The translation of the previous post
When I was young, I also thought about my life, how I could live a wonderful life, how I could be passionate about life, etc.
But after several years of social torture, mentally I feel a bit tired. Every day I watch some YouTube, try to find a job, and write code if I'm interested, day after day.
> They say China's universities are a grinding machine, talent in, scum out. When I think about it, my enthusiasm and passion for life are probably worn out by the university. More precisely, probably caused by Marx, Mao and formalism. However, on second thought, I seem to be one of the harder ones in the scum, so I can secretly be glad that I have not been so finely ground.
Today I saw shiey's video and found out that he didn't go to pick up the train, but rode his bike around the mountains instead. For the first time in nearly three years, I looked at the screen and burst out with a desire that "I want to do something like this too. This moment seems like I'm young again. But this feeling did not last long, and soon I was pulled back to reality by the anxiety of unemployment.
Saw the second video and thought the dice were so beautiful. I've been following this channel for a long time, and today I was suddenly thinking, is it possible for me to engage in a similar job? Making dice doesn't look like it requires a big investment in equipment or a big site like blacksmith and carpentry, and the product looks pretty enough to sell on the internet. Although I would like to do Java-related work, programming is also my hobby, and I like Java and Kotlin, I found that the Chinese labor market and the quality of buyers are too bad after a month of job hunting. To be honest, unless I have no choice, I definitely don't want to commit myself to do a job that is like going to the grave.
Finally, I would like to present you a song by Sumire Haruno. I don't understand the lyrics, but I really like her and her performances and songs. I hope you all can have a great day.
> Translated by deepl, modified by me.
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Cycling Journey To The Adriatic Sea | Part 1
by shiey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEiv2D2V_j0
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A glowing D20 from Lake Superior
by Hedron Rockworks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2vESUP4PRA
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黄昏に傷ついて
by 春野寿美礼
https://open.spotify.com/track/2zN8tc24qd5doEgrpNbaiy?si=9bf3b1990e914add
The translation of the previous post
@skyblond I have the idea you need a hobby where you can put passion into to counter the soulcrushing from the university?
@trinsec I do have passion on programing, but not the one those enterprises need. I write posts for my blog monthly, mainly about some random stuff I did in the last month, like writing a simple read-only FUSE in Kotlin, dig into how email system prevents spam, record how I implemented a P2P chat system in Minecraft, etc. I do enjoy them, I did that for about 5 or 6 years, and I still want to keep doing that.
I generally hope I can turn my passion for programming into a job, which I don't suffer from. But based on situation, where I know the enterprise doesn't need a SpringBoot and MySQL master to build a product, and the enterprise knows that too, but they still want to hire a person who mastered those things and pay him/her an entry level salary, I don't think the job is the one I want. A Java programmer who masters the SpringBoot, database, cloud, knows how SpringBoot and MySQL work internally, knows how to design cloud-native applications, works 12 hours a day, and gets paid less than 2K USD per month? I would call it greedy.
While other people have workarounds, I don't like it. They simply repeat those Q&As and pretend to know everything about those things but in fact they rarely understood them. I think programing is about doing something and learning from it, not memory something and don't know how to use it.
There are 3 types of programmers;
1. The "enterprise types"; They got an education and subject themselves to any work situation necessary to get the paycheck.
2. The "passionate hobbyist"; They have all kinds of jobs. I have come across, musician, farmer, service technician. Often not educated in computer science/engineering.
3. The "passionate professional"; Managed to make a living out of the hobby. I belong here. But I can do the hard work, but under my terms.
It is difficult to be "employed" and "doing things under my own terms", so some compromises are needed.
EITHER; run your own software company, be it for products or for consulting. Really hard to get started.
OR; find a low-paying job in a sector that is where your passion is, put a time limit, say 2 years, to learn as much as possible about the sector and how businesses operate in that sector, make connections with people (future customers)...
Dreaming will not do.
@niclas Thanks for your advice!
I do have a bachelor's degree in computer science because I started programming in Java since high school. I found it pretty interesting and I want to know more about it.
But taking programming as a job, aka serving the enterprise, is different from taking it as a hobby. The key point is how to get paid, either I obey the enterprise's rules, or I start my own business. As a fresh graduate, I don't think starting a business without related knowledge is a good idea. But serving the enterprises introduces the second point: how we're treated. In China, employees are not treated well. (ref: https://996.icu/#/en_US)
> I do reject several offers that pay well. They supply software to help the government apply censorship. Which I really hate. If they are the only job I can have, I'd rather starve to death.
With multiple companies laid off their employees, nowadays the low-paying jobs are also hard to find (considering we have 12 million graduates this year and a high unemployment rate). I sent out a lot of resumes, and 90% of them were no response. The 5% of them rejected me, and the last 5% of them decided I'm not the person they are looking for.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Now I'm seeking ideas to make money. But due to the limited resources I have, I can't really try them out and phase out the failed one.
Applying for jobs is probably not the smartest way, since your application is one out of hundreds or even thousands.
My only other employment was in Shanghai. At Morgan Stanley, an american bank. When I was there, we hired ~50 people per 6 months, and had ~10,000 applications each time, from fresh graduates. How to select??
Priority at THAT company;
1. English
2. Initiatives outside the University curriculum. Either private projects or highly advanced final project.
3. Interviews.
@niclas Thanks for sharing! Which I learned a lot!
I would say now we have more people in China, for graduates-only jobs, it's kind of 1000:1 in software/internet companies.
English is a must-have condition for graduating, so can't really beat others at that. My personal projects are kind of toy-level. I wrote for my own needs or just for fun (doing C stuff in Java, kind of suffering, but in a funny way). My final project, I don't think it's a highly advanced one, but definitely not a simple one. I do put it on GitHub but didn't really finish the document.
I graduated in June, 2022. Over the last year, I found out that "I probably shouldn't focus on big companies" in a hard way (wasting a year to apply to different companies and ended up still not getting employed). But the startup/small company didn't go well either. Maybe lowering the salary is a doable strategy, that's new to me.
Anyway, really thanks for the advice!
@skyblond
You are welcome.
Low income; See it is a "education cost", even getting a short-term internship will increase your "value" in the view of the hiring manager.
@skyblond
After highschool, I did;
1. I kind of knew the company I wanted to work at. Tiny start-up, industrial automation.
2. Went to the boss and said; "I want to work here."
3. He said; "I can't afford!"
4. I said; "How about enough for food and petrol?" (~$500, half the lowest pay in Sweden at the time)
5. He said; Ok, let's try for a couple of months.
6. "couple" became 15; "I want $1200." -> "Ok"
And I was there for 2.5 years, learned a lot. Then consulting on the products -> expand.