Bro I’m in final year and literally know NOTHING, am I doomed? 😭
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Okay so… I just entered my final year and ngl I’m lowkey panicking.
I wasted my last 3 years doing basically nothing. I don’t know programming properly, never built a single real-world project, and now placements are around the corner.Like fr, is there still any chance for me to pick up a skill, actually build stuff, and somehow get job-ready before it’s too late? Or should I just accept my fate lol.
Also random question (pls don’t roast me): is there even a platform where you can:
- buy projects (so I can at least see how things work)
- get mentorship/teaching from people who know their stuff
- and later maybe even sell my own projects when I get better
Basically like a one-stop place to learn + build + get guidance. Does that even exist or am I just daydreaming here?
Any advice would be a lifesaver
---I just recently graduated with a CS bachelors. Honestly I didn't learn too much in college either. Most stuff that was taught in college was stuff I already knew from learning Java on my own so I could make Minecraft mods as a tween.
I wish that modern and widely used frameworks, libraries, etc were something that were taught at college but unfortunately you have to teach yourself this stuff. Right now I am working on and nearly finished with a Spring Boot + React project to add to my portfolio and I had to teach myself both of those. Whatever it is you want to learn, there should be docs and plenty of tutorials out there for it.
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If you got through 3 years of university without flunking out, you can't be doing that badly. If you want projects to look at, try GitHub. Only has a few million of them.
Open source projects are a great resource. My understanding of good software development practices skyrocketed after contributing to a couple.
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Yeah, true — programming isn’t really something you can fake, especially in a competitive market. If the fundamentals are weak, it shows during interviews. And you’re right, a lot of people with decent knowledge still struggle to land jobs these days, so for someone who coasted through college it feels extra overwhelming.
That said, I don’t think it always has to mean a hard pivot away from tech. I’ve seen people catch up when they start small: buying or downloading existing projects, breaking them apart to see how things actually work, then slowly tweaking/building their own. Pair that with mentorship or guidance from people in the industry, and it creates a shortcut compared to trying to figure out everything alone. Even if it doesn’t guarantee a job, it at least gives you a portfolio and confidence to back yourself.
For those who decide to pivot — HR, ops, etc. like you said — fair enough. But I feel like having an option in between (learn + build + guidance in one place) could really help students who don’t want to give up on tech completely.
I’ve seen people catch up when they start small: buying or downloading existing projects, breaking them apart to see how things actually work, then slowly tweaking/building their own.
That's trying to teach yourself, when a college education didn't work...
Pair that with mentorship or guidance from people in the industry,
What you want is an internship.
Do not under any circumstances pay someone to "mentor" you, no employer will care. An internship looks so much better, it's at least an institutional scam that people still respect.
But I feel like having an option in between (learn + build + guidance in one place) could really help students who don’t want to give up on tech completely.
This isn't an either/or scenario...
You're thinking you have a year, how many calendar months is it to graduation? You should be applying to jobs after this semester, the market fucking sucks.
You need a solid plan, a backup plan, an "oh shit" plan, and an absolutely last resort plan.
You'll be an adult before you know it, and unless you have a personal safety net, you may not have one.
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Any advice would be a lifesaver
---Stop wasting your time would be my first advice.
If you really feel like you've wasted your time for the first 3 years, change. Change now. Not tomorrow, not next year, not after you manage to find the real 'good place that will help you learn something'. Do it now, where you are. Start learning, ask questions, discuss with teachers (and fellow students, too), invest yourself.
It's never too late, no matter how late. But there is no shortcut to doing the work.
Basically like a one-stop place to learn + build + get guidance. Does that even exist or am I just daydreaming here?
Like already mentioned, that's the place you're in right now. But, allow me to insist on that, it requires you to put in the work. Like with learning anything new.
The other suggestion I wanted to make was already given to you: since you seem to be into coding, start actually coding stuff. A diploma is not worth much compared to experience you acquire by making stuff and writing you own code for real.
There are plenty open source projects looking for someone to help push them forward if you have no idea on what to work. But if that's the case I would also suggest you question your motivation to study that.
CS grads are in the worst position ever. University is often mistaken for vocational education, however that would be a technical college.
I have spent a lot of time crossing between a practical education environment, aimed at production skills, and university, aimed at thinking ability and abstract skills.
Honestly, my experience is that students are much more capable in a production environment after a two week boot camp than after three years of university on a roughly parallel topic. However, the non-idiots in the academic case will be able to understand arguments about the context of what they are doing better.
