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- Hacker News
- You have more flexibility in time than most. Dive in! Build stuff and see if it lands. You don’t have to finish your degree, though doing so is a wise default if nothing life-changing is landing. If you’re early to mid-senior year and the market is still this frothy, start making moves towards doing a masters degree. Unlike a Ph.D., masters are effectively professional and make you broadly more employable. And if while you’re in there you see market movement in an area of focus that you like, or you fall in love with a specialization, or the market is simply godawful and you need to delay your entrance, a doctorate may be viable as well.
All of which to say: the market is frothy and irrational, but you have a lot of optionality around timing your entrance.
by Arubis - Fear is normal. Jump in.
Learn how to learn. Get really good at that. That is the essence of your college experience. Perhaps consider a minor in a life science, hard technology, or other field that has good employment prospects.
Everything is software these days--it's going to be about applying software rather than pure programming skills.
Take a physics class or two. Learn how and why things work.
If your school has co-op work--do it. It raises your employment prospects at graduation.
Expect to have to consider multiple options/tracks in your career ahead. Adaptation and flexibility will be important. The world is changing quickly.
You can't study everything in college, but you will need to be ready to study and adapt in the years ahead. Good luck and do well in school.
One more thing: be social. Your network of friends will be extremely valuable to you.
by jschveibinz - > One more thing: be social
This is really important. I didn't appreciate it at the time. Get to know people in your classes, not just your roommate. Join a club, or check out greek life if that appeals to you. If you weren't very social in high school, now you're in a new environment. Nobody knows you, and nobody cares about high school anymore.
If you're introverted it can feel awkward but you're rarely, probably never again, going to be in such a diverse group of people who are all about your age and stage in life. Certainly not for four years.
by SoftTalker - Co-op every chance you get, ideally every summer. Start ASAP. Do not be afraid of off-summer co-ops.by RhysU
- Make friends. Get close with professors you like and are competent. Try stuff, reinvent the wheel. Do things manually first, automate it later. Memorize the things you know you're never gonna use in real life to pass the tests, don't go complaining like a child. Getting into to college is hard, getting out holding the degree is harder.by atum47
- Have a broad range of interests outside of CS, and also develop interpersonal skills, not only for your own social enjoyment, but for interviews and compensation negotiations you will engage in during the coming years.by danans
- It's a time of great change right now and fear is a natural response. The world is going to be a very different place in 4 years time. Try not to let the fear of an unknown future affect your experience in college. College is a great time to learn who you are, to learn what you like and what you dislike, make friends, understand people, pick up new skills and hobbies and drop old ones. I don't know you and where you're headed, but I know you're going to have a great time. Enjoy it and let the future come to you.by gnok
- Use AI and Youtube as much as possible to understand the core concepts, patterns, theories deeply. Don't study to just pass exams. Do it to actually learn because it's quite fascinating and interesting.
I've graduated college like decade ago and still I learn new things with the help of AI. I'm a visual learner, most of the time I ask AI to create a one page HTML with animations to explain me concepts so it's easy to remember for me. Further, there are so many great video and shorts that explains algorithms, DB internals, computer security, cryptography, etc. on youtube.
Always think critically, ask questions and never take anything as truth just someone says so or it's written in a book, it's very important to develop critical and logical thinking and clear and good communication skills and that would help you to find a job easily. Wishing you all the best and success.
- Most of all, socialise. Find societies and events that interest you (curricular and extracurricular). Go to careers fairs and networking events - not necessarily looking for a job/internship right off the bat, but just getting a feel for what's out there.
Put the required effort into the course to pass it, but not much more. Except for the topics that genuinely interest you - go deeper on those than anyone expected. Prioritize your own understanding of a topic over external metrics.
Email or visit your lecturers to ask questions. Email the authors of papers you read.
Start building a portfolio and/or [micro]blog. Even a "hello world" github repo acts as a proof-of-humanity when you're applying for jobs in a few years time.
by Retr0id - Knowing how the software development lifecycle really works and how to write reliable, shippable code _without using AI as a crutch_ will put you ahead of your fellow students when you graduate. Don't neglect learning it, even if it's not taught in your classes.
