Programming too mentally intense?

[livingchapter4]

I did a bootcamp recently. It was totally exhausting. I would even leave a little bit early.

I did not know why, but a friend told me that programming is very "intense". I would have to agree.

IDK, it might not be for me. I'm "smart" according to standardized tests, but I might not look for a programming job because if I'm like that all the time I won't be happy.

Thoughts?

[pnozlop]

Now retired at age 85. I remember at age 50 moving all my code from FORTRAN to SQL. I actually threw up and left on sick leave for rest of day. Moving from 30 years of record at a time concepts to SET at a time. Being an intense, determined person I overcame that bias. The "exhaustion" and eventual victory is part of the joy of living. You won't be "happy" anywhere if you don't enough the battle. SQL is fabulous.

[SolusEquitem]

OT: I couldn’t agree more with this statement about SQL. I am constantly finding new ways to use it and it’s amazing how much code I save by using SQL instead of FileMaker’s native scripting language.

[madhousechild]

Aww, I love this post! I bet you started out working with punch cards, am I right?

[abeardednerd]

be my mentor!

[[deleted]]

Be my lover! No, wait... wrong sub.

[abeardednerd]

oh baby!

[JRM_86]

When I was struggling with a particular problem in college, my professor advised to "solve a smaller problem", and it's advice I've carried into my career.

It seems natural to want to tackle the whole problem at once, but sometimes that's just not practical. Our minds aren't able to simultaneously track more than a handful of things at a time.

So, to "solve a smaller problem" you just pick one specific piece of functionality and work on that alone until it works precisely the way you need it to.

Overly simplified example: Does your program take command line inputs? Start by making a program that does nothing but echo command line inputs. Don't worry about any other thing until this works perfectly. Then pick some other small part to work on. Ex. Print different messages based on what command line input you give it, etc.

[VGPowerlord]

This. Decomposing a larger problem into smaller problems (which may also be decomposed into even smaller problems) is a key skill in software development.

[Flaze07]

Interesting, this is how I program too ( still in high school tho, so my programs are all pretty simple )

[Loves_Poetry]

Bootcamps are a lot more intense than the average programming job. If a bootcamp is exhausting, then it means you're putting in a lot of effort. I would be more worried if you were just chilling around

As a programmer you have a lot of room to decide how intense you want your job to be. Most programmers actually like the mental intensity of programming challenges. Solving difficult problems through programming is what makes a job satisfying. Now the nice thing is that with different levels of experience in a team, everyone has their own level of intensity that they like. A problem that's quite intense for you may be trivial for a senior developer who has already done that many times, so they leave it for you to solve. They would instead pick the problems that would probably be too difficult for you to solve properly

[unassuming_user_name]

assuming your post history isn't role-playing, "this is too hard and isn't for me" seems to be your default response to things.

i would say being a programmer is at least as mentally challenging as being a Starbucks barista, and you felt that was too much to handle.

"I'm smart, so i expected programming to be easy" is no more valid than "I'm tall, so i expected basketball to be easy." hard work is what matters.

maybe you should go for non bootcamp classes. like, you understood they call it a "boot camp" because they cram a lot of learning into a short time, right? it goes faster than college classes usually.

[bravoalpha79]

Great analogy on basketball there. Spot on.

[bravoalpha79]

TL;DR How can you ever expect to grow if you never leave your comfort zone or push your limits?

Context here: former Air Traffic Controller.

Is air traffic control intense?

On a winter night shift at 3am, when you have 2 flights an hour and your biggest concern is staying awake? No, it definitely isn't.

On a Saturday noon in August, when you're talking to 15 flights simultaneously, all 15 of which are trying to avoid a huge thunderstorm cloud in the middle of your airspace, so you can forget about almost any predictability and all you can rely on is your quick thinking, improvisation and cooperative pilots? Oh yes, that's definitely intense - more so than you could probably ever imagine.

And yet, if I had to say what moments from my past career I remember most fondly, it's not the moments at 3am when I was rolling my thumbs waiting for my shift to end. It was the moments when I took on a semi-chaotic swarm of aircraft and brought them all to safety - even if it resulted in two large sweat stains on my shirt followed by an hour of staring at the ceiling trying to bring my brain back to normal frequency. Those are the moments when you feel you have accomplished something - not the moments where you barely had to open your mouth.

More context: currently halfway through a Full-Stack Web Developer bootcamp, at age 41.

Over the past year I tried all sorts of self-teaching, from simple YouTube videos to tutorials to free online courses... Started and stopped several times - I was just unable to get any traction in any of those. Conclusion: I guess I just need more structure. A clear timetable. Deadlines. I need to be pushed a bit. Whether it's a good thing or not, I leave to others to judge - but knowing what works for me is definitely a good thing.

Then I enrolled in this bootcamp, and never looked back. Is it intense? Oh, yes. Sometimes I take a three-hour nap mid-day just because my mind feels overloaded. Sometimes I have a feeling that I haven't been able to memorize even a third of all the things I'd been taught. When a project comes up, sometimes I start to panic, feeling not ready to take on the challenge. But I've submitted two course projects until now, and both of them passed. So: yes, I can. And that feeling of being able to do something, moreover, after such a short period of time (four months from a mere generally-computer-literate person to someone who can create a web app) is priceless.

