Passion, Careers and the Pursuit of Knowledge

What are you talking about?

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the current generation of computer science students are overwhelmed, frustrated and confused about the nature of the job market in our field. So much so that I consider it a masochistic affair to browse forums and subreddits such as r/csMajors due to the obscene amount of dooming and negative rhetoric spread in these communities.

With that being said, what is a student to do when faced with these cruel uncertainties about their potential career? Should they give up? Is software engineering a dead field? Well, I dont have all (or perhaps any) of the answers to these questions, but I feel that I am in a decent enough position to offer some insight that students might find encouraging or useful in their quest to obtain employment.

Passion above all else

Recently, I was lucky enough to receive a couple of offers from High-Frequency Trading Firms and have been bombarded on linkedin with people asking me how I did it, what resources to use, how to study etc. I am mostly receptive to people asking specific questions because I know how it feels to be in that position, however, I don’t believe these generalised “what do I do” style questions are actually beneficial to anyone. Certainly, they do not benefit you because you will receive bland advice that you could have found on google with a one minute search. They do not benefit me either as I now feel obliged to go to my previous messages and just copy paste what I said to the last person.

Despite this, I do believe that there is a large difference maker in candidates that is often spoken about but grossly overlooked, which is passion. Now this might sound crazy to some current CS students but from my observations of students who have broke into HFT/Big tech, the common denominator between these people is that they actually enjoy coding. Of course it would be naive to assume this of everyone in these jobs, however I believe that ones interest in computers/programming and their innate drive to learn new things is the main differentiating factor between them and their peers. Now an avid LinkedIn user might ask: how can I become more passionate? And therein lies the issue.

Passion is not a taught attribute, it is not something that you can simply learn. It is the manifestation of multiple intrinsic motivators that have formed throughout a persons life. Ones ability to find enjoyment in the wide array of struggles present in programming largely determines how long they will stick with it, and in turn how good they will be at it. The type of student who is proactive, eager to learn and does things for the sake of interest rather than some extrinsic career goal are not the types of students who ask “what do I study for quant?” to a random person on LinkedIn. I believe that students who ask these vague questions about a very complex topic are either too lazy to do basic research themselves, or aren’t passionate enough to find out on their own, and I’m not sure which of these is worse.

The Beauty in the Struggle

In essence, I believe that students ought to figure out things on their own, and only ask questions as a last resort and after conducting research on their own. This kind of behaviour is largely conducive to success, whether that be in school or in the career. If you are given a tough problem or are presented with a situation you don’t know how to approach, and you spend as long as you can trying to resolve the issue at hand, the result is largely insignificant. That is to say, the lessons learned along a tough journey are more important than the outcome of that journey. Learn to enjoy the struggle, to see the beauty in it, for that is what differentiates you between who you were and who you want to be.

To any students reading this who were wishing for some digestible and easy to follow advice, I’m sorry that this isnt that. But if I had to try and give some advice in that format, here is what I would say.

Be curious, make mistakes and dont be afraid to be wrong. Write code that you enjoy writing, read books that you enjoy reading and watch videos that you enjoy watching. Pick a niche that speaks to you and become an expert in that field. If you pour your heart, mind and soul into what you love you are sure to reach the heights you have always dreamed of.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”

• Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!