[asdff]

Everything I have in life is from networking effects in college, from landing my first research position in undergrad. Grades don't matter, I was an average student. Networking effect is everything in life, in any field. Maximize your ability to network.

[Frost1x]

>Networking effect is everything in life, in any field. Maximize your ability to network.

Networking isn't everything but it's definitely the lion's share. Anyone who paints the world as a meritocracy is disillusioned, but it helps to have merit to fall back on. There are many who get through life and succeed financially almost entirely through networking and situation.

[jkaptur]

I'd add some nuance to that - in my experience, networking is a multiplicative (not additive) effect to your actual skills. You can get a letter of recommendation from a Nobel Prize winner, but even then it has to say something other than "Liz Lemon numbers among my employees", you know?

[mrep]

Interesting. Did you go to an Ivy league, cause I went to a state school and I haven't used networking for anything ever. Granted, I've only worked at GAFAM and they hire tons of people so that could be part of it.

[panopticon]

I went to a state school, and my entire professional career is due to the friends I made there. College was a very rough time for me, and I wasn't getting many interviews with my resume (really poor GPA, no internships, no extracurriculars, etc). A friend hooked me up with a job at a startup and landing interviews since has been no problem.

This isn't a glamorous story where my network made me a millionaire, but my life would be much worse having not made those friends back then.

[mrep]

Internships definitely help (GAFAM uses them like extended interviews for full time offers). I also think it helps that my gpa was ok (3.05) and the school i went to (purdue) was highly ranked enough and big enough that we had entire recruiting teams come out to our career fairs which is where I got my first internship. Some companies even sent out employees for an entire week to our campus to do interviews for internship and new grad hiring.

[asdff]

I went to a state school, albeit R1 which has a lot more funding and therefore opportunities, but I believe every state flagship is R1 anyway. Actually this in state school was cheaper than some other in state schools that were considered party schools/easier academically. Were you recruited at a career fair? fangs always had a big presence at our biannual fairs and people I knew seemed to have no issues finding internships coast to coast.

[mrep]

I went to purdue so we had absolutely massive career fairs and I got my first CS internship at GAFAM through one. After that, it hasn't been hard getting interviews at the other ones.

[toomuchtodo]

Agree that one should maximize networking, but college is not required to do so. Find like minded people where ever you are, always be seeking opportunities (learning, revenue generating, and all others) and avoid credentials and their associated costs. Be able to get the work done, learn how to when you can’t, and be enjoyable to work with, that’s most of what a job is.

[adamcharnock]

This is my experience too. I haven't exactly avoided credentials as a principle (I have a BEng), but I totally agree with "Be able to get the work done and enjoyable to work with".

Do a good job, be secure in your abilities, have empathy for others. I'm a freelancer of 13 years with a lot of happy clients and – before I started living off-grid – I'd earn a month's rent in half a day. Now I don't have rent or mortgage.

Sure, I haven't climbed any corporate ladder, but I hope that in a decent company you can be those things and also do well.