The point is that a philosophy degree might be more employable than a CS degree in some situations. The dude who cofounded Flickr and Slack was working off of an english degree. Use your degree for understanding and some projects for knowledge.
I also have a humanities degree and work in IT, with a wide range of applied skills I learned from necessity instead of a prof.
So create the necessity for skills by making useful shit, or even just fixing things. Find friends and make a silly app. Volunteer at a nonprofit and improve their CRM database. Build a homelab that you share with roommates. Find the local permacomputing group and help them turn all those shitty win10 obsolete machines into sleek linux machines. Ignore money and employment as task criteria for a few years, or freelance IT gigs.
Solve real world problems for real experience.
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Open source projects are a great resource. My understanding of good software development practices skyrocketed after contributing to a couple.
Definitely. Also looks good on a resume.
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Listen, diploma and knowledge are parallel things. A diploma is a nice document. It opens some doors. But can't substitute knowledge. Just write something useful. You'll learn a lot in the process. Learn a lot of USEFUL things. So just start writing. Writing is useful and fun. Yes, you can drink and write. You can smoke and write. But you must write. Not a stupid artificial book problem solvers. Write something you really would like to have.
Facts. Diploma’s just a piece of paper, man. What really counts is the stuff you actually make. Writing, building, whatever — as long as it’s useful and not just textbook bs. Half the time we get stuck solving fake problems no one cares about, instead of creating something we’d actually use ourselves.
Even if it’s messy at first, just grab some project, tear it apart, mess with it, make it your own. That’s where the real learning happens. Guidance helps, sure, but end of the day it’s just you building stuff you vibe with. That’s what actually sticks
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I don't know about the industry specifically, but learning and applying the knowledge takes a certain number of work hours. This is good advice to start putting in hours. OP is asking if there are shortcuts. You can optimise to get the most out of your time, but there's really no way around having to put in the hours. His fate will depend on what assessment/sign-off involves and how soon it will be.
Yeah true, no magic hack here — you gotta put in the hours no matter what. Can’t dodge that part. But I feel like there are ways to make those hours hit harder. Like instead of grinding random theory, grab a project that already exists, break it down, mess with it, and learn as you rebuild. Cuts out a lot of wasted time.
Plus if you’ve got someone experienced to point out “yo, focus here, skip that” it saves weeks of trial and error. So yeah, hours are non-negotiable, but you can still optimize the grind so it doesn’t feel like you’re starting from zero.
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If you went through school without learning anything, it means you're a normal person.
Don't worry too much. What you need from your school is a degree, not an education. You do your own education. The degree doesn't mean you know anything: it only tells your employer you were patient and dogged enough to sit through boring classes and terrible teachers all the way through.
That's the real value for your future boss: they like someone who can withstand and survive the idiocy of the workplace. You getting your degree is reasonable proof that you won't be a snowflake and leave them hanging when the going gets a little tough.
But make no mistake: you know nothing out of school. Nobody does. All employers know that. The best you can hope to get out of school is the ability to learn all the rest quickly after you're hired.
Haha yeah, that hits. School’s mostly just endurance training — sit through boring crap, collect the paper, prove you can stick it out. Doesn’t really mean you walk out job-ready. And you’re right, nobody actually knows anything straight out of school, the real test is how fast you can pick stuff up once you’re tossed into the fire.
That’s why I feel like the smartest move now is just to start building/rewiring your brain through actual projects. Even small ones. Tear something apart, rebuild it, mess with it till it makes sense. Pair that with a bit of guidance from people already in the grind and boom — suddenly you look less like a clueless fresher and more like someone who can adapt fast. And that’s honestly all most companies are looking for anyway.
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Felt the same when I graduated from university. Three things:
- You know more than you think.
- The actual best thing you get from university is that it teaches you ways of thinking and structure your mind.
- No one expects you to be proficient when you start working. No worries, you will learn things by doing.
Keep third in mind. Do your best and don't get frustrated!
Yeah, that’s real. Half the time we forget we actually picked up more than we think — even if it’s just knowing how to structure problems or think a certain way. That stuff does carry over.
And true, no one expects a fresher to roll in like a senior dev. What matters is showing you can learn fast once you’re in the game. That’s why I keep coming back to projects — building stuff, even small hacks, forces you to learn by doing. And if you can get a little feedback along the way, you level up way quicker. That combo of “mindset from uni + learn-by-building” feels like the real win.
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seriously. i struggled early, and have zero college. but mentor now the folks just out of college in our corp. I’m 46. They are nervous with new robotics degrees trying to tell me about ROS2 and I’m like … no, here’s how modbus works. Get at it. Tinker. Break stuff. Learn. it’s ok!
