I have a CS degree and a half-written short script and no clue what to do next
I’m sitting at my old desk in my parents’ basement right now. The edge is still covered in peeling CS stickers—Linux penguin, GitHub from my 2023 fintech internship, that dumb “There’s no place like 127.0.0.1” one I got at a college hackathon. I keep meaning to peel them off, but I never do. Half of me doesn’t want to, I guess.
My full-time CS job offer expires in 12 days. 120k a year, full benefits, 401k match, the whole thing every CS senior dreams of getting. Everyone in my family has been asking why I’m even considering turning it down. Most of my college friends already accepted their offers, and half of them are already complaining about imposter syndrome and working 9 to 5, but none of them are quitting to go make movies.
I get it. It’s insane. I was the CS kid since I was 16, built a dumb lunch-ordering app for my high school that actually got used, got good grades, got the internship, did everything right. Then senior year, after pulling an all-nighter debugging a fraud detection algorithm for my capstone, I binged three Akira Kurosawa movies at 4 a.m. and just… cried. Not because I was tired, though I was. Because I couldn’t remember the last time I cared about anything I built half as much as I cared about those stupid old movies. I’d been writing little scene snippets in my notes app for years, just for fun, and that night I realized I’d rather be bad at making movies than good at writing code that stops people from getting their credit cards declined. That sounds dramatic, I know. It is dramatic. But that’s how it felt.
Last week I went to a local indie filmmaker meetup at a coffee shop downtown. When someone asked what I did, I blurted “I write Python for credit card fraud detection” and the whole group just nodded and turned back to talking about their 16mm projects. I stood there holding my cold oat latte for five minutes before I went and sat in my car and left. I didn’t know what a 1st AC was when someone mentioned it, I just smiled and nodded then Googled it in the parking lot. That’s how it goes most of the time. I feel like a poser, like I’m playing filmmaker instead of actually being one. I bought my first camera off Craigslist from a film student dropping out to do UX design, by the way. He threw in a free tripod with a broken leg, which I still have propped against my desk. We joked about switching lanes, but it didn’t feel that funny when I drove home with it in my trunk.
Right now I have two options, and both feel stupid. Option one: accept the CS job, work for two years, save up enough to pay for film school outright, no loans, then go when I have enough money to not stress about it. Option two: turn down the offer, move to LA next month, crash on my cousin’s couch, get any entry level set job I can, work on my own shorts on the weekends, skip film school entirely.
The problem with option one is I’ve seen what happens. My college roommate got a similar job two years ago, talks about quitting to open a brewery every time we talk, but he just got a new Tesla and a mortgage on a condo, and he’s not leaving. The money gets good, you get used to being able to buy things, you get complacent. I’m scared if I take that job, two years will turn into five, will turn into ten, and I’ll never do this. Also, I’m already 22. I know that’s young, but it feels like everyone I follow online started making movies when they were 16, like I’m already behind.
The problem with option two is I’m not an idiot. I called my uncle last week, he’s a DP who’s been working in LA for 30 years, and he didn’t sugarcoat it. He said 90% of the kids who move out there without a plan end up waiting tables 60 hours a week and never have time to actually make their own work. He said the only people who make it are either trust fund kids who don’t need to work, or people who are so stubborn they’d sleep in their car just to get one day on set. I don’t have a trust fund. I have 18k in savings from my internship. That’s enough for six months of rent if I’m cheap, but that’s it. What if I burn through that and have to come back here with my tail between my legs? What if I’m just not good enough?
My mom brought down chocolate chip cookies yesterday, and she said “Honey, why can’t you just do coding on the side while you make films?” and I snapped at her for no reason, then I felt terrible for an hour after. She’s just worried. But I don’t know how to explain that when I do both, I half-ass both. When I was interning last summer, I was scribbling script ideas in my notebook during standups. Now that I’m writing full time, I refresh LinkedIn every hour to see if any new CS jobs popped up, my stomach twisting the whole time. I can’t stop looking over my shoulder.
The weirdest part is I don’t even hate coding. I like the rush of fixing a really hard bug, that little click when everything makes sense. That’s the contradiction no one gets. I’m not running from CS. I’m running towards film. It just feels like I can’t do both properly right now. My short script is about a CS TA who finds old forgotten film reels in the university basement, anyway. I’m writing what I know. That’s supposed to be the rule, right? But it feels like a crutch more than an advantage most days.
I went to a small indie screening last weekend, and the director did a Q&A. He’s 28, worked at a coffee shop for five years to make his first feature. Someone asked if he regretted waiting so long to start, and he said the only regret was waiting three years to save up enough to “do it right” when he could have just made bad shorts for those three years and learned more. But after the screening, I saw him outside yelling at his distributor on the phone, saying he couldn’t afford to print more reels for the next tour. No one posts that part on TikTok. All you see is “quit your job and follow your passion” and I just roll my eyes so hard they hurt.
I don’t have the answer yet. I wrote half of this two hours ago, then I got up and got a root beer from the fridge and scrolled TikTok for 45 minutes avoiding thinking about it. The offer expires in 12 days. I still haven’t hit reply on the email. Maybe after I post this I’ll go work on the last ten pages of the script. Maybe I’ll update my resume instead. I’m not going to pretend I know what the right call is. I just needed to write this down, I guess. If anyone’s been here, what did you do? Not the inspirational version you post online. The real one.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » I have a CS degree and a half-written short script and no clue what to do next