About to graduate, unsure what to go with my life
I have greatly enjoyed the collegial interactions between students and in some lucky cases, TAs, and the enthusiasm exhibited by everyone involved in learning. However, the level of desperation and depression and daily drag on the research side cemented my decision not to further pursue my career at the university (i.e. a PhD position).
I have been involved in Software Engineering and Computer Graphics topics throughout the last 5 years, but I am definitely not in the top 15% of students who somehow manage to build voxel rendering engines while simultaneously working on their thesis. I'm just a decent student, with decent grades.
Now everyone tells me that I really have the whole gamut of jobs to reach out for with my MSc, but I still feel rather lost due to my past experiences at university. I can follow current research topics, but I definitely don't have the mathematical insight to develop them. I can implement methods in a way which I might even describe as somewhat fun, but I certainly don't thrive on programming like I see others do. Programming is something that has to be done, and I am not the quickest or most efficient programmer.
I have been thinking of either joining the plain Software Engineering sector (at any of the handful of companies willing to employ fresh grads around here), or fighting my way into the video games sector, where I might rekindle my passions, but where employment opportunities are certainly more sparse, and a MSc is already somewhat of an overqualification (compared to 2-3 years industry experience).
I would appreciate the input of any fresh grads around :).