I'm taking a year off college to upskill/work. Advice?
Title. CS + Biz student @ WashU and I'd benefit from honing in my skills while working on my own project. Anybody have advice on finding good opportunities?
I started college at 20, and dropped out a year later to pursue other things. Although I got into the industry through my own self-learning, it took me a full 20 years more to finally get my Bachelors.
It will be a major challenge to go back into school if you leave. Not from an administrative standpoint (probably) but definitely from a social-economic one. Once you get started into your career, it can be very hard to reorient yourself back into academics. For me, I had the hardest time coping with the Sisyphusian nature of school, where so much of it felt like "what's the point of this?" when the real world often had real rewards.
You've got the rest of your life to upskill and work (seriously, you'll move jobs frequently, and you'll always be learning stuff.) Maybe more than you want to. Enjoy this situation right now. It doesn't come around again.
As an example, once you, the student, make over ~7000 a year, it starts to impact financial aid options. (Obviously, the higher you go, the more the impact is.) When I started working too many hours in the summer/weekends it definitely had an impact on my aid even 20 years ago. [0]
[0] - Semi related protip; If you are engaged to someone and they are still going to college, waiting until they graduate to get married may qualify as a good idea financially. This cost me a lot in the short run and my now-ex wife a lot in the long run.
But I already had a plan. That's very important. When I got to the end I'd re-enrolled and started back right where I'd stopped. I had a job for 8 months and a trip for four.
It did put my out of sync a bit with the kids I'd started with, but that was no big deal (and in some ways I was ahead). Otherwise school has its own calendar so it was no big deal.
Another self-inflicted problem: by my last semester, due to my work during the time off leading to work over the summer, was that I had a full time job thousands of miles from school. As a result I didn't finish my last semester in the last semester and had to pay for an extra one just to take one class. And I was pressured by my team at work to drop out and not worry about it ("You already have a good job"). So glad I didn't listen to them!
I had 6 internships, some paid > $50/hr. Before this, I almost dropped my CS degree for boot camp and glad I didn’t.
There is no shortcut. There is a mix of luck and grinding. You have 30+ years of work ahead of you. Finish this 1 milestone to make the initial start easier. How? Leetcode for 3 months, Network, interview and work while studying. You will have insane experiences. I saw firmware at big tech, security at startups and science at big oil. Things compound even if it feels slow.
If I’ve learned anything, this is it. I entered the field without formal education, mostly because realities of the time, though I had been programming for years prior and done some light freelance work which probably gave me some advantage. Later on, this gave the the confidence (arrogance?) to believe I could “hack” my way around all sorts of bureaucracies, but I quickly realized how wrong that was. I regret not completing any post secondary education and unfortunately the way the education system is designed, at least here in the US, it just gets more and more expensive the further you are from the typical student demographic.
That being said, I don’t see anything implying the OP isn’t interested in completing a degree, just that they want to take a short break. Unless they’re particularly skilled, I do think that continuing their education will lead to much more and more interesting opportunities.
My experience has been the opposite, with a slight caveat. There are tons of shortcuts, there’s just not a shortcut to everywhere. I don’t think you can hack your way into being a tenured math professor. But, is that the only thing that will make you happy? There’s certainly much shorter paths if you’re willing to give up some details. Maybe it’s that you want to do a lot of math and teach it sometimes. Lots of shortcuts there.
Shortcuts also often end up being long cuts. Ten years of experience to save four years of college. But it’s sort of like taking a shortcut through the woods. Maybe the nicer path is worth it.
When it does end up being shorter, and this is the first piece of advice for any shortcutters reading, is don’t get greedy. The savings are often huge, but maybe not huge huge. I believe you can learn the relevant career training most 4 year degrees provide in less than a year. Universities offer much more than skill training, that’s part of why this is possible. But, you can almost never do it in 4 months.
Second tip is beware of shortcut salesmen! Part of the reason you’re getting a good deal is you’re spending your own agency to strike a path. So much of the value of any course for students is being told be here, at this time, and read this. If they didn’t have that, they’d never finish. If you don’t need that, you can go fast and pay less. With a shortcut salesman, the numbers don’t add up the same. (Combine points 1 and 2 for a strong skepticism of career boot camps of any type.)
