I live in India and in about 1 month I have my college entrance exam (JEE). I don’t know anything about it, I have spent 2 years of my life starting at age 14 only coding, and building apps.
As I have not studied school curriculum seriously I can’t get in a decent college through JEE but I have profound knowledge in Python, C and SQL and have built am currently building a game engine from scratch in C.
What should be my next step as my parents just view this as a waste of time and say that I should just study Physics, Chem and Maths all day. I can’t do it it feels like I am suffocated here confused about my choices.
I just want to do computer science and low level stuff like OSs, Kernels and compilers.
Have I made the right choice or shall I start over.
A university degree is still the recommended path to a job as long as it is a reasonable option for you.
I do want to attend college but the situation in India is that if you are not in the top 99 percentile of students amongst like 1.4 million you won’t get a good college and will be hired by mass hiring companies at below minimum wage. As I said I only spent my 2 years coding and not studying for college so I will most likely get tier 3 tier 2 college which won’t help in jobs. Secondly most people here go for web dev and college syllabus is mostly designed around it so I don’t think I will get much help about the route in CS i want to pursue
Bachelor’s degrees aren’t for learning one specific area of software development.
Indian colleges have a lot of problems though and sorta block mobility so I don’t know if you can do much about that.
I am not stressed about getting a good college, but the way my parents react when I try to disscuss this with them. They just ignore my points and say that
“just study from the book and get into a college and then you will get a job and become successfull otherwise you are a failure.”
For them getting into good college is more important than the carrer I want to pursue and the thing I have achieved are basically a timepass.
These just make me feel like I have wasted my years and I am basically a failure. I need a third party opinion about my current situation
Just knowing how to code alone is too often not enough to get a job these days. Jobs tend to expect degrees. You can get a job without a degree, but it’s harder.
I just don’t know coding, but have participated in hackathons and even have qualified for semi-finals and finals. I contribute to open source software, have freelanced 2-3 times and solve stack overflow problems often. I won’t even mind working for free if it is not a problem rn. I will have 4 more year of college life where I will look for internships as soon as possible and expand my network. This is not the problem. But the days I spend at home constantly listening taunts and regular undermining from parents every day 10-15 times a day is too much. I just can’t ignore them they always get to me leaving me stressed for hours on end. To add on it not even my peers and friends and teachers agree with me.
I often get suicidal thoughts from the constant critisism. I just cant do it like that. Its easier to just end it all at once. I am even uncertain i will make it past new year without doing something stupid.
It feels like everyone is against my line of thought trying to pull me down the mindless rat race of college in india. I dont think i can tolerate this more
Do not work for free. Companies that let workers work for free are abusive.
Since you just mentioned suicide or self-harm, we need to point that we are not trained medical professionals. We encourage you to call one of the numbers here for immediate help: http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html.
I love the enthusiasm for low-level development, especially your interest in building a game engine from scratch! 
I wouldn’t agree that all companies that let you work for free are abusive. I don’t think that is a substantiated claim, but one that is based on a personal experience. I’m sure there is some correlation there, but I know of companies that hired people for free that were excellent to work for. I even worked for one myself while attending college. It was a non-profit, which might be a good place to start if you want to try that.
With that in mind, if you do work for free, there is nothing holding you there. If they are abusive, you can just leave! It’s no different from contributing to open-source, except that you have a more official role to put on your resume/LinkedIn.
Also, I work from Canada/USA mostly and every company I’ve worked for so far has hired people from India. You have options to work for companies outside your region, where you may find a work culture that aligns more with your values.
For now, WRT which college you attend, why not just try to get into something that teaches stuff you like. I am a 2-time college drop-out, have worked professionally as a full-stack developer for over 10 years, and I was never once asked about my credentials. I have worked with many people in the same boat as me. I had planned on finishing but I was hired before I could finish. Be positive and good things will come.
…I am not advocating against college at all, I am only saying that it is not worth getting sick over, especially in this industry.
Taking labor without payment is an abusive practice for for-profit companies.
Goto YT and search for " The VINOD KHOSLA Interview: The Predictions Of An Optimistic Investor" and you will find the right answers for all your queries
If your parents asks why did you choose particular career path, just point them to this video
All the very best
Thank you Sir, Was late to reply as I didn’t think this will get any
more replies.
Was not active here sorry for the late reply.
Thank you for your advice.
I have a few questions that I should have asked rather than ranting before.
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I want to build Operating Systems, Kernels, Compilers, Engines, Games but I have so done so little rn that I wouldn’t even consider myself a decent dev. I have big dreams but I am so far from it that it seems impossible.
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I also think that I am super slow in developing stuff. I started my game engine project back in november, and I am still stuck with a square moving around with some infinite world generation with perlin noise. Its been 2-3 months. Is this normal?
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I always get a feeling that the code I write is bad and I feel so frustrated to the point I have rewritten entire projects rather than fixing the issue I have.
Again thanks for the nice words.
I wouldn’t call offering someone experience in exchange for work abusive. If both parties agree to the terms and the worker gains six months of real-world experience, that’s a valuable outcome. They could spend that same time doing nothing but Leetcode or small side projects that add little to their resume.
If the company wasn’t planning to hire this person due to a lack of experience but agreed to take them on in exchange for free labor, giving them a reference and something credible for their resume, I don’t see that as abusive. Opportunistic? Maybe. Could it be viewed as exploitative in some ways? Sure. But if the worker understands the trade-offs, where’s the harm?
Students often pay absurd amounts for for-profit schools, earning credentials that are less valuable than real-world experience from an application perspective. How is unpaid work experience more abusive than that?
( Unfortunately, the moderator was displeased with not having his unsubstantiated opinions just blindly accepted as truth, and immediately terminated this discussion in order to save face )
I would call exploiting labor without pay abusive. Not paying employees is abusive behavior.
This isn’t a helpful argument to OP though, so I’ll close this topic, as it seems to have met its objective at this point.