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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!

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.
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.
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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[–] stoly@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

As someone who has hired lots of CS students, the successful ones tend to:

-Have a public GIT repo where they have all of their personal and class projects publicly available. You put this on your resume and potential employers can browse at leisure.

-Have done a student group like robotics or satellite club.

-Have interned somewhere with a name. Doesn't matter what the job is, just get that name on your resume. Sadly, what you know and can do is less important than where you interned and overworked or unmotivated hiring managers really need bullet points that they can grab on to and then move on.