I got my bachelor's in computer science 9 years ago from a school which did not have a very good CS department. while I did well in school and took to coding fairly easily I didn't graduate with a lot of confidence in my programming abilities. of course I could have amended this with self-study and practicing interview questions etc. but my heart wasn't in coding unless it was for something I cared about

I can relate to this, and although it may not be the same for you, but I was inherently unhappy and was making poor decisions in other places in my life. I first had to seek help and rectify those issues before I could focus on my career. I was lucky to have a good support system and worked for Apple at the time which was also very supportive.

so I decided to focus on VR software development, which was brand new tech at the time and something I was very passionate and optimistic about at the time. I was more interested in the non-gaming side of VR, like social and productivity apps etc. I learned Unity and worked on some personal VR projects that I never finished.

This is the perfect time to hone those skills, what with MetaQuest and Apple Vision Pro etc. if you have a device you could try and find some open source projects on GitHub to keep your skills sharp. It helps to find a project you’re passionate about as this makes it so much easier to grind it out. Again, other areas of your life have to be in order otherwise it can be hard to establish what is causing the lack of motivation.

the Facebook buyout of Oculus was a major blow to my interest in VR. seeing this huge tech company that I despised now driving the future of VR with a walled-garden approach was disheartening and demoralizing. FB was even pushing the social and productivity aspects of VR that I was interested in, and it was extremely cringe.

There is another headset company, but I don’t recall the name of it right now. I too am very anti big tech, even when I worked at Apple I would be questioning the managers about Apples morals all the time. Now I don’t have any social media but we program in ReactTS (Facebook) use Microsoft Visual Studio professional, server is C# etc. at some point you have to use the tools and separate them from the horrible things the companies do in other areas. Like I would never work for a gambling company.

in retrospect my interest in VR was incredibly naive and misguided. it was fueled by my social alienation and wanting an escape from reality - I've always felt fundamentally at odds with American capitalist society. now seeing these massive corporations trying to push escapist technology while material reality continues to worsen under capitalism makes me extremely uneasy.

I think this is only natural, and again can tie into just being unhappy in general and then we tend to wallow. For me it was Minecraft, I would be depressed, barely eating and doing drugs too much that I’d have no desire to do anything. But I would spend 5 hours in Minecraft looking for some carrots on a bad seed. As for being anti capitalist, me too. All we can do is our part. Don’t shop on Amazon etc and try to do the best I can in the situation I was born. Again it’s easier if you’re not self-sabotaging like I was.

in fact the reason why I chose to study CS in the first place, at the tender age of 17, was because I already spent so much time on the computer as a teen, so I might as well do something with it, right? but this was naive too - my addiction to computers was unhealthy, it was an escape. and it took me a decade to reckon with this fact

Again, being happier in life will stop things like that. I’m not 100% happy but now because I work on a computer Monday - Friday, the last thing I want a weekend is to go back on one. I now take long walks, planning on starting camping and I’ve become a film buff. There are days where it’s a grind to think oh no it’s Monday again already, but it’s either this or a bridge.

the irony of course is that I'm still addicted to screens, I'm still escaping reality, and I don't even have a career to show for it... oops! it's hard to change a lifelong habit, and without a job or money it's even harder to break the addiction as I can barely afford to leave the house

This can be difficult. For me I don’t have social media, left reddit after the api fiasco and now I only have Lemmy and YouTube. But like I say I try to go for walks and such and then don’t feel bad for using those two too much.

As I said earlier I was lucky that I worked for Apple at the time I got my life together and I lucked out getting that job. In the UK I started a Xmas temp on the shop floor for three months. And as a natural introvert, I was adept at being a fake extrovert due to the drug usage and having too many friends. That meant at Apple I could be fake happy and over the top with customers. I would go home exhausted due to this, but after three months I got hired at the Genius Bar and did really well. The thing with Apple is everybody working there was highly skilled and motivated and that kind of rubs off on you. They gave us healthcare and I was able to get diagnosed with ADHD at 35. That was the start of the changes that led me to being a software developer for one year now and honestly all it takes is a few breaks a long the way to make drastic changes. Like I never had money, then I ended up with my dream job, no drugs, learned to drive etc.