This is maybe the only place in my life where some people are as left or lefter than me, so I'm curious on perspectives. I've been studying on my own with plans to pursue a competency-based degree online -- if I prove to myself that I care enough to stick with it.
Given that by now I've become acquainted enough with two jobs to become jaded, I'm wondering how CS is (initial puzzle-solving thrill versus six years later). The tech industry can be rife with chud shit, and I doubt someone with little experience could jump straight into freelancing or working in a more solo capacity. But it's an industry I'm wholly unfamiliar with.
My career experience (ignore these two walls of text if you don't want any exposition):
Journalism: Don't regret it, but solely because it taught me the valuable lesson that I won't always know what I'll actually want in life. Started as a super-lib and left a washed-out sucker. The average reporters I met were nauseatingly status-quo -- either true-and-through bootlickers or too naive to realize themselves as free PR agents for people in power. There's something about years of condensing complicated situations to a few grafs for laymen which rots your brain into an endless chasm of cheap metaphors, impotent virtue-signaling rage, and other cliche nonsense. Met a few good ones who felt trapped like I did, but my experiences with the industry and the average journalist I met were eyerolling. I've worked manual labor jobs where older men literally screamed insults at me, and they never treated me worse (in the ways that truly mattered) than journalists did. When you have no true allies, you don't feel good, and you're not making the world any better, it's time to leave. Seriously, fuck journalism in the USA.
Education: There's a certain comfort with privatization among many teachers I meet that bothers me, but the bedrock idealism of "My actions and words impact how a child thinks" is at least something capitalism can't ruin completely. There's also a fellow commiseration to the extent that many teachers know it's a flawed institution, but we're mostly in it together. Unlike journalism you at least find less eager bootlicking. I've considered getting my Masters and progressing since currently I'm just ESL-certified, which isn't much, but I could still see myself teaching in some capacity as a lifelong career since I've had my fair share of bad days over three years and I'm still motivated enough.
I rounded out 2 years in CS recently. I'm a defense contractor and it is hell. It was really hard for me to find work out of college so I decided to sell my soul to get my first 2 years. Working where I did helped radicalize me. Seeing my client up close and personal helped me realize how deep the rot is. I love to code because I am still young and new, but I can definitely tell that I will need to go back to school at some point to either work on content I enjoy or to teach. Everyone is a chud/lib or just politically illiterate and you take courses once per year that make you watch power points about china bad and how it is "us vs them." If you can avoid defense contractor, but it's reliable work. Shit isn't going anywhere.
I was stuck with a defense contractor for my first year out of college and I'm very glad I got out. I got lucky with my next job because they would have happily taken a defense contract but never did (they did take an ICE contract, though) and by the time I left, they knew I'd quit on most government contractor projects. one of the perks of smaller companies is that you have more leverage even as an individual in an industry where collective bargaining is unthinkable and most of your colleagues are chuds. there are a number of small consulting outfits that will teach you valuable skills and are desperate for smart and capable people - you kind of need to know what to look for as a lot of places that fit that description are scam shops but if you can smell bullshit, I suggest looking in that direction as a path out.
I am definitely looking for a way out right now. The company I work at makes most of its money subcontracting to other companies, and my manager has made it clear that he has not intention of letting me leave the contract I am on to work on anything that would help round out my resume. "The client just likes you too much." For now I am trapped on a project that uses a java backend and transcompiles java into javascript. I have this feeling that if I don't leave soon, I will be stuck as a Java developer for the rest of my life because that is all I will be hired for. Thanks for your post, I appreciate it.