If you are starting out, you need to take every opportunity to learn. Don't pass up on that. Do free work for people if you need to. If they pay you, even better. Make friends and go to parties. Focus on building your soft-skills. Run for student senate in college. Join some clubs. Try to lead one. This will teach you how to interact with different people in various situations and you will learn valuable leadership skills.
If you are still in college before you graduate you should do an internship or two. Do everything you can to set yourself apart from others. Every bit you do will add up in the long-run.
If your interest is in programming, you need to be one with the computer. If you want to excel in this field and be one of the best, you need to live and breathe computers. Before you know it, you will have learned a lot of ad-hoc things.
Find a hobby that you absolutely love and combine that with programming. If you love playing games, try to learn to build a game. If you love physics, build a physics engine for a game. If you love designing, work on redesigning your favorite website. The best way to learn is when you pick these skills while working on a real-world project. Try to teach someone about a specific technology or language.
I'm going to reiterate what I said in the comment earlier. You need to focus on yourself and don't worry about the rest of the world. You need to focus on the basics and don't be overwhelmed with the plethora of frameworks and libraries. They will come and go. Your core skills will stick with you. A lot of this might not sound exciting now, but it will play a role in shaping you years from now.
Finally, pick a stack and learn it well and apply it to real-world projects. If you don't have an idea or a project to work on, look towards OpenSource repos on GitHub.
Thanks for not one but the many advices you have given. This just made me look into my career from another perspective. I hope we can connect on LinkedIn incase I need some guidance on things.
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You might find one of the comments above useful.
If you are starting out, you need to take every opportunity to learn. Don't pass up on that. Do free work for people if you need to. If they pay you, even better. Make friends and go to parties. Focus on building your soft-skills. Run for student senate in college. Join some clubs. Try to lead one. This will teach you how to interact with different people in various situations and you will learn valuable leadership skills.
If you are still in college before you graduate you should do an internship or two. Do everything you can to set yourself apart from others. Every bit you do will add up in the long-run.
If your interest is in programming, you need to be one with the computer. If you want to excel in this field and be one of the best, you need to live and breathe computers. Before you know it, you will have learned a lot of ad-hoc things.
Find a hobby that you absolutely love and combine that with programming. If you love playing games, try to learn to build a game. If you love physics, build a physics engine for a game. If you love designing, work on redesigning your favorite website. The best way to learn is when you pick these skills while working on a real-world project. Try to teach someone about a specific technology or language.
I'm going to reiterate what I said in the comment earlier. You need to focus on yourself and don't worry about the rest of the world. You need to focus on the basics and don't be overwhelmed with the plethora of frameworks and libraries. They will come and go. Your core skills will stick with you. A lot of this might not sound exciting now, but it will play a role in shaping you years from now.
Finally, pick a stack and learn it well and apply it to real-world projects. If you don't have an idea or a project to work on, look towards OpenSource repos on GitHub.
Thanks for not one but the many advices you have given. This just made me look into my career from another perspective. I hope we can connect on LinkedIn incase I need some guidance on things.