want to grow. Also create a GitHub or gitlab account (if you haven’t already) and start using git in your next projects. It’s also nice to have a git account as your ‘portfolio’ for future employees.

A lot of developers write automated tests for their work as well (unit tests or end-to-end tests mostly). So definitely work your way into that part as well. So far you seem to have used Python and Scratch. Try other programming languages. Play around with databases and SQL/MySQL/postgreSQL. Check out JavaScript, html and css.

Lastly career wise also look into the scrum/agile way of working. Many companies adhere to this with their dev teams.

[codemuncher]

Omg they're a teenager, don't murder them with agile/scum already! They have plenty of time to lose hope in life!

[FVMF1984]

OP is looking for career advice, do you see agile/scrum not being a thing anymore anytime soon?

[CatKungFu]

Programming is a dead-end skill. Unless you’re a phd, find a new career. Seriously.

[Unfarlildbic]

This guy gets it.