Whats important while in Uni?

Hey guys just want a bit of serious advice, what exactly is important to focus on while in University?

Should I be investing my free time into a specific language and area as a final year CS student? How exactly does job/internships work? Are you supposed to submit application while you're still in school or what?

University also seems to be more of a general broad overview of different things in CS rather than specifically going in depth to a certain language/area, is this a problem or a good thing for most Universities?

Would like some real advice from people who are actually working right now and any heads ups/tips

Thanks, have a nice day

Make friends and connections.
That's all that matters.


If you spend your time playing LoL, you will graduate jobless.
If you spend your time studying, you will graduate jobless.

Bump

>Hey guys just want a bit of serious advice, what exactly is important to focus on while in University?

anime.

>Make friends and connections.
That's all that matters.

Only if you don't have skills in CS and need to makeup for that.

Saying that connections is all that matters for a software engineering student is laughable. Of course connections are important, but out of all majors CS doesn't really need to cruise on those roles.

OP. I just graduated a month ago. Let me be quick. INTERNSHIPS INTERNSHIPS INTERNSHIPS. They are the most important and influential part of college by far, no exam or class will come close. Take them very seriously and apply a lot.

Also: Don't expect to excel just doing class work. The best in CS almost always learn through self-interest and hobby projects. Don't be another average CS vegetable.

Really? Please don't it just let it be a hypothesis, I want real evidence, why do you need to make friends?

How do internships work? Im in my 2nd to last semester and I literally don't know what im supposed to be doing, how do you do an internship while doing full time study? It doesn't make sense, youre occupied 5 days a week + assignments, how are you supposed to work?

Or do you mean after school go into internships?

>why do you need to make friends?
Because at the end of the day, nobody cares that you have a degree, nobody cares how prestigious your college name is, and they certainly don't care about your GPA.
It's not about what you know, it's who you know.
If you don't have any friends to put in a good word for you, you're going to have a very difficult time getting a job straight out of college.
More so if you weren't hired straight out of college.

It's no exaggeration that once more than 6 months have passed since graduation, your degree is completely worthless.

Is it too late? Im in my final year and have made no friends in uni, also how do companies not care about GPA? I can understand if its just a quick litmus test of whether youre a functional human being but still

Dota, Runescape, lots of weed and learn linux for god sakes. All these fucking scrub tards in my advanced cs classes who never have touched a terminal but think they're the shit because they know some OO bullshit.

The friends part is the quick litmus test of whether you're a functional human being.

Sorry you didn't pick up on it sooner.
Hopefully you're not american so you didn't pay for all of this out of pocket.

The fuck? Since when has being social been a requirement of society, I'm not abnormal by any ways I just enjoy being recluse - I can normally handle coworkers and people in general.

No im not american and my student loan is interest free and basically nothing

>I can normally handle coworkers and people in general.
So why don't you have any friends?

>It's not about what you know, it's who you know.
Yeah fuck off, OP isn't a business major. If you want to make it to the top of CS/CPE you'll have to prepare the grind.

Don't listen to these faggots OP. Connections are a crutch at best. If you want to rely on connections, it's the last major to dive into. Your goal should be a sponge for four years and piling up internships and projects.

>How do internships work?
90% of the time they are over the summer. Don't be a dumb-ass and think taking classes in the summer is somehow better.

>Is it too late? Im in my final year and have made no friends in uni
Yeah just about, statistically speaking.

>also how do companies not care about GPA?
Only if you don't have any internships or interesting projects. If you have both of these, GPA means little.

>All these fucking scrub tards in my advanced cs classes
Yeah most people in CS have no fucking idea what they are doing and can't program or engineer for shit. They are going through the motions, the vast majority i'd say.

>lots of weed and learn linux for god sakes.
I can agree with this. Chill out sometimes, read books. Fuck around with tech a lot.

Because I am not interested in what people have to say, especially in New Zealand (extremely normie place), id rather just stay at home watch my favorite anime, chill out on Sup Forums etc.

What counts as a "project"?
>Internships are usually in summer
Fuck, I wish I knew this earlier, I used my summer school time to just chill out or finish elective classes so I have less to do during the year

Do yourself a favor and start applying like a champion right the fuck now.

