Many of my friends ended up becoming doctors, PAs, or nurses and medicine is basically all they talk about, especially the doctors. Their phones are overflowing with medical photos and articles. Get two or more of them together and you're not going to discuss anything besides their field. One volunteers for some Doctors Without Boarders type organization, another teaches classes at a university, I think they almost all do some ad hoc volunteer work from time to time.
I think in most fields the top performers are going to be investing significant effort outside work to practice, learn, and improve themselves throughout their career. Coding is a little bit unique compared to certain professions because it can be done alone and without incurring much additional cost.
> Many of my friends ended up becoming doctors, PAs, or nurses and medicine is basically all they talk about, especially the doctors.
Yes. It's the same with all of the engineers I know (and I suspect it's the same with all professions).
With my engineering friends, we had to set a rule that if we're at a social function that includes people not in our field, "talking shop" is expressly forbidden. This is to prevent a problem that had gotten out of control -- having a handful of people talking about arcane things that nobody else can understand, let alone are interested in.
> I think in most fields the top performers are going to be investing significant effort outside work to practice, learn, and improve themselves throughout their career.
Agreed. I spend a lot of free time reading about and discussing technology. Occasionally teach, occasionally do some advising.
But I rarely have a side project which consumes my time. I guess the equivalent would be a nurse going and taking a shift at another hospital.
> I guess the equivalent would be a nurse going and taking a shift at another hospital.
You're looking at the wrong profession. A nurse can't "just" go and start nursing stuff. Programmers are like carpenters - they can just go and start building stuff for themselves, using the same tools and skills they use at work. Except they also have an industry-imposed, medicine-style continued learning requirement due to how fast the field keeps changing.
I think in most fields the top performers are going to be investing significant effort outside work to practice, learn, and improve themselves throughout their career. Coding is a little bit unique compared to certain professions because it can be done alone and without incurring much additional cost.