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Ask HN: I have only this current year left of school as of today. What now?

by mattbettinson on 10/13/16, 10:11 PM with 6 comments

As the title says, I have a year left of school now. I thought that I would have to do another year after this one, but I'm going to be done come May 2017. I'm doing a general computing bachelors instead of an honours bachelors. I just can't do school anymore and I feel like this is the choice for me. My question is: What now? I've had two iOS dev internships, an app on the app store, but I still feel completely directionless as to when to start applying, is it the same as internships? Should I take a month off when I graduate and live at home and just apply everywhere and get really good at Rails, or iOS or something? Should I delay applications until I have another resumé piece and I'm a much better dev? What should I work on in my extended free time now (from dropping the course)? I want to go deep in rails, but I'm pretty good at iOS. Should I focus on both? Go hard on one? Is it harder getting an internship than getting a full time position? Did I fuck up by not doing 4 years of school?

  • by pbadenski on 10/13/16, 11:31 PM

    Knowing what I know now (7 years after graduation) I would do the following. Find at least 3 people with around 5-10 years programming experience who are still coding. Offer to buy them lunch in exchange for a conversation. Share your concerns and listen to their perspective. Consolidate all their opinions and draw your own conclusions. Make a decision and keep your fingers crossed - life works in funny ways.

  • by viraptor on 10/13/16, 10:27 PM

    IMO, most of the answers are basically: it's your decision. Choose one. Neither one is right or wrong.

    Apart from this one: "Should I delay applications until I have another resumé piece and I'm a much better dev?" Applications don't cost a lot of time. A year ahead may be too early, but could give you some practice in interviews. Many of the students finishing normal university still don't know how to code anything. Much less actually finish and publish an app. Some are still terrified about the idea of adding a new class to a project. If you completed some actual projects, you're in a better position than many others.

    If you apply around the time the semester ends your CV will be in a stack of tens / hundreds probably. Start earlier and don't stop until you find something.

  • by simantel on 10/13/16, 11:49 PM

    I don't think it matters whether you choose iOS or Rails, but it is probably best to choose one or the other so you have a clearer story to tell. Being able to say "I'm a Rails developer that will be graduating in May, and I've worked on X, Y, and Z" puts you way ahead of people who are still figuring out what they want to do.

    As for finding work, I'd suggest choosing a handful of companies you're interested in and getting in touch with them now. You can talk to recruiters about when you should apply, ask about informational interviews, or if they have open-source projects, potentially start contributing to those.

    If you live in the locale you'd like to end up in, I'd also suggest going to any meetups that interest you. Meetup.com is a great place to find these.

  • by shoo on 10/15/16, 5:03 AM

    > Should I take a month off when I graduate and live at home and just apply everywhere and get really good at Rails, or iOS or something?

    it sounds like you're likely already more capable than a few contractors i've worked with on enterprise software projects. (i'm in australia, things might be different where you are)

    if you want to take a break, take a break. but if you want to keep learning how to build software, you're almost certainly already good enough just to get a job somewhere that'll pay you while you continue to learn

    i'll second pbadenski's suggestion to reach out and ask a few people who are working in the industry.