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Ask HN: How to make the most out of time at university?

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Re: Ask HN: How to make the most out of time at university?

#71

Post by PatentlyDC123 »

LeanderK wrote: post #8

> What ought to be my main focus? Develop your technical skills during the week, develop your social skill during the weekend. A lot are only doing the first, even on the weekend (or only the second, even during the week). While raw skill is cool, it's important that you can work in a team, that your boss likes you and your colleagues can work with you. Attend parties, talk to strangers, learn how to do some small-ta…

LeanderK makes a great point. Social skills and clear communication are extremely valuable. A great way to tie them into your studies is with study groups. Try meeting up at the library or computer lab with different groups from different classes. Meet people outside your field as well. You never know, you might be working on software systems tied directly to an industrial hardware project and it would be helpful to know how your skills fit in with the mechanical, electrical engineering, and project management/business needs of the project.

Re: Ask HN: How to make the most out of time at university?

#72

Post by hvaoc »

LeanderK wrote: post #8

> What ought to be my main focus? Develop your technical skills during the week, develop your social skill during the weekend. A lot are only doing the first, even on the weekend (or only the second, even during the week). While raw skill is cool, it's important that you can work in a team, that your boss likes you and your colleagues can work with you. Attend parties, talk to strangers, learn how to do some small-ta…

Cannot agree with this more. University is a perfect training ground for the real world.

Make as many mistakes as you can so can learn from it in an error-friendly ecosystem.

Host / Organize or volunteer events best way to work with others, socialize. Establish groups for long rewarding networks. Remember the folks who are walking around your campus are going to go around and take many leadership roles not to far out in the future.

If you are in tech, real usefulness of Tech is with the non-tech folks usage pattern. Ex: There are more brains working on ADs than medical imaging. Talk to them, help them apply tech into their workflows. Your simple tech tool can be a significant productivity tool for them.

Strike healthy relationships with other genders beyond dating. Helps you relate better with other genders and will help in the future in your personal and professional life.

Re: Ask HN: How to make the most out of time at university?

#73

Post by NiagaraThistle »

LeanderK wrote: post #8

> What ought to be my main focus? Develop your technical skills during the week, develop your social skill during the weekend. A lot are only doing the first, even on the weekend (or only the second, even during the week). While raw skill is cool, it's important that you can work in a team, that your boss likes you and your colleagues can work with you. Attend parties, talk to strangers, learn how to do some small-ta…

Came here to say basically this. This is great advice.

Re: Ask HN: How to make the most out of time at university?

#74

Post by dyingkneepad »

Sleep properly.

Be consistent when studying.

Actually learn what is being taught (instead of copying people's homeworks.

Grow your network.

Don't try to compete with the other students. University is not a competition. It is much much better if everybody just help each other. I landed my dream job because someone from the University liked me.

Re: Ask HN: How to make the most out of time at university?

#75

Post by Claude_Shannon »

mshron wrote: post #32

It sounds like you have a good path on your technical skills, so I'm going to suggest something else: take some humanities classes. Pick topics outside of technology that interest you, and learn how to communicate about them. Take as many seminar discussion and writing-heavy classes as you can. Hopefully they are there even at a technical university. From a career perspective, programming skill is relatively easy to…

Thanks. Unfortunately picking classes is not something that happens in the university system in my country, and even if it was, I'm in strictly technical one, so I have to pass on that one.

But thank you, good writing is certainly a skill that is going to be useful - good idea to work on that.

Re: Ask HN: How to make the most out of time at university?

#77

Post by CSMastermind »

MisterSandman wrote: post #67
CSMastermind wrote: post #37

Disclaimer, I'm based in the US so your experience may differ. But here's my advice: - Apply to internships/co-ops early and often. - Develop your social network with the other students in your classes. - Don't focus on grades beyond what's required to pass your classes. - DO focus on learning how to be a good programmer by doing side projects and programming constantly. - If there are programming competitions at you…

Interesting you said "co-op", which part of the US are you from? I've only ever heard that term used in Canada (I attend UWaterloo) and some northeastern US universities. People at UCLA/UC Berkeley were pretty confused when I said "co-op".

I went to university in Pennsylvania.

At least when I was going to school co-ops were time you spent working for a company for which you'd receive some kind of credit or fulfill some degree requirement.

Internships generally didn't have any connection to the school and were only for the purpose of gaining experience and developing your career.

Re: Ask HN: How to make the most out of time at university?

#79

Post by ceasesurthinko »

Loosen up and make friends at your own comfort level. That really is what university is about. Clubs are a good idea. Do your own thing but your focus should be connecting. You don't need university to self-learn all the CS and programming concepts- you could've done it at home alone. So university is less about the education and more about the experience (and I'm not talking about the stereotypical American way of parties and getting drunk and watching football). Do things that interest YOU. Talk and branch out to like minded people who you find INTERESTING.

You have people here on this thread on hackernews for gods sake telling people to connect to others. On hackernews, the Nerd Central. So that just emphasizes the importance of doing it when a bunch of nerds are telling you to go out and meet people. And if you are socially anxious, talk to a doctor asap. You want to make this college experience good. Your doctor can help you out with some antidepressants that just lifts all the anxiety from you so you can talk to others. They work, really good too for highly neurotic kids like many of us. Don't focus your efforts on being liked, rather, focus your efforts on connecting deeply with a few really important people in your university.

Re: Ask HN: How to make the most out of time at university?

#80

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

MisterSandman wrote: post #66
FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with this. Your first goal absolutely has to be that you successfully complete your degree. I know a person who failed to do this, and the results are bad. Finish! However -- most people do. So if you're reasonably conscientious you'll be fine. After that: Work to get an internship every semester you have off (maybe unless you're traveling abroad, as recommended next). You'll make some money; you'll try…

This is a bit of a gut-punch to read, I just finished half of my degree, and have made virtually no friends. Obviously that is because of deeper social issues I have.

Don't feel too bad. You're still young.

I'd originally written a long post here, but it was a little too identifiable, so let me just suggest:

1. "Hi, I'm $NAME" goes a long way.

2. So does "hey, anybody want to grab lunch later?"

3. If you cook, "hey, I'm making $WHATEVER" is also a good one.

4. If possible, try a living situation with roommates. It won't solve everything, but it helps a little.

5. People in real life tend to be better than they are on the Internet.

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