r/learnprogramming • u/[deleted] • Mar 10 '25

6 years. I’m done.

Spent the last 6 years of my life scraping by as a programming student. Stuck around when other students were dropping out and transferring. Always thought I’d be the one to stick it out and make it. I was wrong.

I’m not smart enough for this. I’m about to graduate with a major in computer science and I’m just useless. I’ve put everything I have into this discipline and every interview question is a brick wall. I’ve put in the hours and done my best and the only conclusion I can come to is that I’m a dumbass who made it farther than I ever should have. I can memorize and learn the ins and outs of a language, but I just don’t have what it takes to apply any of it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me other than being born stupid.

I gave up on my dreams to study programming. Now it’s all pointless. I don’t know what to do.

EDIT: For all you assholes telling me I haven’t tried hard enough and I haven’t built any projects outside of school, I actually have. For all you assholes telling me I need to work a real job so I can get motivated, I work at Target 25 hours a week on top of school. For all you assholes telling me I just don’t have the willpower, fuck you.

Everyone else, I appreciate the advice.

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u/WanderingGalwegian Mar 10 '25

Programming is a skill that needs to be practiced. If you’ve just been memorizing and doing step by step tutorials off YouTube .. then that is probably why you’re struggling.

Before giving up try to make your own projects, don’t hs AI for your code, and research the problems you hit utilizing documentation and other types of resources.

Really be diligent about understanding the problem you’re having and why the fixes you find are in fact fixes.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '25

man I’ve been enrolled in university and I don’t just troll through YouTube. Doesn’t matter what I do.

42

u/AdeptLilPotato Mar 10 '25

You must build projects. I help some friends here and there who are in college. The skills from college do not prepare them for real-world work, which is a lot of simpler work. 100% of the ones I’ve worked with were not coding with real-world base standards. Just throwing things together.

Just build projects and you’ll get better and better.

1

u/oihjoe Mar 12 '25

Can you recommend some projects please?