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Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best?

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Re: Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best?

#61

Post by AnimalMuppet »

I'm in the US; if you're going to stay in India, my advice may be less helpful.

But I would say that you're in an environment where everyone cares greatly about credentials, because that's all anyone has so far. Once you graduate and have worked for a few years, people don't care so much about the credential. It may matter some, but it matters more that you can actually do things.

So you need to get a credential that is good enough to get you a job. But it matters more that you actually know what you're talking about, rather than just being able to repeat what the professor said. You need to understand, not just memorize. You need to be able to write software that actually helps people do things, not just classroom exercises. If you can, then you will surpass many who have better credentials than you. It may take a few years, but you will pass them.

Re: Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best?

#63

Post by ai_ia »

ageis wrote: post #28

Having come from a similar background, I can offer you these suggestions - 1. The level of programming taught in Indian universities is not enough. Writing a sort program is quite different from writing good, maintainable OOP code. Apart from working in a good company, one way to develop this skill (which I feel is critical) is to look and contribute to good open source projects - elasticsearch, spark, etc. Unfortuna…

That is some solid advice right there. Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best?

#64

Post by m0llusk »

Real work is always more impressive than academics. The sooner your schoolwork fades into the background of your career the better.

Many posts here emphasize direct skills, but it is important to understand that the modern workplace requires a broad range of skills in particular related to communication. One specific communication methodology which is worth learning is Nonviolent Communication which can enable people with different contexts and points of view to have useful conversations that resolve significant conflicts.

Re: Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best?

#65

Post by wingerlang »

m0llusk wrote: post #64

Real work is always more impressive than academics. The sooner your schoolwork fades into the background of your career the better. Many posts here emphasize direct skills, but it is important to understand that the modern workplace requires a broad range of skills in particular related to communication. One specific communication methodology which is worth learning is Nonviolent Communication which can enable people…

This can vary with the culture of the country/region/company though.

Re: Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best?

#66

Post by mbrodersen »

Study after study has shown that going to a "2nd grade" university makes no difference to your skill level and lifetime earnings. They basically compared people who were accepted to "top grade" universities and chose to go somewhere else with people who did go. So don't stress about it. Simply learn as much as you can on/off university.

Re: Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best?

#67

Post by glangdale »

amandavinci wrote: post #22
glangdale wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinionated version is that you should bail out on games and focus on AI/ML, then try to get into the best grad school you can and get really good at difficult things that other people can't do (even better, things that they can't do and don't want to do). Games fail that test because too many people want to work on them. Becoming a good software engineer seems to come from working with people with good taste (on…

Indeed. After talking to other people and thinking hard about my options, I have come to same conclusion. But finding good people to work with or under seems really hard. I really don't know how to find good mentors other than contributing to open source and hoping someone senior likes my contributions.

OK, so I'm writing in a 'dead thread' (likely) but for what it's worth: I think your last sentence is the right idea; do the work then find a mentor in a related area as a consequence of that. I really don't like being approached by people who haven't put in any effort yet want to network for the sake of networking.

Re: Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best?

#68

Post by mbrodersen »

mbrodersen wrote: post #66

Study after study has shown that going to a "2nd grade" university makes no difference to your skill level and lifetime earnings. They basically compared people who were accepted to "top grade" universities and chose to go somewhere else with people who did go. So don't stress about it. Simply learn as much as you can on/off university.

But of course if you have to pay to go to university (I didn't) then your dept will be so much higher going to a "top grade" university.

Re: Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best?

#69

Post by deepaksurti »

>> I'm passionate about solving problems and making things, especially AI and game development

Then you just got to start making them, if not.

For game development, even though a lot may not make sense, read the book 'Game Engine architecture'.

Now start making a game engine with parsers for any open format such as Collada/Quake, add sound, physics, animation. Keep doing it in parallel with a 3D game of your choice. Yes, I am asking to start off directly with a 3D game, not a popular opinion in the game learning world. You will also learn game related math, physics, AI along the way.

Write a game feature, extract to your game engine. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Why do I suggest this? This is the advice I would give to my younger self ;-)

Re: Ask HN: What a 2nd tier college student must do to be at par with the best?

#70

Post by mohanmcgeek »

The quality of first tier colleges in India is still terrible, if you didn't know that already. Google/Facebook doesn't hire everyone from IITs hardly two or three.

You're doing far better than those people, from what I've seen.

If you're in Chennai: come for the meetups: I'm the co-organizer of docker and golang meetups. Also checkout devops meetup and the Linux group at IIT Madras.

You get to meet some of the smartest and experienced veterans in the city.

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