I went through college with basically no work experience other than some minor tech shit for my dad's office.

Finding a job post graduation has been the biggest nigger in the world. I can't get even entry IT work since I have no customer service experience to put on paper, and I can't get a McJob to gain said experience since they see "college degree" and almost immediately move on cause they assume I want to be paid better or some shit.

I started looking about a year ago, graduated in May, and I'm still searching. Shit blows bugger chunks out me bunghole I tell ya.

Make friends

Drink a lot

Get laid

I had a few friends tryhard in CS, and they were asocial for their entire fucking degree.

I partied my dick off, but I was responsible about how I did it.

They traded what could possibly be the only four years of there lives where they have zero responsibilities for an extra $10k/yr.

>Start applying now
Wait wait, wtf do I say on it? I'm a to-be graduate next year and put me on the job list or something? How the hell does this work? I thought you need to graduate first in order to apply?

Do I literally just say im still in school and I'm applying for a position after I graduate and you should consider me or some shit?

Wtf

>I thought you need to graduate first in order to apply?

I honestly can't tell if you're pretending to be retarded or not.

Most places are going to be done hiring by December, you fucking moron.

Oh wait lol. I fucking lost track of time. It's January. You're fucked.

user for your own good, go do some basic research.

This is shit you should have vaguely understood in highschool.

What? So I need to apply 2 years in advance for a job? Im a final year student THIS YEAR, as in, I haven't yet even started my final year. I'm guessing you mean I have to apply 1 year in advance, which is good cause that means im just on time I guess.

Well I guess thats modern day education for you, they don't say jack shit in high school, all I did was pass my classes and played games

Oh, I thought you meant you were in your last semester.

You need to have already applied for internships at this point. If you don't have any professional references going into your senior year, you're going to have a very hard time getting a job.

>If you don't have any professional references going into your senior year, you're going to have a very hard time getting a job.

This doesnt make any sense though, how are you supposed to get professional level experience as a 1st/2nd year student who LITERALLY KNOWS NOTHING, like, when I look at the classes that are offered for 1st-2nd year I wouldn't have thought that this is a pre requisite for professional level experience. It just doesn't make any sense to me

Maybe you should have made friends then, turd.

m8

I had an internship after my freshman year.

Freshman internships are usually done with companies that have a relationship with the university and understand what they're getting into.

Internships after sophomore year are more common, as by this time you've usually completed data structures.

There is no reason why you haven't had an internship your sophomore and junior years of college.

This is how you get professional references before you graduate.

What the hell, how do students get these? Are these usually offered by the University or something? Because I haven't seen a single email which has been sent in my school email box about possible internships for CS students. However because I took an elective business course I am listed in the Business school in my University and they seem to get quite a lot of Internship/Job/Event stuff, then again im a sole CS-major not a business/commerce student

>not going out of your way to get an internship
that's where ya fucked yourself friendo

Spot on.

I had a 7-8 full-time month coop right after Freshman year. I was 19, what a fucking dive that was. It's crazy how much you can grow up in an environment like that as a kid. I was the youngest person in a building of about 2000, it was eye opening as fuck. I will miss internships because you can fuck around and make mistakes and it's all expected. No real pressure mostly, at least early on.

Some schools have really strong co-op programs that have this stuff and really pull you into work life early on. Probably only in the US though for these early internships, maybe my Eurofriends can comment on that i'm not sure.

I went to career fairs, got business cards and called them.

Other than that you really just have to research through the nose.

You need to do that like... now. No. I'm not joking. Either go to sleep now and do it firs thing tomorrow or get on it right now, because you need a fucking internship before you get into the working world.

Finding a wife

What's important is to quit university and become a plumber

Then you'll have a job for the rest of your life

Seconding this. If you don't grab an internship while you're still in university, you will be unemployed for the rest of your short pathetic life.
Well maybe short, it depends how long your parents support you before you kill yourself.

Pretty dark. He'll be fine. No need to exaggerate.

Not quite. I'm in a different position but fucked myself quite nicely by not fervently applying for positions into my last year. I even had 2 internships and can't find anything now. Stuck retail and considered suicide from a logical standpoint.

>tfw you still stand to be worth more having lived a long, pathetic life than a short one.

