Okay so… I just entered my final year and ngl I’m lowkey panicking. I wasted my last 3 years doing basically nothing. I don’t know programming properly, never built a single real-world project, and now placements are around the corner.
Like fr, is there still any chance for me to pick up a skill, actually build stuff, and somehow get job-ready before it’s too late? Or should I just accept my fate lol.
Also random question (pls don’t roast me): is there even a platform where you can:
- buy projects (so I can at least see how things work)
- get mentorship/teaching from people who know their stuff
- and later maybe even sell my own projects when I get better
Basically like a one-stop place to learn + build + get guidance. Does that even exist or am I just daydreaming here?
Any advice would be a lifesaver 🙏—
If you got through 3 years of university without flunking out, you can’t be doing that badly. If you want projects to look at, try GitHub. Only has a few million of them.
Open source projects are a great resource. My understanding of good software development practices skyrocketed after contributing to a couple.
Definitely. Also looks good on a resume.
For sure — OSS on a resume hits different, shows you actually worked on real code with real teams. Way better than just listing “C++ basics” or whatever. And honestly, even small projects you’ve hacked together look solid if you can talk about what you built and what you learned. Pair that with some guidance and you’ve basically got a mini-portfolio that stands ou
100%, open source is like a crash course you can’t get in class. Real code, real people reviewing your stuff, you pick up good habits fast. The only tricky part is knowing where/how to jump in — most repos look intimidating as hell when you’re new.
That’s why I feel like having projects you can start smaller with, break apart, and get some feedback on would be such a smoother ramp. Once you build that confidence, contributing to big OSS projects doesn’t feel so scary.
There are plenty of small open source projects. It’s also good experience just figuring out how to build from source and make some changes even if you never open a PR.
True, if you survived 3 years without failing out, you’re not as hopeless as you think 😂. And yeah, GitHub is stacked with projects — problem is, it’s kinda overwhelming when you don’t know where to even start or what’s worth digging into.
That’s why I keep thinking how useful it’d be if there was a space where stuff was a bit more structured — like projects you can actually pick up, tear down, get some guidance on, and then later flip into your own. Way less random than drowning in a million repos.
Pick out some open source project you like and look into contributing. But, yeah it’ll take some digging.
Felt the same when I graduated from university. Three things:
- You know more than you think.
- The actual best thing you get from university is that it teaches you ways of thinking and structure your mind.
- No one expects you to be proficient when you start working. No worries, you will learn things by doing.
Keep third in mind. Do your best and don’t get frustrated!
seriously. i struggled early, and have zero college. but mentor now the folks just out of college in our corp. I’m 46. They are nervous with new robotics degrees trying to tell me about ROS2 and I’m like … no, here’s how modbus works. Get at it. Tinker. Break stuff. Learn. it’s ok!
People like you are the best kind of mentors, imho :)
100%. The ones who’ve actually been in the trenches and tinkered their way up make the best mentors. They cut the fluff and show you the real stuff that matters. That kinda guidance + just diving into projects is literally what helps folks like us go from “clueless” to “okay I got this.
Haha respect 👊 that’s the real deal — no college but still mentoring grads shows how little the paper matters compared to hands-on. Books say ROS2, real world says “yo, here’s modbus, break it till it clicks.”
That’s honestly the kind of guidance most freshers need — someone who can cut through the noise and say “this is what actually matters, go tinker.” Makes me think if more of us had that kinda space + mentorship earlier, we wouldn’t waste years stuck in theory.
That’s my favorite thing about switching jobs - low expectations!
However, I don’t like how the training these days is usually “read through some old tickets, you’ll figure it out, see you in a few days!”
Lol true, low expectations are kinda a blessing — nobody’s waiting for you to be a genius on day one. But yeah, the “read some old tickets and figure it out” training style is rough. You end up wasting time guessing what matters.
Way better when you’ve got someone to point you straight or at least a solid project to mess with. Hands-on + a bit of guidance always beats digging through dusty docs alone.
