5 Tips for Current Computer Science Students!

Introduction:

So even though I’ve finished with university, I still get questions from current students about university life and about how they can prepare for post university.

This week’s blog post aims to share some of the advice that I tend to give out.

As always, before we get into this week’s blog post, please make sure to applaud, comment and share with your friends.

Happy Reading!

Tips:

Tip 1: Put Yourself Out There (Try New Things!):

Within university, there are so many opportunities out there: Employer Events; Hackathons; Capture the Flag Competitions … and I’d fully recommend giving them all a try!

Regardless of your skillset, experiencing these kind of events really is invaluable. Whether it’s expert knowledge with industry professionals or the opportunity to get hands on with new technologies will force you to develop new skills, and it’s really fun too!

You can combine the knowledge of technology along with meeting lots of great people (Industry experts and even other university students) and there’s not really any downside to taking part in these.

Tip 2: Build Projects:

I’m always an advocate of practical learning and projects are at the core of this.

Firstly they can be fun.

They can be useful (For e.g. I build a web scraper to track my blog post views and visualise them in different charts).

They can enhance your skillset (e.g. working with new technologies, for me I’ve used all sorts: React JS, Web 3 ThirdWeb, Stripe …).

And of course when it comes to interviews, it gives you something else to talk about. If you’re able to deploy these projects then even better, you now have something to show your interviewers.

Tip 3: Practise Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA)

As great as project learning is, typically technical interviews will include a coding round where you’re given a coding problem.

The difficulty of this can depend on the company but preparation really is key.

For preparation, I’d recommend the NeetCode 150 as there are so many programming problems out there however these are the key ones, containing the most common topic for interviews.

Tip 4: Get Organised:

On one hand, I’ll admit this is way easier said than done. With that being said, if you get organised early then you give yourself the most time to tackle coursework/prepare for exams.

Yes there were challenges but because of this planning, I’d say that I was able to approach assignments slowly because of the fact I’d given myself time to work through them at a slower pace. On top of that, I was able to fit other things (Societies, Sports…) around university work because of this organisation.

You don’t have to overcomplicate it. Even just a simple TODO-list is better than nothing. All you need is something to clarify what to do and when.

This is a small tip but it really does pay off.

Tip 5: Apply Apply Apply!

This tip is mostly to do with people applying for internships/placements/graduate roles.

APPLY

APPLY

APPLY

Recently, the job market has been particularly tough.

If you’re one of these people that are able to apply to around 5 jobs and get multiple offers then fair play!!

For a lot of people though, it literally take’s 10’s-100’s of applications. There are so many rounds (Automated, Online, In Person …) that it really is a time-consuming, intensive process.

It really is “a number’s game”.

As long as you keep applying, I’m sure you’ll eventually get a job. Of course you may need to tweak your application if you identify areas of struggle (E.g. failing CV round, struggling with technical tests …) but the key really is to keep going.

Remember, when it comes to jobs, you only need to be right once (I.e. once you get 1 job offer, chances are you’ll be happy with it).

Conclusion:

There’s just 5 things that I’ve learnt from my time at university.

Of course some of them are easier said than done. It takes time to integrate this advice and some of it won’t work for everyone.

At the end of the day, it’s all personal preference.

Final Things:

As always, thank you for taking the time to read this article!

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