
Ask HN: Looking for Some Advice - seekadvice2020
Thank you hn for everything! I appreciate all inputs.<p>I am a new ECE PhD graduate and I never felt more lost in my life. 1) I don’t remember anything I learned during my undergraduate degree. I remember some things, but it feels substantially less than what I knew during that time. 2) I feel slow sometimes; it sometimes takes me a while to figure something out or to look at from a different angle. 3) I am currently working in my field of study but I focus on another field during work after hours. I enjoy the other field as a hobby.<p>Bottom line is, I don’t feel sharp although I’m in my late 20s. Should I be worried about my future in tech? Or does anyone else go through the same thing ? Do you remember everything from undergrad sharply? Do you ever feel “slow”?<p>Thanks!
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sethammons
I stopped school after my undergrad. I have forgotten nearly all of it. Hell,
I've forgotten most everything I've ever learned. I don't recall a lot of the
early seasons of any of the shows I enjoy. I'm slower to learn new things,
slower to implement things, slower working out, and the list goes on. People
still consider me smart and highly productive and enjoy working with me. Turns
out that while I don't recall specifics often enough, I have developed ways of
working that scaffold what I know. "Standard operating procedure." I can still
think through systems, debug hard problems, sling code, work great with teams,
delegate, ask for help, mentor, mentee, learn new things (albeit slower than
before, and it has to provide value, usually quickly), teach, etc.

I'm slower. I'm more experienced. I'm doing great.

You say you feel slow and not as sharp. I'd equate this to typing speed. If
you were typing 90wpm and got slow and errored more, would that stop a career
in tech? I work with a guy who hunt and pecks when typing with two fingers. He
is a fantastic developer and doing great.

If you enjoy it and people enjoy working with you and you are productive, then
you will be fine.

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thijsvandien
I firmly believe that learning is not about remembering facts but about
shaping your thinking. Surely there are professions where having facts ready
is important, but relatively few. It's for a reason that many employers don't
care too much _what_ you studied, as long as you graduated (or have something
else to prove your character). You'll have to learn on the job anyway; what
they want is someone with the right attitude and who knows how to approach a
problem.

Feeling slow is definitely familiar, while everybody else seems more than
satisfied with my results. I'm still trying to always get better at what I do,
but at the same time I remind myself not to sweat it. The internet makes it
too easy sometimes to see top performers, and mainly their good aspects. Doing
average gets you a long way, and a bit better than average a very long way.
Stop comparing yourself to others. Just do your best. It's most probably
enough.

Having hobbies that differ from work is something I'd consider healthy.

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cweagans
Do you sleep enough? Are you sure?

Do you sleep well? Are you sure?

Do you have a sleep disorder? Are you sure?

For me, answering "are you sure?" on all of those questions involved talking
to a sleep specialist and the answer was no. Working through all of those
problems was life changing.

~~~
chadcmulligan
I would add

do you get regular cardio exercise

Do you eat well

To that list

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p1esk
I'm in similar situation: also a new ECE PhD graduate, working in my field of
study, and also working on an exciting side project after hours, in a
different field. I'm 41, started PhD program at 35, long after I forgot almost
everything I learned as an undergrad.

I'm not sure I fully understand your worries though. What do you want your
future in tech to be? What do you want to accomplish? The key is the drive to
build something. Are you motivated enough to succeed? Is your hobby project
exciting enough to keep you up at night (or would you rather be watching
Netflix)?

Regarding the sharpness - no, I don't feel any less sharp than when I was 20.
I don't think the 20 yo version of me would be faster to solve hard research
problems I'm struggling with currently, both at work or the side project.
Sharpness is not a function of age, it's a function of your current state -
physical (exercise, sleep, eat well), emotional (find the drive!), and mental
(solve puzzles, read books, talk to smart people, try new things).

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BossingAround
Why is remembering materials from your undergrad degree the meter of "how
smart am I?" What a strangely arbitrary scale.

> Do you ever feel “slow”?

Very often. I wake up, and feel as if I haven't slept at all. During those
times, my memory literally fails me. The other day, I couldn't remember the
term "thin provisioning," about which I was drilling a current coworker a few
months ago at an interview. So though the concept is trivial to me, I just
couldn't find the words to describe it.

And yet, even in that state, I sit down, and code, debug issues, write code...
I still get my shit done. I spend less time in the kitchen talking to
coworkers, though.

A better question is, why do you feel you shouldn't feel "slow"? What should
make you feel "fast" that you've acquired during your couple years of
studying?

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oblib
You probably retained more than you realize, but I can tell you that I've been
coding for about 25 years now and I constantly refer to documentation for the
tools I use.

"I don’t feel sharp"

Don't equate not knowing how to do something with being inept. Making
something from scratch that's not been made before is often an adventure into
the unknown that requires a lot of trial and error. It's often our job to
figure out how to do it. For me, that's the fun part, but the journey to get
there can sure make you feel dumb as a bag of hammers.

That's because there are almost always a lot of ways to do it both wrong or
better. But the truth is you just need to find one way that does it.
"Improvements" are future tense. So you focus on the problem in hand and move
along a step at a time.

I've learned to seek help as soon as I get stuck, as opposed to a hardheaded
"keep tossing mud to see what sticks" approach. A few days of that can make
you feel stupid real good.

It was ego that prevented me from learning that lesson sooner. Ego can take a
pounding when you're hard headed. So toss ego aside and start looking for and
asking for help as soon as you hit a wall. My experience since is there are
very few problems without solutions, or at least partial solutions you can
build upon.

You probably do know where to start looking for answers to questions and help
for most of the issues you'll ever run into, and that's what will keep the
progress going on whatever you're working on.

If you think about it, finding the answers is what you really learned how to
do in school, and you still know how to do that, and you always will.

I'll also offer that you work on something for you. Grab a raspberry pi and
one of the projects for it that looks fun and diddle with it. It's exercising.
It keeps you sharp and builds confidence. Make something and share it.

That said, I've got some Pi projects I did a few years ago that I glance at
now and wonder how the hell it works because I forgot, but if I dive back into
them it comes back to me.

So just dive in. You'll be welcomed.

~~~
BossingAround
> I constantly refer to documentation for the tools I use

I feel the same. At the same time, in my case, I'm quite sure it's because I
don't pay enough attention. If you refer to the docs just to copy-paste
something, you'll remember exactly how to get there (the important part) and
not what you copy (the implementation detail).

If you want to change it, pay attention to the actual details. You'll be
amazed how much you can remember.

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muzani
"Slow" is relative, and quite common in an academic environment. I find that
after entering the industry, with people from no/poor academic backgrounds, I
feel really fast. If you work somewhere with higher standards, you'll feel
slow again.

Learning seems more like a skill/technique than an aptitude. It's not just
grades, but learning in a way that it sticks.