Yeah, that’s real. Half the time we forget we actually picked up more than we think — even if it’s just knowing how to structure problems or think a certain way. That stuff does carry over.
And true, no one expects a fresher to roll in like a senior dev. What matters is showing you can learn fast once you’re in the game. That’s why I keep coming back to projects — building stuff, even small hacks, forces you to learn by doing. And if you can get a little feedback along the way, you level up way quicker. That combo of “mindset from uni + learn-by-building” feels like the real win.
Tech executive here. The likelihood of you being able to compete as a developer in the current job market when you cannot demonstrate skills, knowledge, or showcase your previous works is negligible. That said, you have access to the internet, FOSS, Git, presumably test environments at your school, teachers and fellow students to ask when you need help, etc.
Find a bunch of problems you’d like to solve or features you’d like to see and spend the next year cranking out projects. Make sure you have a portfolio fo projects that required multiple skillsets to achieve.
Also, there are a lot of free courses and even some certifications out there. AWS, Azure, and GCloud have all sorts of training available for free. Take some and use those skill to run some projects in cloud environments.
CONTAINERS!!!
EDIT: The best position you can be is one where you don’t want a job because you want to build your own thing. Be so good that companies want to compete to hire you away.
Keep your mouth shut, and fake it til you make it.
It’s what EVERYBODY does. That is literally the key to life that nobody tells you when you are young.
The fact that you are questioning yourself means that you have the ability to introspect. I work at a major university and hire/manage people of all ages–as young as 15 and as old as 65. I have seen all kinds from the super smart and motivated to those who will sit in their position and do the minimum until they retire or those who are so incompetent or incapable of learning that they wash out of their own careers.
You probably compared yourself to that small number of people who did robotics club in high school, got into the elite CS/CE program, and already have a job offer from Meta for $150k. Don’t do that, those people aren’t normal and have never learned to just live. They also tend to experience constant and unending anxiety, which is why they drive themselves so hard. Do you really want to live that way?
I am always looking for that person who questions themself. If you are concerned about your ability to do something, you will put in the time to make sure that you do it well. If you have a Dunning-Kruger thing going on, then you’re going to be a terrible employee and I will eventually resent you and find a way to get you out of my department.
My advice:
-
accept that you will suffer some form of imposter syndrome for life. This is fine–it is better to be a bit insecure than a bit overconfident. You will constantly work to make sure that what you output is the best quality it can be simply because you are worried that it isn’t.
-
accept that you have little experience in your industry. You’re not supposed to as a new graduate. The whole point of your training has been in learning how to think professionally and approach a problem academically. Once you have that basis, you can learn the details.
-
be kind to yourself. You’re your own person and you don’t need to use others as a metric. Avoid the “I’m supposed to have…” sort of thinking and just do the best you can.
-
Listen, diploma and knowledge are parallel things. A diploma is a nice document. It opens some doors. But can’t substitute knowledge. Just write something useful. You’ll learn a lot in the process. Learn a lot of USEFUL things. So just start writing. Writing is useful and fun. Yes, you can drink and write. You can smoke and write. But you must write. Not a stupid artificial book problem solvers. Write something you really would like to have.
Facts. Diploma’s just a piece of paper, man. What really counts is the stuff you actually make. Writing, building, whatever — as long as it’s useful and not just textbook bs. Half the time we get stuck solving fake problems no one cares about, instead of creating something we’d actually use ourselves.
Even if it’s messy at first, just grab some project, tear it apart, mess with it, make it your own. That’s where the real learning happens. Guidance helps, sure, but end of the day it’s just you building stuff you vibe with. That’s what actually sticks
If you’re resorting to buying a project over just cloning something on gh and trying to pass it off as your own maybe CS isn’t the right field for you
I don’t know your industry, but you probably know more than you think. In my job I learned so much in my first two years out if school.
