Kinda? I had more potential then, I could have done Facebook after sophomore year and had my career set for life. Instead I failed that interview and my career has been treading water because I had to join Amazon out of undergrad.
Its apparent that I"m not good at these things...the problem is my happiness and financial security are related to them and I'm not doing well!
You're suffering for a lack of perspective or gratitude. If you're a millennial, realize that you were probably told that you could do anything (and thusly everything), and the effort it would take was trivialized... Both are incorrect. You most likely can do 1 thing super well and it's going to be a shit ton of work if you want to compete against those equally competent.
5 of the top 10 CS programs are at state schools.
> I got the message that I was incapable of accomplishing anything from an early age
Apparently you took it to heart and can't recognize what you accomplished.
> I failed that interview and my career has been treading water because I had to join Amazon out of undergrad.
WTF? You have an engineering(?) job at Amazon and are complaining you might have done better if you got the internship(?) at Facebook? And that with two years of experience, you make about as much as a new grad? Is this a humble brag?
You're probably in the upper 25% of tech for your experience and the upper 1% in the developed world for your age group.
Is the meat of your complaint that you'd be making more money if you did a stint at Facebook? Don't think it "sets your career for life." Big companies can even hurt carers long-term because you're not exposed to as much. Facebook on your resume will get you calls from Google recruiters and calls back from wherever you apply, but it won't inherently help you pass future interviews.