Tech, and especially software is one of the few places you can get experience without a job.
If you are st school, or college, and you want a leg up the hiring ladder, -get some experience along the way-.
It might be as small as building some Web sites for local small business, it might be a bit of custom software for yourself, it might be doing tech at the local charity. Or participating (meaningfuly)in an Open Source thing.
It doesn't really matter what it is or what language it is, or whether you sold it or not. What matters is you took the first step yourself. Showed some initiative. Saw something through. Got something done.
Personally I was at Uni, responded to an ad posted on a CS noticeboard (from the medical faculty.) Wrote them a bit of custom software. On their advice marketed to other universities. (Using Smail Mail, think early 90s). Made some international sales.
Apart from the signalling, it acts as a memorable topic to talk about in the job interview. You can display some passion, talk about what worked, what failed, the tech, the domain and so on.
Experience someone gives you I great. Experience you go out, capture, wrestle to the ground, and conquer yourself, is priceless.
-especially- I you are able to look back and identify everything you did wrong and would do better next time.
I agree with this somewhat but I also believe that in IT, the real experience only begins when we become part of an organization because, on a personal level, we might not have that kind of infrastructure to practice. Like GPUs and administration services for the Cloud. Can we learn? yes, but there is a limit to it. Don't you think?
Yes, there are limits. I didn't have access to some cool hardware. On the other hand, a lot of hardware today is available in the cloud.
But that's not the key point. The issue isn't "I can't do LLM because I don't have a super-gpu-cluster." The issue is "I stepped out of doing just enough work to pass, and found areas I can play in, while staying inside my budget constraints."
As students we all have budget constraints. I built my (my actual own) computer using parts discarded by companies. My first hard drive lived in a cigar box. Of course it was an xt when 286s were already mainstream - but I put it together.
It taught me not to focus on what I couldn't buy. But to learn whatever I could with the resources I could lay hands on. And there's lots you can do today with bottom of the barrel hardware.
There's a bottomless pile if excuses out there. And no shortage of candidates telling me them. The guy who looks past the excuses, and finds a way regardless, that's "experience" I'm looking for.
If you are st school, or college, and you want a leg up the hiring ladder, -get some experience along the way-.
It might be as small as building some Web sites for local small business, it might be a bit of custom software for yourself, it might be doing tech at the local charity. Or participating (meaningfuly)in an Open Source thing.
It doesn't really matter what it is or what language it is, or whether you sold it or not. What matters is you took the first step yourself. Showed some initiative. Saw something through. Got something done.
Personally I was at Uni, responded to an ad posted on a CS noticeboard (from the medical faculty.) Wrote them a bit of custom software. On their advice marketed to other universities. (Using Smail Mail, think early 90s). Made some international sales.
Apart from the signalling, it acts as a memorable topic to talk about in the job interview. You can display some passion, talk about what worked, what failed, the tech, the domain and so on.
Experience someone gives you I great. Experience you go out, capture, wrestle to the ground, and conquer yourself, is priceless.
-especially- I you are able to look back and identify everything you did wrong and would do better next time.