Sorry, OP, but your original post is so negative. Can’t, haven’t, a string of decisions based on thinking you’d transfer, so no internships, TA stress, interview issues, etc. Now some sort of paperwork delay that, frankly, may be creating a bad impression.
You haven’t told what qualifies you for a software development job. If you do have those skills, you need to figure how to sell yourself. If you don’t, either get them or change goals.
Imposter Syndrome isn’t thinking you’re more qualified than you are. It’s a bit the opposite, thinking it’s only luck, despite a record of being a top performer.
Maybe actuarial work. Look it up. But remember, just like applying to college, it’s less what you want and more about fitting what they need. When you apply, research the employer and job, so you can know what they do and be interested/interesting.
And don’t tell them you’re responsible for your mother, which leaves the impression you’ll be distracted. Give them a positive they can nod their heads at. If there isn’t one, develop one. It should be relevant to the work you want. Courses, internships, pro bono work, or other ideas. Counseling will also help.
My department has a “progression” when it comes to the TA position. For your first year, you will do just that: grade papers and tests. Maybe interact with students who need office hours, but your duties end there. Once you reach 18 hours, you are technically qualified to teach at the college level in any state. Once there, the department will throw you on teaching duties. In any case, currently what I do to make some money is freelance tutoring students. Right now, I just have one student, which is a family relative who is taking calculus. I wanted to try and go back to the tutoring center I had a job with when I was a community college, but unfortunately they don’t seem to want anything to do with me even when I show up in person. It paid handsomely for a part-time job, but I think they want me to move on.
The way I’m trying to paint the situation with my biological mother is that she fell on hard times health-wise, and getting her the proper arrangements has been a test of time, but we finally managed to work out a permanent solution, and thus I’m ready to undividedly enter the workforce.
And I guess I don’t have any explicit qualifications to work in software development. I’ve developed some applications for Android, and a computer program for my master’s research, but never worked on a large scale program before. It’s what I really found myself drawn to do. However your insights in addition to someone else’s have helped me. See below:
Thanks to this thread, and Google giving different search results on different platforms (in other words, the results on my phone were more eye-opening than what’s on the computer), I think I have a plan going forward. I have a starting point and an ending point, and some of what I’m going to need to do in between to get there. When I was Googling on my phone deadlines for master’s programs for software engineering (because they’re usually the same as PhD deadlines, I didn’t really think to investigate further), I discovered that the university where I got my master’s in math actually offers online master’s degrees in software engineering and many other disciplines.
My overall goal with this is to not only obtain the credentials that I need in order to work in the field of software engineering, but to maybe smooth over what’s happened on my resume when I’m applying to internships in the future. Yes, applying to internships will be my top priority this time around. Since it will be online, I can do it from anywhere in the world, and in that time, I think what I really need to do is work on getting my life sorted out. I know full well that my life is a mess, and @MmeZeeZee has fully pointed that out over PM. I think I just need to take a step back from everything and try and sort it all out. Maybe travel the world to really get perspective on my life and to just get away from things. Up till today, I’ve felt incredibly hopeless and lost about what I’m going to do, but right now I’ve got a glimmer of hope that I might have a solution. Not the one I wanted, but a solution nonetheless.
I have said that you are focused on external issues while you are posting about serious mental health symptoms that you need to address. Not that your life is a mess. I know that sometimes it feels that way, but I’m talking about one part of your life, not your entire character.
You do need to sort those issues out because it was not long ago that you made yourself physically ill with one job and school.
I do hope you can get to a better place where you are not under so much pressure from yourself. You have talent, and you deserve to let it out!
I also have concern about your mental health. Given that you now have some time on your hands, I think it would be really helpful to seek out counseling and address the stress, anxiety, and possible social discomfort that have challenged you in the past.
On the job front, my nephew works for Epic Systems, they are a huge company that develops healthcare software solutions. They hire smart people from an array of backgrounds (his was physics) to do a number of different jobs. I would check them out - https://epic.avature.net/careers – and also look for similar type companies and apply to them as well.
It’s smaller companies and startups that often want the hires who can perform multiple roles, think on their feet, learn quickly and make solid decisions. But you can’t be the sort who sits on their hands, delays, can’t see priorities and act on them. Or who confuses others.
And those right skills do need some practice in the rest of your life, they have to be in evidence. So do someting. lots of sometings. Be activated. Practice that.
Once you get the first experiences, they start to build on their own.
Big Data /Data Analytics is a big field these days. Look into it.
Have you taken computer science classes? How did you do?
I am also concerned about mental/physical health…do you think that interviewers pick up onthat? did you talk about it? Because if you told me you didn’t have a summer job before because of mental breakdowns and panic attacks, I would be worried if you could be a reliable worker.
Is there any sort of third party person you could ask about how you come across? If people come across desperate, needy, entitled it is very off-putting.
I would work on getting any kind of job…like the government one. Honestly you don’t seem to have worked much at all…even mcDonalds or summer camp kind of jobs. You need to get experience working.
You can’t be too picky, but you need to have some idea of what youwant.
Dunning Kruger means you think you are MORE competent than you really are and are not self-aware to know it. Imposter Syndrome means you think you are less competent than you really are.
You tell companies you want to do Data Science and Statistics", but don’t and you have no experience. What do you want to do?
If people ask you the gap, you should say that you were helping take care of you mom because of X because of dementia but now she is in assisted living home and the situation is stable and you are ready to get to work.
You’ve got to tailor each resume to the individual employer. Don’t include an objective, because that’ll get it tossed. Include the same key words that are used in the job description on the resume. If the job doesn’t require a degree, such as Home Depot, don’t include it in the resume. If they ask what you did just say you worked under the table construction, mowing lawns, etc…