Honestly, I’m feeling down. I was browsing some things online, one thing lead and I ended up going on LinkedIn. I ultimately realized that so many people I know are doing way better than me. I went to a competitive technical high school where everyone takes AP classes and go to top colleges. Basically everyone from my high school has all of these internships, job and school roles, higher GPAs, likely graduating early, and have a lot of skill. I’m a CS major with an IT minor at a pretty good state school going into my third year, but technically a senior from high school credits, I get good grades, and I do have a scholarship. All of this sounds good on paper, but I feel like I don’t know much programming or IT knowledge as I should. I feel like a lot of people I know in my school is always 10 steps ahead of me who knows what they are doing. When I working with them in groups for coding projects, I feel like the one listening and that’s it.
But hey, what about the social side of it. Am I doing ok in that? Honestly IDK. I’m in a few clubs where I’m surprisingly very social, I have my group of friends both in school and outside of it. But again, I feel like everyone is doing better than me in that too. I never had a girlfriend, I never get matches on dating apps, and I never really been to a party. I struggled with my weight, and I did lose a lot of weight last year which is good, but
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I’m just overwhelmed. This summer I really going to take time to learn something new related to CS, and I will hang with my friends throughout the summer, but IDK. I wanted to share this with my friends, but I feel embarrassed I feel this way. I’m wondering if anyone else felt this way at one point. I feel like I work hard from my grades and and nothing to show for it. I apologize if I sound entitled or something and I do know I have a lot of good stuff about me. I’m normally don’t think this negative, but I guess that’s what happens with finals coming up, and looking at LinkedIn.
5 comments
Everybody embellishes themselves on Linkedin to impress hiring managers and recruiters. Ignore Linkedin. You have to be genuinely busy in life pursuing your goals and hobbies while interacting with others on the side. You know how to do that it seems and you have real results that are authentic. Chase excellence not people. You will win in the end.
Find comfort in knowing peers you care about are finding success. Try not to take it personally because surely somebody you know must think your doing well. IT is no walk in the park, pat yourself on the shoulder if you have an honest B gpa or higher.
Chill everyone is also lost they are just pretending they know what’s going on better then you. You have to simplify your life. Health Wealth and Happiness is all you need. Spend all of your time focused on those three things and forget the rest. You can get rich in 6 months, check out a guy name Andrew Tate and you can join his war room for like 50 bucks. You can learn how to be good with girls in 6 months. Read the mystery method and practice what it says. You can get in shape in 6 months. Eat one huge meal a day drink two protein shakes and lift weights every day. All that other stuff isn’t as important as it seems
You have a seemingly good life that you are happy about. Don’t get bogged down by looking at others on LinkedIn. Everyone could have different goals and they do not necessarily align with yours. You might have your own goals. It is better to use that as a metric. As long as you are content, you are doing fine.
I’m much, much older than you, and while I feel your pain (I’ve been there myself many times and suffered depression most of my life) from my perspective at this point in my life I would just kill to be where you are now.
Someone in your position looks to me like raw potential. Gigantic potential. Everything you see as a problem can be overcome. Maybe not as quickly as you’d like, and maybe not as quickly as some other people, but (unless you get run over by a bus or something) you’ve got *so much time*!
Also, you just don’t know what opportunities life will throw at you. Life might seem dismal to you today, but you might get lucky tomorrow, or in a year, or in ten years… gah, I wish I was your age.
Just work on improving yourself, try to see a lot of the world and meet many people, make friends, love, help people. So many opportunities will come through this. The real trick is not letting the wealth of opportunities you will almost certainly have slip through your fingers.
On the IT side, see if you can get an internship. Quite often, a lot more is learned on-the-job than at school, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard IT people (of which I’m one) tell me they use almost nothing they learned at school at work. Not to say that school is useless (it definitely isn’t, but that’s a whole other conversation), but I wouldn’t really sweat it so much. That said, try to focus on stuff that interests you. If you can keep that interest going long-term you’ll do well.
Regarding social stuff, the main thing that will help more than anything else is practice. Practice, practice, practice. Try to meet, talk, and hang out with a lot of people. The more you practice the better you’ll get. That’s how it works for pretty much anything, including social skills. Just do more, and when you’ve done more, do even more. Of course it’s hard to balance social interaction with everything else you have to do, like work and school, but when you have the time spend it socializing instead of playing video games, surfing reddit (or whatever it is you waste time on) and you’ll get better.
Last things are try not to compare yourself with others, and don’t beat yourself up about not achieving what they’ve achieved. Neither of these things help.
Here are a couple of essays I’ve found helpful in my own life, to gain a little perspective: [On the shortness of life](https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pdf) and [The Other Side of the Hedge](https://www.101bananas.com/library2/otherside.html)