Career advice

Question

Hello everyone I'm currently a sophomore student at one of the CSU studying computer science. I feel like I'm lost. I'm worried about my future as my friends chose their career in cs while I'm unable to figure out what should I do? Also my roommate is a graduate and watching him struggle finding a full time job makes me feel stressed. I do not want to be in that situation. I'm seeking some advice on what career path I should use. I've watched a bunch of tutorial career advice and all and I'm frustated that should I learn everything?

Please help choose my career path. I feel like I'm way behind other CS students as they have two previous internships and a offer for this summer.

Thank you so much!!

qwertyCoder · Accepted Answer

Not clear what you're really worried about or what you're looking for. CS is still an excellent and growing field. We're in a bit of market turbulence right now but I think early this year things will recover a lot more. Companies are starting to pick up hiring again and I think you'll be OK as long as you're motivated and put in the effort.

eightysixer · Answer

0. Yeah it's rough out there right now, especially for fresh out grads. But it will get better, even if it doesn't feel like it. People thought tech was over after 2001 but look where we are now.

1. There's still time to try and get an internship this summer but don't sweat it if you don't. Sophomore -&gt; junior students are about as early as most shops will take interns, and too early for some.

2. Your junior -&gt; senior summer is the one that's really important to get an internship. The most important part about this internship is that you had one and didn't get fired four weeks in. So consider an internship an opportunity to test drive what kind of work, tech stacks, industries, etc. you think you will enjoy working in. You can do something wildly different when you graduate - "I thought I'd like it, but I learned in my intersnip I don't like &lt;tech stack&gt; and what I really want to do instead is &lt;job I'm interviewing for&gt;" works really well.

3. Take a deep breath. 2 years is a long time. 2 years ago I was interviewing for a 50% raise and the market was HOT. We've had half a million in layoffs since then. There's no telling what the market will be like in 2 years.

4. If your school offers a 4+1 to get a masters, that can be a helpful leg up in the job market and will pay dividends for the rest of your career. Worth looking into it now to understand if you need to do anything to be on track for that.

camilla · Answer

Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting, but it sounds like part of your question is that you're not sure of what kind of career you'd like to pursue, and a part of that process can be choosing an area of CS to specialize in. I have two suggestions for your consideration: working backwards and working forwards.By working backwards, I mean: start with one or more end goals in mind, and work backwards from there to see what steps you need to take to get to each goal. Suppose that one of my goals is to have the highest total compensation possible. I could then work backwards and ask, "What companies pay the most?" Okay, that's places like big tech, trading firms, and so on. "Okay, now how do I get hired there?" That question could lead to me learning C++ since it's popular with trading firms or networking with employees at these companies in hopes of a recommendation.Working backwards is great and all, but what if you don't have any particular goals you want to achieve? That's okay. You could try working forwards instead: start with where you are now, and use your opinions of past experiences to inform the future choices you make. I imagine that the required CS curriculum at your school is exposing you to several different areas of CS by default, once you get out of the first few semesters of basic coding/OOP. Use these experiences to inform what courses to take when you get further into the curriculum and do get a choice. If you really liked your first algorithms course, take another! If you hated your first architecture course, screw computer architecture, that can be someone else's problem, and maybe refrain from taking operating systems! Data science seems cool? Try it out! If you don't like it, that's cool-now you know, and can pursue other things instead. If you like it, you can follow it up with courses like ML, databases, and computer vision, and then before you know it you've graduated with a strong resume to become a data scientist! In short, try things, take a moment to reflect on whether you liked them, and then follow your interests.Hope this helps a bit, and good luck!

Claudius · Answer

You are just sophomore, there’s plenty of time for you to improve. When you graduate in 2026-2027 I think market is definitely better than now unless some permanent structure in tech changed

anonymously1978 · Answer

I think you may be too heads down focused on completing your degree. I would suggest look up job descriptions on indeed and LinkedIn for entry levels or even 1-2 years experience. Look at skills they require and build those skills through books or low cost training like udemy. Try to understand what is easy for you and what seems difficult. Ask why something seems difficult and plug in the knowledge gaps. Spend 10 minutes every evening sending out 2-3 well thought out job applications. If you find something consider working even if it delays your graduation. Basics of cloud computing and python go a long way for a quick ROI.

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