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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 2 days ago by jurassicneil@hexbear.net to c/chat@hexbear.net

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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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[–] Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago

Yeah unfortunately you have to "make it big" in a lot of artistic industries to see the kind of money STEM degrees make. The top 10 richest living artists all have their MFA or higher and all of them are multimillionaires, but they were able to break into the scene when they were up and coming in grad school.

It's impossible to brute force your way through raw talent. There's a lot of networking and marketing that goes into making a living from art. It's doable to get that six-figure salary, but it's going to be just as soul-crushing as working an office job in CS.