This is all just based on my own life and what I’ve seen around me. I’m now working a job that people told me wasn’t possible without a degree when I was a kid, but it worked out.
I’m not quite sure about this. I do believe that with the internet, a lot of information is available and you can indeed learn a lot, but there’s a reason that online degrees outside of CS tend to be “useless” degrees. I can read about, say, biology all day and learn a lot, but there’s all sorts of expensive equipment that gatekeeps a lot of “doing” (which IMO is an important part of learning). Ditto for many scientific or engineering fields outside CS. The only reason I was able to get into software was because computers were mostly ubiquitous in the public by the time I started. Also some knowledge is still gatekept or paywalled by universities, for example see the recent post about the guy hunting for the origins of that obscure Unicode character.
I’m sure somewhere, there are prodigies who can manage, but for Joe Shmoe in most fields, it seems to matter more what letters they have next to their education that what knowledge they have in their head. Though I suppose we’re getting a hit off topic.
Online degrees fall under shortcut salesmen. The problem with them isn’t so much access to equipment. It’s that for so many degrees, the point isn’t skill training. MBA is an easy example, where it’s largely networking. There’s also something there about soft skills training that doesn’t do well online (but that doesn’t mean it only works in university).
So you take the skills training, which is 10% of the value. Rip out everything else and charge 30%. It seems like you’re getting a good deal, but you’re not.
If you tie this all together (and maybe this is on topic for OP) it is very useful to pick apart why you are doing something. An MBA just for skill improvement is foolish. Thinking you’ll get the benefits of a Harvard MBA by reading books alone is also foolish. If you pick apart your reasons, you will more accurately decide what to do. Maybe it’s the MBA, maybe it’s books, maybe it’s joining a professional organization and networking hard.
A huge hack is realizing when you can give up signaling and external motivation. So many people do that by default when they don’t need it, usually as continuing education. A second undergraduate degree is usually (>50%) a really bad idea.
An example I did for myself was hiring a statistics tutor. I have no need for accreditation. I’m already a software engineer on an analysis tools team at Netflix. Focusing 100% on “get better at stats” lead to me reading two books and hiring a tutor in Poland for $30/hr who normally advises PhD candidates. I improved very quickly at exactly what was relevant for me, for very cheap.
It was way better than if I had taken a course somewhere. I saved 80% of my time and money in exchange for having nothing to put on LinkedIn about it. But I’m also planning on coauthoring a paper at some point, so that’s the other side of the hack.
But my actual suggestion - stay enrolled and go study abroad. The job skills you learn now won’t matter compared to the trip you took to Europe which generated lifelong friends and memories.
My kid refused to try programming 'coz that's what dad does so didn't even start until he was half way though his undergraduate program (math). And he was hired upon graduation by FAANG as a developer.
Do you really think "upskilling" at this stage is better than learning theory? You'll write code for class and can work on some packages with your friends, probably in a more tightly coupled loop than you would in industry.
You can do these things while at university, I wouldn't take a year off.
I’m also a little confused because you want to work on your own project, but you’re asking how to find opportunities. Do you already have a project? If you’re not trying to make money or work with anyone else, the opportunities are endless. You need no one’s permission. It’s like finding a poem that you will write. You’re still searching, but it’s with pencil and paper. You won’t find your poem in someone else’s book.
I do agree with some other comments that a year off will reduce your probability of finishing college. But that’s just a vague feeling. And if it’s not good to take a year off before college, or during, or after, or at the beginning of your career, and by the middle you certainly have too many responsibilities, is there ever a good time? Even controlling for financial security, taking a year to do some things seems to be the kind of thing happier people do.
If I have any general advice, it’s to spend at least 3 months of that time doing some activity really outside of your plan but still calls you. And plan on just doing that and then it’s over. It doesn’t need to be a new identity fantasy. Maybe it’s scuba diving in Kotao, language immersion, building bookshelves, singing, who knows. Actually, I’d highly recommend a Wilderness First Responder course and / or EMT-B school. Less than a month, very valuable.
Anyway, I put it elsewhere on this thread but I'm looking to take a year off to specifically increase my skills in programming. I'm nowhere near where I'd like to be in terms of aptitude, and I'd like to make entrepreneurship a large piece of my career path.
