tempforfather

As a professional programmer, please don't learn to code just because its trendy. Software development is weird because its almost a lifestyle. People expect you to be learning on your own and coding in your free time. It's not something to do if you don't really like it.

these are both pretty solid

I can tell you one thing (that may not be super helpful). My friend and I both graduated with BS in math. I went software engineering route and have been making 100k+for years and have gotten to work on and learn all kinds of really cool mathy stuff. My friend went on to phd and makes something like 30k a year, is constantly working extremely hard grading papers, teaching multiple classes, taking his own classes. Our lifestyles are very different at this point. I really was interested in getting a phd, but the difference in lifestyle has made me really glad that I didn't persue academia. Results may vary, but it doesn't seem like he gets a ton of free time to really work on things he likes.

I worked in a grocery store when I was a teen and noticed a lot of the same stuff. It's very unfortunate because as you said, it ruins it for people who need it.

Try something much different I would say. Learn haskell or ocaml or something that is not going to be mostly the same mental model as C#.