Hi, this is my first post here. I’m studying for a 2-year CompSci degree. I only got diagnosed with ADHD Inattentive type last year towards the end of Spring semester. I had to retake every Computer Science class twice, essentially starting from scratch two years in. After being diagnosed I was put on medication (Adderall Generic 15mg) and those classes were rendered a non-issue and I’ve been doing quite well in most of my classes as I find ways to improve myself alongside medication. Suffice to say, things have been improving, and I’m still learning. Ultimately, my end goal is to get an associates degree in Computer Science and then transfer to a school for a 4-year in Game Design.
I’m currently at the final programming-centric course of the curriculum, which is Data Structures. This is currently the most difficult course I’ve ever had to take, and not because of what the professor requires of us nor is it the workload, but moreso how algorithm-centric it all is. I’m wondering if anyone here has the same issue, actually. These abstract concepts are extremely difficult to visualize. I know that Visualization is key to putting Theory to Code, but I’m still having an extremely difficult time actually coding these recursive methods from scratch, from Hash Tables to Binary Trees. The only reason I have a slight chance of passing this course is because I’m very sufficient in Theory and Visualization, but when it comes to typing the code out, I’m making constant mistakes and I can almost feel my nervous system just “noping” out of the boring redundancy of coding search algos.
Worst part is that I was finding a way to go straight for my Game Design degree instead of mucking about with CompSci. My thought process was that, yes, the skills are transferrable and very useful to that degree, but I feel like I’m losing focus on my end goal at this point, and I’m losing motivation. I just wanna do Game Design already!
Brought this up to my advisor, he said “This is nothing compared to what you need to know in Game Design. You absolutely need to get this down in order to pursue it.”… hence the title…
I know of some people with ADHD who can hyperfocus and code like it’s no tomorrow. I am just not able to in Data Structures. How do some of you handle this? Does anyone feel the same way?
I am aware of some issues I have:
- Lack of Foresight: I cannot spot errors the errors in most plans I come up with.
- Autopilot: My brain loves to shut off during all the typing and then I lose what the heck I was supposed to type.
- Nuance: I get so frustrated when I cannot spot a subtle error, not like missing semicolons, but moreso the errors you need to trace variables and stack frames.