The year off, in an ideal situation, would be a semester (or two) co-op that hopefully could be in Europe or South America. During this time I can work on side-projects and gain valuable skills that'll allow me to return to college with a greater sense of what I'd like to work on. The summer before I return, I'd be taking courses at a local state school to get back into an academic mindset. (my school does not offer credit for co-ops, unfortunately)
My advice is do one thing at a time. If the co-op is like a job, don’t do side projects while you’re in it. Does it really make sense to work on a side project in the evening when you’re taking a break from your co-op, which you’re doing while taking a break from college?
I graduated in 2012 and had to spend a year after graduating upskilling, because my program left me woefully unprepared for the job listings available, and my GPA wasn't very good, so I wasn't qualified for any internships while I was studying.
My situation might have been a bit different though; I spent 9 years getting my bachelors part-time while working full-time in the service industry. I never learned more than the bare minimum to pass my classes and didn't realize how important it was to do that while in university. I also never really absorbed the knowledge learned; because I wasn't applying it while learning it was all very abstract to me.
After graduating, I realized every entry level job expected a bunch of knowledge I was lacking, so I spent a year doing online MOOC courses and working on personal projects. Then after a year, I met someone at a conference who gave me part-time paid work that we called an internship (I was very marginally productive during that time, as I was still playing catch up, but I wasn't making much so I think it worked out OK for both of us)
Taking time to apply the knowledge and build personal projects before graduating would have been a boon to me, as a lot of opportunities for things like internships were no longer available after graduating. I think the whole situation set my career back by 2 or 3 years.
Also, considering this is one of the worst economies to graduate into, you need to be able to hit the ground running once you graduate, with as much experience as possible.
Best of luck. There's a good chance having a business double major might do well to make you stand out as someone who can do the product management side of things in addition to the more technical work
Just finish college.
From the point of view of a college undergrad, "professional life" seems to be a dream. Like-> do work you like -> make a ton of money to do all the stuff you want.
Adult life is messy. And work involves lot of stuff that you don't like. Don't be so eager to jump out to that.
And people do amazing things in terms of work when being in college.
If you want, choose to be content with 3.5/6 than aiming for a 4.0. Take minimal amount of courses. Enroll in MOOCs, learn new skills via innumerable resources available in the web. Do open source hacking. Join communities- both online and offline.
There are immense opportunities for you to upskill. Also work during being in college. I worked while being in college (last year) and two years of Master's.
It was hard in terms of time management, but I could take risks, learn whatever I wanted without any loss. (At worst, I would have been a vanilla CS MS). But I got preprints out, did a ton of side work, engaged in communities, did three major projects in R&D for a corp.
It helped me immensely in my career.
If you drop a year, you are going to lose momentum, and have a higher chance of not graduating at all. Then life would be hard.
Also, if you do it alone without a strong support network, you will not end up gaining a lot anyway.
The other thing is, the engineering school will let you do a co-op semester or even a year where you don’t take classes but maintain enrollment. You should definitely find out about that. It’s a much better option than completely dropping out for a year. I did that and it was super helpful for my future career and self confidence.
Now that I didn’t finish my degree 12 years later it makes me so 2x the effort to move ahead now that I’m a manager
It’s a ridiculous feeling when your subordinates have masters and you don’t even have a bachelors. Just my $0.02, I ended up fine but work twice as hard, if I’d just stayed that extra 2 years
Now I have a family and am taking a year long leave of absence to finish my degree, after spending over 10 years doing it in my side time, I have a year left. It’s is unnecessarily nerve racking
What’s stopping you from doing that in school? What do you think this alternative situation will offer that school doesn’t?
In general, I would expect someone in your situation to be interested in pursuing a specific topic or side project. In that way, you don’t “find opportunities “, you make the opportunities.
Further, I’m guessing you’re on summer break right now. What are you doing that’s preventing you from exploring this right now?
would suggest looking at startups, reaching out to network/hn/freenode folks.
Aside: Hiring for my health tech startup - would be interested to chat more.
You should have plenty of free time in college to hack on your down time. I sure did. You'll have less free time once work starts, once family starts.
Having said that, if you are wanting a project, study the landscape. Currently Reddit is having political issues, make a Reddit alternative.
Also, Chicken Scheme specifically because it is easy, small, portable, has a good extension mechanism, and an active and awesome little community.