A teaching assistant recommended I find monthly presentations or department events to attend (can be slightly broader than just CS, think Physics dept, Electrical Engineering, Mech Engineering) and from attending those events I found a lab to hire me as an undergrad assistant.
Eventually that had me in enough contact with grad students I decided to do grad school too on the same topic as the undergrad lab assistant position. That turned into my career. I highly recommend going to small department presentations and events. Plus there is usually free food involved.
> A teaching assistant recommended I find monthly presentations or department events to attend
Depending on your school, ACM and IEEE student organizations often put these on as well, which can be a good opportunity for networking and getting involved in regional (and other) conferences as well.
Learning stuff can be done on your own any time. The best use of your
time in college is to cultivate professional contacts. Keep an eye out
for professors who appear to be in charge of research projects with
outside funding and volunteer to help out by doing whatever nobody
wants to do, even if it's unpaid and even if it cuts into your study
time. Be the first person that comes to mind when the professor's high
flying industry friends tell him they wish they could find some bright
highly motivated intern. If you don't think you need to try this hard
this soon to find a job I hope you're independently wealthy.
Have a well rounded college experience. Make friends, join clubs, do extra-curriculars, etc. Your ability to socialize and work in groups is as equal, if not more important, to your career success as your coding skills.
Depends on your goals and much of the advice that you'll receive will revolve around maximizing the college experience. This is certainly important. However, as a hiring manager for several decades, one of the things that routinely frustrated me was a stream of candidates from very good schools that were totally ignorant of basic business practices. Most graduates will not work for FAANG companies upon graduation. They will go into industry. And yes, right now AI/vibe coding is all the rage. The issue becomes what value does one bring to the company. I've seen this play out many times over the decades. So my suggestion is to burn a couple of electives on things like accounting and business management. Learn to write well and speak well in front of any audience. When you interview with an insurance company after graduation, for example, the hiring manager isn't going to be overwhelmed with your ability to write a compiler or even necessarily your vibe coding skills. They will likely be impressed more by your presentation skills, your ability to grasp business concepts, etc. Enjoy college, but don't become so rigidly engaged with technical topics that you limit your future opportunities.
I fail to see how your past frustrations with the skills of your entry levels hires is OP's problem. OP should fulfill their own learning goals, not try to fit themselves into last century's corporate mold. If they have trouble getting hired because they need some accounting skills (unlikely, btw), they can solve that with a Coursera course or a few weeks at the local community college.
Undergrad is where you learn to learn, learn to think critically, and learn to adapt to changes in the world. Any coursework that fails to focus on those broader learning goals and just teaches vocational skills is an utter waste of their tuition money.
I'm not saying that such info is useless. I fully agree that it can be helpful. But don't burn tuition and college credits on that. Learn things in college that are more complex and require more engagement. Take yourself to a higher level of thinking, so instead of worrying about how some future interview at an insurance company would go, you never even have to step on the path that would make you want an interview at an insurance company in the first place.
A teaching assistant recommended I find monthly presentations or department events to attend (can be slightly broader than just CS, think Physics dept, Electrical Engineering, Mech Engineering) and from attending those events I found a lab to hire me as an undergrad assistant.
Eventually that had me in enough contact with grad students I decided to do grad school too on the same topic as the undergrad lab assistant position. That turned into my career. I highly recommend going to small department presentations and events. Plus there is usually free food involved.
> A teaching assistant recommended I find monthly presentations or department events to attend
Depending on your school, ACM and IEEE student organizations often put these on as well, which can be a good opportunity for networking and getting involved in regional (and other) conferences as well.
Learning stuff can be done on your own any time. The best use of your time in college is to cultivate professional contacts. Keep an eye out for professors who appear to be in charge of research projects with outside funding and volunteer to help out by doing whatever nobody wants to do, even if it's unpaid and even if it cuts into your study time. Be the first person that comes to mind when the professor's high flying industry friends tell him they wish they could find some bright highly motivated intern. If you don't think you need to try this hard this soon to find a job I hope you're independently wealthy.
Have a well rounded college experience. Make friends, join clubs, do extra-curriculars, etc. Your ability to socialize and work in groups is as equal, if not more important, to your career success as your coding skills.
Check this quora for help: https://www.quora.com/Im-a-computer-science-student-what-adv...
Depends on your goals and much of the advice that you'll receive will revolve around maximizing the college experience. This is certainly important. However, as a hiring manager for several decades, one of the things that routinely frustrated me was a stream of candidates from very good schools that were totally ignorant of basic business practices. Most graduates will not work for FAANG companies upon graduation. They will go into industry. And yes, right now AI/vibe coding is all the rage. The issue becomes what value does one bring to the company. I've seen this play out many times over the decades. So my suggestion is to burn a couple of electives on things like accounting and business management. Learn to write well and speak well in front of any audience. When you interview with an insurance company after graduation, for example, the hiring manager isn't going to be overwhelmed with your ability to write a compiler or even necessarily your vibe coding skills. They will likely be impressed more by your presentation skills, your ability to grasp business concepts, etc. Enjoy college, but don't become so rigidly engaged with technical topics that you limit your future opportunities.
I fail to see how your past frustrations with the skills of your entry levels hires is OP's problem. OP should fulfill their own learning goals, not try to fit themselves into last century's corporate mold. If they have trouble getting hired because they need some accounting skills (unlikely, btw), they can solve that with a Coursera course or a few weeks at the local community college.
Undergrad is where you learn to learn, learn to think critically, and learn to adapt to changes in the world. Any coursework that fails to focus on those broader learning goals and just teaches vocational skills is an utter waste of their tuition money.
I'm not saying that such info is useless. I fully agree that it can be helpful. But don't burn tuition and college credits on that. Learn things in college that are more complex and require more engagement. Take yourself to a higher level of thinking, so instead of worrying about how some future interview at an insurance company would go, you never even have to step on the path that would make you want an interview at an insurance company in the first place.
find best open source project based on your loved language and do start contributing in it. And try to crack GSOC.
PARTY!!!!!!!!!!
Yea brah. If AI take over the jobs u gonna be pissed you wasted all u time learning when you could have PARTAYED.
party for what?
Dvorak/touchtype.