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by willscott
5857 days ago
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One point that is seems to come up over and over is that there really is no classroom substitute to actually building something and making it work. Any research you do in college is going to be very different from a software job you get in industry. (There are exceptions of course - industry research labs like microsoft research or maybe even Google can get pretty close) However, college is still going to be a very valuable time in your life. It often is the catalyst to forming a social network that continues through your life, and also lets you see how the work you'll do fits into the larger picture of human knowledge. Big picture aside, one of the best things you can do in college is get summer internships (hopefully every summer). That's going to give you some experience with building real system, provide a low commitment way to figure out what type of work you want to do after you graduate, and introduce you to people in the industry that can be invaluable in getting or finding jobs. Research is also great, but make sure that you're working on something that is valuable to you. It is definitely possible to work on real problems and to get published as an undergraduate, but it's also very easy to end up working on someone else's project, and not getting much out of it. I got a great education at Harvey Mudd (hmc.edu) and would encourage you to look at them. It's a small school - which also means no graduate program,so I was able to do research directly with professors. I had a job lined up at Google when I graduated, and can't imagine being prepared for where I am if I had skipped college. |
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Also -- +1 on internships. They were super valuable for me. For example the summer I spent in the theoretical physics dept at Fermilab helped me figure out what I didn't want to do :)