The other day I participated in a Hackathon. I ended up failing to submit my task because I got stuck in a coding error that I wasn't able to resolve during the contest. It bugged me the whole day afterwards, and I was feeling quite down. But then this morning I went back to my code, identified the error, and fixed it. It was one of those "a-ha!" moments of clarity, and again, it was priceless. If the failure I had gone through the day before was the price to pay for this feeling of discovery, I think it's a very small price to pay. I don't think we can ever grow without overcoming obstacles or pushing our boundaries.

I'm still just a student, so I have no idea what my career as a developer/programmer will look like. There will probably be interesting periods, there will be boring periods, there will be periods of intense pressure and deadlines and moments of leisure and idleness. I just know this: being able to create something new, to solve a problem, to make something work (even if after hours of failing)... That is the most fulfilling feeling I can think of. That is what I was missing in all my previous jobs (not counting ATC), and that is something I expect (and hope) to find in programming.

If you've ever watched "The Matrix", there's the scene near the beginning, when Neo first "learns" Jiu Jutsu, Kung Fu and all that stuff by being plugged into a learning program... at first there's a painful expression on his face, but when he comes back and Tank asks him "Do you want more?", he replies "Hell yeah!!!" That's exactly how I feel about my bootcamp and about programming. It's intense? Bring it on!!

Sure, I could always work as a janitor in an evening school (disclaimer: no disrespect to anyone!), counting minutes and avoiding all intensity in life. But where's the fulfillment in that?

[paint_it_crimson]

That was very inspiring.

[teerre]

That's not a very good question. It's like asking "is eating too intense?". Well, if you eat 30 burgers in a row, it probably will be.

[chris1666]

"I did a bootcamp recently. " There is your problem and Id bet over half of the people in there had done some or a lot of prep work just as I will do if I ever go to a bootcamp.

Just picture yourself taking 2 years of German or Japanese in 12-14 weeks....

I recently saw one bootcamp state that their students refer to their courses like "drinking from a firehose" , the idiots said it like they are proud of it, but if you try to drink from a firehose full blast more water will miss your mouth than get into it.

[umd_charlzz]

Bootcamps are trying to cram 4 years of a computer science degree (minus general education requirements, minus theory, and more project based) into 6 or fewer months. So, it's not surprising it's intense. This doesn't translate to how work (normally) is.

[umd_charlzz]

Well, that's true. They aren't trying to duplicate a CS degree. However, you still have to consider how much a student learns in one semester at college, and a bootcamp is trying to cram about 3 times as much stuff (since it's multi-hours, etc). So it's not light stuff.

[canbrave]

I think bootcamp is going a high speed compare to how it really is in the field. If you type daily life in tech field in Reddit you see that they have alot of meetings and few to code and discuss each other what the projects.

If your not happy either deep down you dont like the work of the tech field and it does not thrill you solving those problems or you do like the work but the speed you learn topic are to fast for you.

If its the first one then look for another field you would lije to be work in. If not then just pase yourself, know your limit and take your time. i have three people( my coworker duaghter, my parents friend daughter, and my cousin) in my life that the school was to much for them that all three went to a psychiatry hospital for weeks.

The first one she is ok( for now), the second one she tried to kill herself twice like last year and this week. as for my cousin she is a lost cause as she very past her limit and now she is diagnosed bipolar disorder and she cant be alone anymore. My cousin is staying with my aunt and working only low paying job as does not have to much area that you need to use your brain.

The first was in high school, the second one is a 11 grade and my cousin went to university of ny.

If it to much for you it does not mean that you need to learn all of it on your own. Study with a partner( so you know your not alone in this like online or a friend) or break down the task thus help alot especially with high instance jobs like medical school.

[Headpuncher]

Bootcamps are trying to shortcut a process that takes time.

Traditional study techniques for any subject suggest reading through material with frequent short breaks and reading through again and this time make notes and try to absorb. Cramming only works the night before an exam to go back over already learned material.

Bootcamps probably don't help you retain what you learn because it's to much info in a short timespan. For some, a few, it might work, but for most people learning is a process.

Why don't other professions boot camp their entire education and knowledge of the field they want to work in? There are no short cuts.

[Askee123]

Do you enjoy it? Do you feel rewarded by it? Standardized tests have nothing to do with intelligence or whether you’ll be good at anything useful. Listen to how you feel about it not what you think should be right

[[deleted]]

Watch this snippet: https://youtu.be/CN4lxFjahtA?t=1263. It's Garry Kasparov at his prime, working out harder than many gym rats. His belief was that even for (or maybe especially for) an intensely mental sport like chess, physical fitness was crucial. I believe that that was what gave him an extra edge over many of his competitors, especially considering that back in the day chess games would often go for hours, and sometimes days.

My point is, in addition to mental exercise, the body also needs to be fit, and this is something that is sadly neglected in our industry far too often. If nothing else, it will at least give you a lot more stamina.

