Senior here hoping to major in CS or something computer related. First wanted to say I love love love CC. No shame on reddit, but CC provides more meaningful feedback
After college apps are done I’m met with uncertainty-- what should I actually do for the next 4 months? summer? relax with friends/ enjoy my senior year and or start some coding projects? What to do to best set me up for my freshman year in college?
Im just really anxious about the future. I missed out on a lot of opportunities in HS and regret a lot of things. Dont want to repeat it again.
Read. Choosing suitable titles can be a challenge though, so I’ll offer a few ideas. If your interest in computer science overlaps with an interest in math and science, and the cultures in which these are produced, consider the autobiographical Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! and Nasar’s biography of mathematician John Nash, A Beautiful Mind. I’ve yet to read Hodges’ biography of Alan Turing, which would pertain more directly to computer science, but I’ve heard that it’s excellent as well. If you might like engaging fiction notable for the intelligence of its writing style, consider The Stories of John Cheever.
Slightly different answer: You can ease off the gas, but don’t take your foot off the throttle just yet, particularly as an aspiring CS major.
It’s not 2020-21 anymore, and while no one knows what the market will look like in 2029, first time CS jobs are not the easiest to come by right now. The key to full time employment is one or more internships, and the toughest internship to get is the first one. That would be my focus for this summer: an internship which you develop your CS skills. If you can’t find that, then any full-time summer job is also helpful, but relevant experience is better. Do not spend your entire summer on the beach with your friends hanging out, as fun as that sounds.
If you haven’t already, you can also start setting up a Linkedin account and build a resume. Personal projects are good, but employment > personal projects. CS intern hiring starts in the late summer (think August) of the year prior, meaning right around the time you will be starting college. That makes it very difficult for freshman to snag internships, but if you already have some experience from the summer prior, and have already got your resume ready, you will be way ahead of the game.
No matter what you decide to do this summer, I would make sure that you start school relaxed and well-rested. So whether you need 1, 2, or however many weeks in place to ensure that, do that.
@Blossom has spoken about this before, but don’t get fixated on the word “internship” or “CS internship.” Maybe it’s working at a local grocery store and coding a program to figure out low inventory by supplier so that reordering items is easier for management. Maybe it’s working for a local rec department and gathering area birth rates from census data and doing an analysis on what their future needs are going to be in terms of the number of kids for which they’ll need to provide recreational programming and in what parts of town. You can check out local employers and just ask them if there’s anything you can do that would help them that involves CS skills (and you can provide suggestions of possible projects for which you have the skills). And if you can’t find a paying position, and if you don’t need the money, you may find a place that will let you work as an unpaid intern (i.e. volunteer) to get experience for your resume.
Good luck as you prepare for your college journey!
