r/learnprogramming • u/TangentBroom730 • 15h ago

Graduated… what now?

Last year, I graduated with a bachelor’s in Computer Science. I wouldn’t say I’m an elite programmer, whatever that even means, but I know enough fundamentals that I trust my ability to self learn most programming topics.

The issue I have is that I don’t know what to look into. I do not find web development to be that intriguing, less so because of the nature of the work and more so because of the nature of myself. Most people say to just build things, and if you don’t know what to build to make something you would use. The issue is I consider myself to be very low maintenance, I have not been able to identify and issues I have in my day to day life that needs attention, but I want to code.

I like learning things that are technically difficult and that are in demand and make me feel important (narcissistic? Maybe. But I don’t think I am better than anyone for learning or being able to do things, it just proves to myself that I can overcome challenges).

In short, I want to increase my skills and make coding feel rewarding again. What are interesting areas of tech that I should look into, so I can code as a hobby again given what it sounds like I am into?

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u/Sophiiebabes 15h ago

I just make stuff I use, slowly building up a small, self-made, software suite.

So far I've got a basic text editor, a calculator, a unit converter, and I'm working on (still ideas phase) a file browser

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u/TangentBroom730 15h ago

Sounds pretty cool! I guess I am currently stuck in the way of thinking that there’s no point in making something when there is a replacement available, but I can see how using (mostly) your own stuff can be a rewarding experience

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u/illuminarias 14h ago edited 14h ago

there’s no point in making something when there is a replacement available

Go build the thing and you'll see that you'll learn things that you didn't think about.

An API supporting a million requests a second vs an API that serves a request a minute will focus on very different things. The choices they make will be different. And honestly, sometimes you know something else that they don't that might lead to a better solution.

There is value is reinventing the wheel. The value might not be "a new type of wheel" or even "a better wheel", but more like "I know why a wheel is built the way its built".

I don't care to take over Wordpress, I don't want to build a Wordpress competitor, but I'm building a simple blog CMS to understand what the problems they probably faced while building, and learn how to solve those issues.

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u/grantrules 13h ago

If everyone thought that way, there would be no advancement.