Hey everyone! First time posting here so please have mercy on me. I am a 19 year old international student in the US majoring in Computer Science and my education sucks! I do not understand anything of what the professor says and then I have to go find the same material somewhere else on the Internet. I am still making A’s in his class because I am decent at recognizing patterns and passing tests. I have two years left until I graduate and I want to find a job here so I can support my family back home. I was wondering if completing just the freecodecamp curriculum and being good at leetcode on top of my college diploma would help me land a decent job
my 2 cents is that you should finish the degree that you are in. Keep doing what you are doing (or more) as needed to learn the material.
The degree will come in handy and the school’s career fairs etc will be very handy.
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That’s the plan. I would be kicked out of the country without a diploma, so I still need it. I was just wondering if having a degree and getting my actual experience from leetcode and fcc is enough to get a job. TBH I am really stressing about this because I already have Algorithms and Data structures, Networking, Intro to OOP, Web dev and Machine Learning classes under my belt without much experience or knowledge in any of those. I’m thinking about spending all of my winter studying on FCC. Any suggestions there?
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The thing with college in the US is that classes by themselves are not the only things you pay for with your tuition.
As such, if you only go to class, and get your degree you are inherently not getting everything you could from your college experience. No I’m not talking about dorm parties (if your college even has those) I’m talking about all the optional stuff.
stuff like:
- job fairs
- clubs
- access to projects
- access to faculty
- access to research opportunities
- networking with your peers
All of these you could 100% skip and still get your degree, or invest into some or all of them and get the most of your tuition and experience.
FreeCodeCamp can help give you more “practical” skills, but colleges, by design are a center for learning and growth. This isn’t necessarily only about the classes, but also what goes on outside of the class.
I suggest to look into some or all of these opportunities and leverage them if you can. You have time in your college career to invest into a few of them if they are available, and any of these will help on your resume and job seeking.
It’s also worth mentioning there is nothing stopping you from doing multiple things, including extra stuff like freeCodeCamp to stand out. However colleges provide lots of “extras” you can leverage which can make all the difference.
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I suspect you are learning more than you realize. And things like leetcode are great for practicing algorithms, which are only part of coding.
I think having a degree is great. Other than that, actually building things would impress future employers.
As to learning your university stuff, can’t you form a study group or something? There must be other people in the same boat.
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It’s understandable that you might be feeling frustrated with college classes, but remember that learning can happen in unexpected ways. You’re right, coding is not just about algorithms, and actually building things can be impressive to future employers. Additionally, forming a study group can be a great idea to collaborate with fellow students and support each other’s learning.
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I totally get the frustration with college classes, but remember, learning can take unexpected forms! Coding is more than just algorithms, and hands-on projects can impress future employers.
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I was also very frustreted after covit, I could not countinue my classes again, So I left my class and took https://lead-academy.org/course/functional-skills-maths-level-2 and some NVQ qualifications
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