Yeah that’s actually reassuring to hear 🙏. I keep hearing people say the real learning happens once you’re on the job, but the scary part is getting that first break. That’s why I was thinking — if there was a space where you could practice by picking up real projects (even buying ready-made ones just to see how things are structured), get some guidance/mentorship, and then slowly start putting out your own work… it would make the jump way less intimidating. Feels like that kind of model could really help students like me who are starting late.
Assuming it’s programming because why else would OP randomly say they dont know it…
Which is terrible because that’s a practical skill you can’t really fake and you need the foundational knowledge from school.
OP is gonna need to look at something like HR or office drone where a general degree is “good enough”.
Not the end of the world, they just coasted thru a degree for a very competitive field. So now they need to pivot. Even people who paid attention and know their shit can’t get a job programming these days anyways
Yeah, true — programming isn’t really something you can fake, especially in a competitive market. If the fundamentals are weak, it shows during interviews. And you’re right, a lot of people with decent knowledge still struggle to land jobs these days, so for someone who coasted through college it feels extra overwhelming.
That said, I don’t think it always has to mean a hard pivot away from tech. I’ve seen people catch up when they start small: buying or downloading existing projects, breaking them apart to see how things actually work, then slowly tweaking/building their own. Pair that with mentorship or guidance from people in the industry, and it creates a shortcut compared to trying to figure out everything alone. Even if it doesn’t guarantee a job, it at least gives you a portfolio and confidence to back yourself.
For those who decide to pivot — HR, ops, etc. like you said — fair enough. But I feel like having an option in between (learn + build + guidance in one place) could really help students who don’t want to give up on tech completely.
I’ve seen people catch up when they start small: buying or downloading existing projects, breaking them apart to see how things actually work, then slowly tweaking/building their own.
That’s trying to teach yourself, when a college education didn’t work…
Pair that with mentorship or guidance from people in the industry,
What you want is an internship.
Do not under any circumstances pay someone to “mentor” you, no employer will care. An internship looks so much better, it’s at least an institutional scam that people still respect.
But I feel like having an option in between (learn + build + guidance in one place) could really help students who don’t want to give up on tech completely.
This isn’t an either/or scenario…
You’re thinking you have a year, how many calendar months is it to graduation? You should be applying to jobs after this semester, the market fucking sucks.
You need a solid plan, a backup plan, an “oh shit” plan, and an absolutely last resort plan.
You’ll be an adult before you know it, and unless you have a personal safety net, you may not have one.
Internships and entry level jobs are where you learn those things.
Don’t worry about it too much, but if you can find an internship that will be your best bet.
My advice is network to find that internship, and if you can’t that okay too. Employers don’t expect you to know everything, it’s why junior levels exist.
Don’t buy projects, but maybe look into open source software you use, they’ll use tons of different design patterns and architectures. If you can contribute to some while learning that’s even better.
Devs do not consider you opening a pull request and asking them for help getting it across the finish line a waste of time. Find a beginner tagged issue and run with it.
Just don’t try pushing a bunch of AI code and mention in your PR comment if/how/what AI you used so you don’t waste their time or violate their policies.
Sounds like it’s time to start some basic code camp / code academy / Udemy courses in your off time to catch up.
You’ll learn more on the job than you did at uni, I sometimes have small projects that I hire out, you can reach out to me and try out a paid contract job with low pressure. I’ve helped a few other people through the same process but no promises.
The industry is moving very quickly, honestly don’t stress too much about the nitty gritty details like syntax and such, probably a safe bet to focus on the practical side instead of the deeply technical side.
Every interview that I’ve given and taken has been more about personality and compatibility than skill.
Any advice would be a lifesaver 🙏—
Stop wasting your time would be my first advice.
If you really feel like you’ve wasted your time for the first 3 years, change. Change now. Not tomorrow, not next year, not after you manage to find the real ‘good place that will help you learn something’. Do it now, where you are. Start learning, ask questions, discuss with teachers (and fellow students, too), invest yourself.
It’s never too late, no matter how late. But there is no shortcut to doing the work.