Knowing the CS theory that college is trying to teach you well enough to apply it will put you ahead of your fellow co-workers when you are a senior developer. Don't neglect learning it. The people who say "I never needed to use CS for my entire career, lol" are the people most easily replaced by AI.
Don't neglect understanding how to use AI to create code but don't become dependent on it either.
Don't neglect your writing courses. Reading and writing clearly is how you interact with your fellow developers and, of course, AI. Too many developers are lousy writers and wind up stuck in the lower ranks because of it.
by ThrowawayR2 - I started college right after the .com crash. Everyone who treated their education as a simple wealth maximization optimization went into other majors. The number of incoming CS majors was approximately quartered. (Software? That is all going to be outsourced!)
By the time I graduated, computers were cool again.
Predicting the job market is like predicting the stock market. You don't necessarily know where things are going to end up, and simply being reactionary will lead to sub-optimal outcomes.
Learn things that are hard to do, or you wouldn't finish if you weren't coerced with a final grade.
One positive in the current environment is that people who actually know computer science won't be forced to toil endlessly on what are essentially CRUD systems, and can move on to solve second- and third-order problems where their actual computer science skills can pay off. We can stop reinventing (slower and slower) webpages and 3270 terminals.
by ok123456 - Biggest thing I can recommend is to focus on the fundamentals, even if it doesn’t seem like it’s something you would use in practice.
Learn data structures and algorithms. Understand finite state machines and context free grammars. Learn at least some mathematics. Discrete math, Boolean logic, and statistics. Learn how operating systems work, networking, databases, compilers, machine code, low-level details like registers and the cache hierarchy. Learn more obscure programming languages: like Lisp, Prolog, Haskell, and Forth.
You probably won’t use those in your day job, but they will open your mind to fundamentally different ways of thinking about problems. Honestly, just try to learn as much as you can about as many different areas of computer science as possible. Don’t worry about learning version control, the latest web frameworks, or working with AI, at least not until the very end.
You want to come out of college with two things: the ability to learn new things quickly, and having a wide breadth of knowledge to draw upon. As someone who regularly interviews candidates, that’s what I’m looking for more than anything else.
by openasocket - > Learn data structures and algorithms. Understand finite state machines and context free grammars. Learn at least some mathematics. Discrete math, Boolean logic, and statistics. Learn how operating systems work, networking, databases, compilers, machine code, low-level details like registers and the cache hierarchy. Learn more obscure programming languages: like Lisp, Prolog, Haskell, and Forth.
Also, these may seem like separate subjects but there is some overlap especially once you work with things like databases in production at some scale.
by wreath - Throw yourself into it if you love it. The world is going to change many more times before you're even done your undergraduate studies, so there is no point in trying to predict it. Just arrive at graduation having had an awesome college experience (especially the people you'll meet), know how to learn stuff quickly, and be flexible.
I'm sure that during your studies, through serendipity, you'll find great opportunities to pursue that you couldn't possibly imagine right now. Give yourself the greatest surface area for luck to find you.
Since you posted this here on HN I can already tell that you're the type of person who will not be short of opportunities and already has a good surface area for luck to find you.
Good luck!
- Don't spend too much time online. The collective conscious of online can be disconnected from reality. People who aren't successful tend to spend their time complaining online whereas you rarely hear stories of normal people success online.
Focus on meeting real people and understanding their problems and how you can help. Your connections during college will probably matter more than a particular test score.
Get a job (any job) during college, it shows you're employable and can navigate with the unpleasantries of being employed.
Oh! And dont’ stress too much! Enjoy the ride. Think of it all like a fun new video game. Take in the new levels with curiosity. Have fun! Many people who have jobs now would love to be in your shoes again. Embrace it, enjoy that time of life!
by qazxcvbnmlp - During last years quality of discussions went down, but still I disagree
on programming forums (actual forums, not reddit/hn like) we've had very experienced people like
1) world class / top CTF competitors
2) nasa/esa
3) HFT @ hong kong
4) people with experience across FAANGs
Those can give you many very valuable advices that your average college friend or coworker will not be even close to be aware of.
> People who aren't successful tend to spend their time complaining online whereas you rarely hear stories of normal people success online.
That's true, that's why you need to filter out bullshit.
by tester756