I had a crippling phobia of public speaking in my early twenties to the point I wasn’t sure I could finish college.
I joined Toastmasters as a “hail Mary” and spent about a decade as a regular member.
I ended up serving as President of multiple clubs, Area Governor managing five clubs, and even started the very first Toastmasters club on my university’s campus.
Toastmasters helped me get most of the way there, but even with a decade of what was essentially exposure therapy, I still faced moments of uncontrollable panic in a lot of social/presentation situations.
I went on an SSRI a few years ago and take a sliver of Propranolol before big presentations at work. Toastmasters helped me get 75% there—the meds take me the rest of the way.
Similar story and I use journaling as a form of CBT therapy often.
I also went on an SSRI a few years ago which I swore off for a decade+. It’s been huge for me, something I wish I had been more open-minded about a lot early. Even with therapy and tons of exposure therapy, I still had crippling social anxiety. With medication, I feel… normal.
> it formed the literal backbone of the most advanced aerospace technology on the planet.
I'm going to be pedantic here, but I feel like it needs to be said: no, it was not the "literal" backbone aerospace technology. It was the "figurative" backbone. There, I said it.
I was obsessed with becoming a fighter pilot from ages 8-20 or so. The Air Force Academy didn’t pan out and I didn’t make the cut for Officer Training School out of college.
I’m a senior SE now and love my job, get paid well, and have lots of freedom to explore interests and hobbies. I think I came out on top. Also, I don’t like heights so I reckon it all worked out for the best.
I also dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot or attack helicopter pilot. I played all the serious Jane's flight simulators, watched "Wings" and its spin-offs on the Discovery Channel every night, poured over books about military aviation, etc. I managed to get ROTC scholarships from both the Air Force and Army, and I actually went through with becoming an Army helicopter pilot.
I did well, graduated from flight school at the top of my class, but I knew within a couple years of flying (or, more generally, being an aviation officer) that it wasn't something I wanted to do long-term. I had studied CS in college while doing ROTC, and I started looking for a path to get back to doing something with my CS degree.
In retrospect, I always say that I'm glad I pursued the aviation thing when I had the chance. I think I would have regretted not doing so, and now I have some stories to tell. On the other hand, it has been hard to watch the booming job market for software engineers over the past ten years, making me wonder if I too would be making $500k+/year now at a big tech company with a better quality of life for my family if I had gone down that path instead.
By the way, I was also terribly afraid of heights. It turns out that when piloting an aircraft, even with cockpit doors removed from a helicopter, that fear just never bothered me because I was so focused on the task at-hand, often task-saturated.
Much prefer the right-side version. It's still "linear" at the top level and cognitive load is greatly reduced into small, single-responsibility, bite-sized functions. Plus—and sure, this might be a premature optimization—but future devs will thank you when it comes time to implement the "bake a calzone" feature.
It's an online journal with a focus on mental health and wellness I've been building since 2015. I gave up trying to find my version of the perfect online journal and decided to build it myself.
I started accepting donations earlier this month to help offset operating costs, so technically I've made a grand total of $15 income over these last eight years, minus about $8k expenses give-or-take out of my pocket.
Overall, it's brought much joy and purpose to my life. Hard to put a price on that.
> It's simply the nature of the job, I'm certain I'd feel similar with almost any desk job where I toil in front of a screen day in and day out.
This leads me to believe a lateral move to something coding-adjacent wouldn't bring you fulfillment. Perhaps carpentry OP? After all, every software engineer eventually turns to carpentry at some point, or so it would seem :P
Totally get this. I spent over 10 years in Toastmasters to help me with a phobia of public speaking. In a much better place now but definitely still get butterflies before speaking events at work which subside quickly after I start presenting.
Codecademy and Treehouse are both great platforms that I've used and recommend.
If you're looking for a great free intro to programming, I recommend "Learn to Program", available at https://pine.fm/LearnToProgram. It's concise, introduces the reader to a very approachable programming language (Ruby), and geared toward total beginners. Coincidentally, I went on to work at the same company as the author later down the line which was pretty cool.
I joined Toastmasters as a “hail Mary” and spent about a decade as a regular member.
I ended up serving as President of multiple clubs, Area Governor managing five clubs, and even started the very first Toastmasters club on my university’s campus.
Toastmasters helped me get most of the way there, but even with a decade of what was essentially exposure therapy, I still faced moments of uncontrollable panic in a lot of social/presentation situations.
I went on an SSRI a few years ago and take a sliver of Propranolol before big presentations at work. Toastmasters helped me get 75% there—the meds take me the rest of the way.