this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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Programming

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Best way to gain experience as a CS student? (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 months ago by ericbomb@lemmy.world to c/programming@programming.dev
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So I'm a hobbyist game developer for years whose day job is writing reports/troubleshooting database issues with MSSQL.

I'm a bit over half way through a CS bachelors degree!

I'm aware of three ways to get experience to help me find a job once I graduate, and wondering if one is superior to the others, or if there is another way!

  1. Personal projects. There is a very large programming project I've been working on off and on for 2ish years and I feel like after my recent programming classes I can probably start it off right and trash all my previous prototypes.

  2. Work on open source projects. This one is a bit scarier at this point, as I'd have to find one I like, one that is active, one that my skills fit with, one I can get accepted with, etc.

  3. Find entry level freelance things. I'm aware I could maybe do cheap tasks on Fiverr, or sign up for things like Data annotation, to earn a bit of money and have "something" directly related to programming on my resume.

3.5 Could do coding challenges, but most of the ones I've seen don't seem super relevant to making large programs, but solving convoluted puzzles. But would love to hear if there is a site that has more real world challenges.

My personal experience for previous projects (and favorite programming class so far) has been python (shocking I know). Hoping I'll fall in love with C# programming once I get into the advanced classes with it, as I know that pairs much nicer with my MSSQL experience. Oh my game dev has also been in Game Maker, which uses GML, so not superrr helpful experience.

So any thoughts/opinions?

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[โ€“] yournameplease@programming.dev 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If your school has Hackathons, try to do those, ideally with friends. The atmosphere is honestly a bit horrible in my opinion and you may get instant imposter syndrome, but it gives you a project to talk about.

[โ€“] ericbomb@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

No hackathons from my school, I do game jams, and so maybe doing one using only code and not a game engine would be an interesting challenge. Plenty of game jams where the goal is to have the game be like under 10 megs, so straight code is the only way to go.