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First job as software engineer. Realized I don't love it as much as I love the humanities/social sciences. What to do? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So I just finished my masters in CS and got a job as a junior software engineer. When I first chose CS for my bachelors, I did so because it was somewhat intuitive for me. But I wasn't crazy about it. Thought the interest would grow over time. I've had undiagnosed ADHD throughout my life and thought the difficulties with CS during my bachelor's (which took almost 7 years) was due to the ADHD and not due to lack of interest in the subject. Learned coping strategies and did my master's. Graduated with a 4.0 GPA so I'm not bad at it for sure.

Now I'm medicated and I finally feel like I'm able to be 100% of myself. But despite that, I still just do the tasks at work for the sake of doing it. I like the problem solving aspect but it isn't something I dream about every day. I see my mentor working in the same company live and breathe this stuff and I can tell there is a clear difference in the thought process between both of us. It's easy for him to produce great quality work as he's naturally curious about this stuff. Me, I just try to get it done. It's not lead by curiosity for me. What grabs my interest is stuff like literature, history, linguistics, philosophy, sociology, movies etc. I don't need any incentive for those things. I'm naturally curious about those fields.

Now I'm wondering if I should still stick with software engineering where I'm decently okay but not that curious about it . Or should I consider a career more aligned with the social sciences/humanities? I don't even know what careers are in those fields that would be comparable in terms of pay/growth to software engineering. Is the choice between money and passion or can I have both to some degree in the non-SWE fields?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

you can do as my parents said "well you can become an engineer and continue humanities on the side"

joking aside i know it's a recipe for burnout but stick to your software engineering career. junior positions absolutely suck and maybe if you ride it out you'll start to like it better, or develop strategies to at least deal with it in a healthy way.

unfortunately there is no comparable pay in humanities and although job security is meaningless these days, your position will be extra precarious in humanities as half of your time will be spent justifying your existence to some shithead and you have to absolutely suck off people to keep your job whereas in SWE it's at least desirable for the company to keep you around if they are not doing layoffs.

and what if you risk it and as it turns out you don't like a job in humanities after all? or that the field is interesting but all the things surrounding it is a total shit show? this happens a lot and academia is full of passionate people chewed out and checked out by the suffocating admin surrounding it.

all im saying that it's a huge gamble and personally i wouldn't (and didn't) take the risk. sometimes life is not about what's rational but about what you are feeling so ultimately it's your call.