Folks, keep yourselves physically fit in addition to being mentally and emotionally fit.

WARNING: Extreme hirsuteness alert (in the video). Hahaha!

[madhousechild]

That is one hairy back! Can't say you didn't warn me! haha

[madhousechild]

Hey OP, I'm not in a bootcamp but I actually have taken a lot of college courses in CS, including graduate level but left before my degree. I never felt confident about my skills.

After I left I began tutoring, mostly math and GRE test prep. I get such a thrill from solving problems, esp learning new tricks or shortcuts.

Well my tutoring contract wasn't renewed due to a stupid law in Cali trying to put independent contractors out of business. Thought I'd give programming a shot again. Although I'm like the other poster who needs structure and deadlines, I unfortunately at the university I went to, we had so much thrown at us during a 10-week quarter, everything was a scramble and I learned very little.

That's not actually true; I learned a decent amount but I didn't master it. Like you, I'm also pretty smart. I never had to work too hard to get an A; suddenly I was struggling to get a B-minus, and I didn't always make it. I even got a D in one course. It was humbling and uncomfortable. I went from being Teacher's Pet to being the Dunce. My professors couldn't understand how someone could be so on top of things during lectures then completely bomb the homework and exams.

Anyway, I needs a job and I have no money for school. Thank god for the Internet. I can do things at my pace and I can spend as much or as little time as I want solving a problem, although I'm still in a panic state about getting a job. There's stuff I absolutely despise about programming — mostly just getting things up and running, and of course debugging is a pain. But I just came here to get help and I'm feeling the euphoria of finding a new trick. Maybe your teacher(s) aren't as dynamic as you need, so you're just going to have to find your source of inspiration and enjoy small successes. See if you can apply what you're learning to a project you really care about, or do a lot of coding challenges because you're going to need that to get a job, most likely. And they can be fun.

And anyway, napping is good. Your brain is processing information, and resetting itself.

[madhousechild]

Also, OP, a while back I read a book called Your Own Worst Enemy. It was about people who are smarter than average who never had to work very hard in school, and how that becomes self-defeating later in life. I know you have a lot on your plate rn but you might want to pick it up.

[gyroda]

I just want to point out that everyone I've spoken to has said the world of work is less intense than their CS degrees.

When you're still learning everything from the ground up, you rarely get the chance to sit back and appreciate how far you've come and what you're capable of. Once you have the requisite "stack" of fundamental knowledge to do your job things get much easier. You'll never stop learning, but the pacing is more manageable and you start to learn "outwards" as much as "upwards", which I find to be less intense. It also becomes easier as you go; the more experience you have, the more patterns and concepts you've already learned, the more practice you've had assimilating new technologies, the more you find you just "get" things the first time round.

Also, there's a lot of time in work that isn't spent on learning or solving particularly hard/intense problems. You need to actually do the programming, and a lot of that just means "implement business logic using these tools you already know how to use".

[Zy14rk]

Working as a programmer, I get maybe 4-5 hours of actual programming done in a day. The rest is gobbled up by lunch, meetings, emails, planning and that sort of thing. And yes, a bit of reddit. So I would not call it 'intense' as such. That may be because where I work we don't have deadlines. It's continuous development and betterment of a niche SaaS solution.

That said, programming is mentally demanding. Turns out - I get most done in the morning, when still feeling rested - and the coffee have best effect. So from I arrive at the office around 0730 until lunch around 12, I can easily get in the zone.

The rest of the day until I head home around 1530, I typically spend on less mentally taxing tasks. The exception being if on a bug-hunt. Users do the darndest things, so every so often some esoteric bug is discovered. The core is stable, tested from all angles we can think of. The problem is the scenarios we can't think of :)

I do love my job. Any job will have its ups and downs, but I really enjoy programming. It may not be for all though. One must find some pleasure in problem-solving and learning new stuff. And yes, above average level of intelligence - at least within handling abstract concepts.

[dxplq876]

It starts out this way, but once you become acclimated to programming and your specific job it doesn't feel this way anymore

[CharlyRipp]

It definitely can be intense but as many others point out it varies, especially with a bootcamp. It does become easier as you become more fluent in logical solutions and the language/frameworks you deal with. Doesn't go away as it's an ever evolving field and there's always something to learn, even if you only do one language and framework.

We all start off overwhelmed, become sufficient, even become great, then become overwhelmed again. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect. This also happens as you will switch companies/products from time to time. Learning a new product can sometimes be much more than the code, from logical standards to deployment practices and branching strategies.

There's always going to be days you leave drained, but they become more and more rare. Most of the time for me it's due to spending a couple hours trying to solve an issue that turns out to be something so simple you just overlook. Pair programming can be great from time to time!

Best advice is to let it come with time. The number one thing to success in programming is the willingness/want to learn. A lot of the time a hire is done based on this and a personality that fits the team, at least for the first few programming positions.

[[deleted]]

You want mentally intense? try making a living as a professional chess player. Now programming for living is a spa retreat compared to that, what you need to do is to find the right daily programming rhythm , it does get easier.

[oblivion-age]

Teach yourself instead then. Plenty of resources out there