Basically like a one-stop place to learn + build + get guidance. Does that even exist or am I just daydreaming here?
Like already mentioned, that’s the place you’re in right now. But, allow me to insist on that, it requires you to put in the work. Like with learning anything new.
The other suggestion I wanted to make was already given to you: since you seem to be into coding, start actually coding stuff. A diploma is not worth much compared to experience you acquire by making stuff and writing you own code for real.
There are plenty open source projects looking for someone to help push them forward if you have no idea on what to work. But if that’s the case I would also suggest you question your motivation to study that.
CS grads are in the worst position ever. University is often mistaken for vocational education, however that would be a technical college.
I have spent a lot of time crossing between a practical education environment, aimed at production skills, and university, aimed at thinking ability and abstract skills.
Honestly, my experience is that students are much more capable in a production environment after a two week boot camp than after three years of university on a roughly parallel topic. However, the non-idiots in the academic case will be able to understand arguments about the context of what they are doing better.
The point is that a philosophy degree might be more employable than a CS degree in some situations. The dude who cofounded Flickr and Slack was working off of an english degree. Use your degree for understanding and some projects for knowledge.
I also have a humanities degree and work in IT, with a wide range of applied skills I learned from necessity instead of a prof.
So create the necessity for skills by making useful shit, or even just fixing things. Find friends and make a silly app. Volunteer at a nonprofit and improve their CRM database. Build a homelab that you share with roommates. Find the local permacomputing group and help them turn all those shitty win10 obsolete machines into sleek linux machines. Ignore money and employment as task criteria for a few years, or freelance IT gigs.
Solve real world problems for real experience.
I felt the same way you do when I was in my last year of college. I remember being really nervous about it and thinking that they didn’t give me any real world experience, but you’ll get that when you find a job. The job I got out of college was in a programming language that was so foreign to me (and probably most people) that I had no idea what I was doing, but you end up adapting and using the constructs they’ve taught you.
I’ve been working in tech for 24 years now and still feel like I don’t know enough for my job most days. The good thing is that it’s a constant learning experience I guess.
I graduated university a couple years ago and I felt in the same boat coming up to final exams. Like others have said, you almost certainly know more than you think. You’re at the start of the final year as well so you have a lot of time to get ready.
Most IT/programming jobs will train you on the job and I haven’t heard of anyone coming into a role who’s expected to know everything, so I wouldn’t worry about that too much. Getting the job will be the harder part, and the best thing I did was to consider my past experience and apply to jobs tightly related to that. I’ll not dox myself so these will be fake details but that meant if I’d done a work experience position doing tech support for an accountancy firm, I’d have focused my applications on those companies. If you have a final year project to complete for a dissertation, see if you can tailor that to what you think are your best chances of a job. E.g. you did work experience doing IT support for a law firm, and your final year project has to be related to improving human rights, so you could develop a CRUD application to connect defendants to good pro bono lawyers. If there are law firms near you hiring for IT, that sort of thing that will help you stand out in an interview with them. I think I did only two interviews before getting a job offer with that tactic and I know others with the same degree who graduated the same day as me that still haven’t found anything.
And outside of uni/college, is there anything in IT and computer science that interests you? I found that university killed my joy for it and I’ve only rediscovered it since graduating. Building a JavaScript web app for my final year project, led me to wanting to program some discord bots, from there onto using a raspberry pi to host them, and then into doing some self hosting and networking with the likes of Docker and WireGuard. Some of that has come in handy in work, especially when using linux servers, but it’s stuff I do cause I just enjoy it and it so happens to give me some experience. There are tons of open-source projects you can work on to get experience with different parts of IT, and you’re on a good website for it since most of us on here are Linux nerds.
do them in order. in whatever language you want to learn. shiiiit back in “the day” it was how I learned ruby.
but the probs are not gamified like “hacker” coding questions they are, in my 30+ years exp as an eng, more realistically like real world plain english specs/asks from customers.
trust me. i’m a guy on the internet. do it. you got this and know more than you think.
