[deboflo]

I strongly, but politely, disagree because I took a year off and completely retooled my career. You must exercise, eat healthy, keep a schedule, and eliminate all distractions. Live somewhere cheap and focus on career and personal development. Don’t look for a job until 10 months of intense studying and development. Only do this if you are truly committed to changing the direction of your career. This was probably the best decision I’ve made in my career.

[philips4350]

Thank you for this comment! I am actually in a similar situation right now, took a break from college and working on myself, learning about programming and trying hard to improve my english. Sometimes it just kinda feels pointless, like why am i even doing this and theres a plethora of self doubt and self hatred. But your comment kinda made me feel a bit more motivated, so thank you for that :)

[daxfohl]

Yup, same here. 10 years ago I left my job, threw away my crap, went off to Korea for a year to teach English. Brought some math and physics books I'd always wanted to understand, learned Korean, and bought a cheap bicycle and biked around southeast Asia after the year was over. After a few months of this I started hitting up old coworkers for job references, with the fallback of another English teaching stint (managed to find a new coding job). Some days were hard but I wouldn't give up that experience for anything.