21–30 of 103 posts
It doesn't sound like college is keeping you back from more valuable projects, you're just struggling to follow through. Finish the degree.
- Travel for a semester/year around the world
- Side projects apart from school; use those to choose to new classes
- Transfer to another school and/or country stretching into new opportunities
- Pick up a hobby outside of anything you've ever done before
- Volunteer at a hospital or in a research lab, both desperately need technical people
- Pursue a thesis of original research with a professor you admire
- Challenge yourself with subjects you've never learned before: calligraphy, art history, statistics, horseback riding, etc.
You have your whole life to work. But you also have many, many other choices. Being an adult means choosing your own happiness, not what others expect. The challenge is constantly finding a new muse to keep your interests fresh and exciting. You can change who you are many times over in the next decade or two.
College just helps to show you the range of possibilities for who you can become. That openness to reinvent yourself becomes much harder as you get older. Use the time you have to find new fountains of inspiration. Those you keep coming back to will linger longest.
I'm not sure where you're physically located, but if you were a young cousin of mine on either the US or Japanese sides of the family, I'd tell you get the degree. If you feel that college is too easy mode for you, feel free to take more difficult or eclectic courses, or throw yourself into extracurriculars. (It's a great time to learn a foreign language.) Why get the degree? 1) Because there is no circumstance where…
I did the traditional education - college, University. But I was a young 18 and the three years I spent at University were really good to 'grow up'. I'm sure I could have (eventually?!) managed in the real world, but I spent three years finding out a bit more about myself, growing up, playing in bands, drinking, meeting girls, learning to take care of myself - etc.
That said, the CS degree I have hasn't really helped my career since that point except to open early / initial doors. I'm sure some foundations have probably helped with my work since then, but for the most part, everything since has been self taught / work experience.
So at that point, for me, the formal education was worthwhile to 'get me in'.
Jump forward nearly 15 years - (and like me) lots of my friends work for companies that do stuff on or with the Internet. Most of these guys never went to University and just started working at 18. (I dread to think how irrelevant some of the stuff you'd learn in year one of a three year 'Internet' degree would be by the time you looked for a job, BUT I guess the qualification would probably still open some doors for you.)
For them it was a case of moving to where the action is, showing you're prepared to learn and/or hustle, or have some personal work/freelance work to show to someone. And being confident. Lots of smiles and lots of confidence (which is totally fake-able). Many smaller companies will happily take a chance on you if you're hungry and they can pay you a basic wage.
From that point, it's pretty easy - just work hard. Provided you've held down a job (which isn't too tough if you're not an unpleasant person), by your late 20s, nobody gives a monkeys as to your education - all they see is you're capable of remaining employed, can do a job and have experience. So much so, I know many people (in their late 20s and early 30s) who no longer even bother putting 'education' on their CV.
Long and short, don't take your education too seriously. Keep doing your stuff on the side - and when and if you're ready for 'real life' work, be nice, have some confidence and hustle like crazy. And to make it easier still, up sticks and move to where the action is.
Good luck, you'll be fine.
As for your professional life, in my opinion, don't rely on the company to find you a "career path". If a firm proposes you one, it's a path which is convenient to the company, no to you. Find your own path (that's also what college is useful for).
One issue that you alluded to, is that you've been somewhat taken advantage of (underpaid) for whatever reason (possibly youth and inexperience). This will continue to happen until you focus on the skills necessary to demand what you are worth (ie - strong verbal/written communication skills, research, negotiating, teamwork, etc). These are the kind of skills you learn indirectly in college.
Do you need college for all these things? Of course not. You can start a blog today and start working on your writing ability. Specifically focusing on teaching and conveying your ideas in a digestible way.
The cold hard truth of the working world is NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ADVANCEMENT BUT YOURSELF. Its true that there are some companies that will help you along but they are only training you so that they can get the most out of their investment in you.
You can then fast-track to a master's degree(your university may call it something different). This allows you to use grad level courses as courses for your BS. You will find the graduate level courses more challenging and they will test your ability to learn. If you are as smart as you say you are, you'll be able to graduate the program a year early, learn a lot and have an MS to boot.
Might be worth considering - get somewhere with a big tech scene, higher wages and more difficult courses.
One, make sure that you do to neglect Computer Science, you skills now put food on table but those long term computer Science skills make sure you have a career to pay for something long term like retirement and a house. But what is nice now at this time is there are places where you can get free online courses in computer science by the top schools.
Do not go through hr processes, connect to the people with money as they will have no problem giving the shot once they see stuff you have built.
As far as career planning, many people approach this in different ways. the creator of Perl, the computer language came in to computer Science through human languages. It just depends on what interests you have and what area of computer science those interest lead you to.