You'll be fine too. Move out of the area, look around and be hungry. I believe in you.

Mate you had two internships and are working retail?

What kind of shit internships were these? Did they not extend full-time offers?

You're likely fucking up for reasons you don't even know. If you know your shit, you will get hired. Demand for good tech is strong as fuck right now.

This is what I need to do. I wasted high school and now have stunted social skills and regrets.

Created a placement that was filled before I graduated in one internship and the second wasn't a place worth going back to. Not the best hiring atmosphere where I am, so I do need to move.

Is it really expected for people to have professional level experience before graduating? Seems rather strange, can someone confirm if this is just for murica?

EXPERIENCE

EXPERIENCE X100

I know /reddit/ but you have to go to cscareerquestions for motivation. There are a lot of dickheads there but still a lot of great career advice. The career is all that matters, and you're far far behind if you are graduating soon with no leads and no internship experience.

>he still thinks he can be spoonfed
welcome to real life, first thing you should do is isolate yourself from this site

This desu

Anime
Macbook
Socializing
Video games

sadly this is the fucking truth, you're paying to be around people with connections that is all university is worth anymore it's fucking retarded

>Really? Please don't it just let it be a hypothesis, I want real evidence, why do you need to make friends?
Not really friends in the general sense, just think of them as colleagues, you don't need to congratulate them on their birthdays or just generally hang out outside the university. You simply need to curry as much favor with them as you can, you scratch their back, they scratch yours and so on.

It matters even if you have skills. In fact skills + connections is even better than just connections.

Internships are one way of connecting to people, by the way. I always recommend good interns that work with me to higher ranked people I know.

>Really? Please don't it just let it be a hypothesis, I want real evidence, why do you need to make friends?
Because degrees are nearly pointless in an industry with so many high skilled people who learned shit on their own.
Having a high GPA might land you in IBM, Google or Facebook but doesn't mean you'll stay there long. If you get an internship there and make connections inside you 1. get to work on great stuff 2. you might get a job there (or great recommendations) even if you don't have an impressive GPA.

I was always among the top five of the class in college, but I was/am an autistic antisocial acquaintanceless fuck who ended in a high school level job doing tech support for 7.25 years and now I'm considering leaving IT altogether given how unsatisfied I am.

It's not that it's something expected. Having experience before you graduate shows employers how much you care about the career you choose for yourself and it indicates that you are a professional that doesn't need to be spoonfed in order to be productive.

Get at least decent grades.
Get at least a fair amount of acquaintances/contacts/friends.

The first one is hard because I just spend most of my time fucking around, but I manage nonetheless. I study for finals like 2 days before and pass somehow.

The second one is hard because while somewhat sociable I'm not exactly a butterfly. It helps that my major is kinda niche so the class is like 20 people which I've all come to befriend, and because I had to redo this one course (redoing it doesn't impact my GPA so all's good), I'll get to meet people from the class that came in after mine, so even more people to contact with.

Start quitting Sup Forums.

>Since when has being social been a requirement of society

Welp.
But you said you don't live in America, so I think everything is OK. Do you have some projects you can put on your curriculum?

I think you should get a job as long as you graduate. Good luck!

Does all this apply if I want to work in academia?

>In fact skills + connections is even better than just connections.
user...how is this not implied. Who would disagree with this?

>Internships are one way of connecting to people, by the way. I always recommend good interns that work with me to higher ranked people I know.
Yeah internships are definitely great for networking but your goal should be to ask questions constantly, communicate, show a desire to understand. The seasoned employees LOVE when you show interest, ask them about what they do and how this and that works. That goes very....very far for quite a few company environments. That's how you get hired from your internship.

SPEAK UP AT YOUR INTERNSHIPS. At the fucking meetings, you better fucking speak when it's your rotation and try to be sincere in insight or questions. It might be tough at first but it definitely gets easier with the months pilled on. You will NEVER get a better oppurtunity to practice speaking in front of others and should use it to your fullest advantage, a good boss will recognize this quickly too.

art of passing semesters. it's entirely different thing, irrelevant to your current knowledge or skills. it's easy though, so don't worry about it too much.

also, do shit on your own. Publish something nice on google play, become free intern guy just to have any experience at all, and above all . Basically do things that you think would look nice on your future CV.