Things I Wish I Knew Before Studying Computer Science

Dedicate time to research core computer science papers offered by your university.

“If you want to learn how to make websites and apps definitely check out what are the actual court papers that make up your computer science degree.”

Investigate web/app development papers or online resources. Look for projects to guide learning.

“If they don't cover it then see if your uni offers papers in web development or app development and if they don't then your best bet is to learn online”

Research popular tools and technologies used in software development (React, Docker, etc.).

“When I started applying for internships my second year I would always see the job descriptions list tools and technologies that I wasn't familiar with like react express dot net core docker”

Apply learned skills to personal projects to build a portfolio.

“In your cs degree you learn the fundamentals of cs and programming concepts and this should then give you a strong enough foundation to learn those industry skills on your own by doing projects”

Practice finding solutions to problems online using search engines and video tutorials.

“The real essence of it is you need to be able to know how to effectively google and youtube your way out of problems”

Before coding, draw out or communicate your approach to the problem.

“From my experience what really helps is to first draw out a solution or how I'm going to approach a problem or try to communicate it to a friend and then only I would go into my editor and actually code out a solution”

Persevere through bugs and use debugging to understand code behavior.

“Somebody once said that programming is 90 debugging and 10 writing bugs”

Use HackerRank or LeetCode to test and improve your CS fundamentals.

“Some good sites to really test your cs fundamentals are hacker rank and leak code”

Begin with small, manageable projects to showcase skills.

“I would have started doing projects from first year because honestly as i mentioned previously you learn very theoretical and conceptual things in your cs classes”

Highlight your portfolio in internship interviews.

“It's always great to show your interviewer that you have your own portfolio of projects with different skills it shows that you have true passion and that you also have the initiative to do work outside of uni”

Investigate roles like UX/UI Designer, Product Manager, etc.

“Being a software engineer is the most common career path that you could take with a cs degree there are also a lot of other great options that you could consider like being a ux ui designer a product manager a solutions architect technical consultant”

Gain insights by shadowing or talking to people in different roles.

“Some ways that you can research them are by shadowing people or talking to people who are working in these fields or even better by doing internships in them”