What to pursure after graduation?

#computerscience #devjournal #motivation #beginners

If you've just graduated as a computer science major and if Programming is something you are interested in, Then you should try and focus on any one of these.

Data Scientist - Learn and specialise more in DSA based problems. Platforms like LeetCode can help you become a better competitive programmer with good tests over algorithm knowledge.
Web Development (Vue/React) - The world of web is immensely huge and has everything you need as far as you choose the right tool. Else it can get overwhelming sometimes.
App development (Native/PWA/Flutter) - There was a time when native app development was the only way to go but now that you have amazing hybrid app tools and PWA with regards to web development. I think it's safe to say learning web development can strike two goals in one shot.
UI/UX Design (Figma/Adobe XD) - If you've seen enough of boring UIs out there and would like to kick it up a notch, it would be a good start to study different design concepts like "Material design, neuromorphism, Flat design" and then play with it as you see fit.
API handling & Testing (Postman/Swagger/Php/Node/Laravel) - If you're to work for a company you would definitely need to handle the backend for their given frontend application. Being able to create - test and handle API is a good start. You might have heard the term "REST" in a lot of places, now is a good time to learn more about it.
Database/Backend services (Cloud services, Mongo, Redis etc) - Depending on the type of frontend you are working on, it's essential to choose the right backend to handle the flow within the application, else it would be a cumbersome work trying to deal with it.
AI/ML - To put it straight, AI and ML are definitely not on the easier domains with regards to the above mentioned titles. This takes a lot of patience, practice and effort to pull it through. If you do manage to pull it through then consider that there's nothing stopping you from getting you what you need in this domain.
AR/VR - If you haven't heard about the hype of Metaverse, NFT and what not. You are either living under a cave or you've become a wise person. None the less, dealing with AR/VR can be quite some fun if things tend to workd right. A good place to start would be modelling your 3D objects (Blender) and using AR tools like Google's ARcore.

Let me know what you think! Would love to know what you're pursuing right now and how it got started!

Top comments (7)

Ben Halpern • Jan 18 '22

You sort of touched on a bit of this, but here are a few thoughts:

QA Automation: It is, honestly, hard to find people who are great at this. And I think it's more fun than people realize. Good, healthy, automation is an evolving field. It's not getting all the press like AI — but the future definitely involves AI/ML here, so it is a sub-discipline. I think authentically acquiring a broad skillset here can open up a lot of opportunities. If you don't wind up sticking here, it's a secondary skill that applies to most jobs here.
InfoSec: Evergreen field, constantly evolving, tons of opportunity. Can be hard to break in to as far as I can tell, but if you put the work in on acquiring the skills to do the job and also break into the industry — getting involved and networking. It can go a long way.
SRE as a specialization: Learn about observability, risk management, etc. Another growing field — and at the very least, if you learn the ins and outs, your resumé as, perhaps, a backend generalist are going to look that much cleaner.

IMO any of these disciplines are either a path to pursue, or at least, something that gives your resumé a bit more oomph.

Trishiraj • Jan 18 '22

That's some strong valid input. This is good, having the views of everyone's take on this is sort of helping in refining the thought process in selecting our domain more efficiently.
Thanks for the input!

Sherry Day • Jan 18 '22

I'd caution folks to not get too caught up in anything with a lot of hype: Just because there is going to be a lot of competition in these fields — and sometimes they just aren't as mature in terms of total number of openings. So you sort of get the worst of both worlds. There is definitely an opportunity in a space like VR to gain skills that a lot of experienced devs don't have, and it might be a lot of fun, but I'd be weary of putting too many of my eggs in that basket if you're not already experiencing career momentum there.

Trishiraj • Jan 18 '22

Totally agreed with your take. Although for fresh graduates, They might wanna touch down on multiple platforms before they get to choose their piece of cake. So thought of maybe just spitting out some of the most common ones that in terms of jobs are trending right now.

Tosh • Jan 19 '22

You can also try looking for an industry that motivates you instead of pigeonholing yourself into a particular role, before you even know what those roles are like.

Trishiraj • Jan 19 '22

Exactly the reason why few of the common ones have been mentioned above.
Obviously, Its best to go for what motivates one rather than running around like headless chickens and beating the bush for things people don't seem to comprehend, just because they chose the wrong field.