Haha respect
that’s the real deal — no college but still mentoring grads shows how little the paper matters compared to hands-on. Books say ROS2, real world says “yo, here’s modbus, break it till it clicks.”That’s honestly the kind of guidance most freshers need — someone who can cut through the noise and say “this is what actually matters, go tinker.” Makes me think if more of us had that kinda space + mentorship earlier, we wouldn’t waste years stuck in theory.
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People like you are the best kind of mentors, imho
100%. The ones who’ve actually been in the trenches and tinkered their way up make the best mentors. They cut the fluff and show you the real stuff that matters. That kinda guidance + just diving into projects is literally what helps folks like us go from “clueless” to “okay I got this.
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That's my favorite thing about switching jobs - low expectations!
However, I don't like how the training these days is usually "read through some old tickets, you'll figure it out, see you in a few days!"
Lol true, low expectations are kinda a blessing — nobody’s waiting for you to be a genius on day one. But yeah, the “read some old tickets and figure it out” training style is rough. You end up wasting time guessing what matters.
Way better when you’ve got someone to point you straight or at least a solid project to mess with. Hands-on + a bit of guidance always beats digging through dusty docs alone.
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If you got through 3 years of university without flunking out, you can't be doing that badly. If you want projects to look at, try GitHub. Only has a few million of them.
True, if you survived 3 years without failing out, you’re not as hopeless as you think
. And yeah, GitHub is stacked with projects — problem is, it’s kinda overwhelming when you don’t know where to even start or what’s worth digging into.That’s why I keep thinking how useful it’d be if there was a space where stuff was a bit more structured — like projects you can actually pick up, tear down, get some guidance on, and then later flip into your own. Way less random than drowning in a million repos.
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Open source projects are a great resource. My understanding of good software development practices skyrocketed after contributing to a couple.
100%, open source is like a crash course you can’t get in class. Real code, real people reviewing your stuff, you pick up good habits fast. The only tricky part is knowing where/how to jump in — most repos look intimidating as hell when you’re new.
That’s why I feel like having projects you can start smaller with, break apart, and get some feedback on would be such a smoother ramp. Once you build that confidence, contributing to big OSS projects doesn’t feel so scary.
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Definitely. Also looks good on a resume.
For sure — OSS on a resume hits different, shows you actually worked on real code with real teams. Way better than just listing “C++ basics” or whatever. And honestly, even small projects you’ve hacked together look solid if you can talk about what you built and what you learned. Pair that with some guidance and you’ve basically got a mini-portfolio that stands ou
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Basically like a one-stop place to learn + build + get guidance. Does that even exist
It does exist and you just spent three years there.
Haha fair point
college should’ve been that one-stop place… but let’s be real, most of us walked out knowing way less than we thought we would. A degree proves patience, not that you actually built stuff.That’s kinda why I keep wishing there was a version of that idea done right — where you actually learn by building, mess with real projects, and get feedback along the way. Would’ve saved a lot of people from the “3 years in and still clueless” panic.
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I just recently graduated with a CS bachelors. Honestly I didn't learn too much in college either. Most stuff that was taught in college was stuff I already knew from learning Java on my own so I could make Minecraft mods as a tween.
I wish that modern and widely used frameworks, libraries, etc were something that were taught at college but unfortunately you have to teach yourself this stuff. Right now I am working on and nearly finished with a Spring Boot + React project to add to my portfolio and I had to teach myself both of those. Whatever it is you want to learn, there should be docs and plenty of tutorials out there for it.
Haha wow, Minecraft mods as a tween? Respect
. Totally feel you — college teaches the basics, but anything actually used in the real world you’re usually left to figure out on your own.Props for grinding Spring + React on your own — that’s exactly how you actually learn stuff. Makes me wish there was a space where you could start with real projects, tinker, get some guidance, and slowly build a portfolio without scrambling last minute. Way less chaos than figuring it all out solo in the final year.
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100%, open source is like a crash course you can’t get in class. Real code, real people reviewing your stuff, you pick up good habits fast. The only tricky part is knowing where/how to jump in — most repos look intimidating as hell when you’re new.
That’s why I feel like having projects you can start smaller with, break apart, and get some feedback on would be such a smoother ramp. Once you build that confidence, contributing to big OSS projects doesn’t feel so scary.
There are plenty of small open source projects. It’s also good experience just figuring out how to build from source and make some changes even if you never open a PR.
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True, if you survived 3 years without failing out, you’re not as hopeless as you think
. And yeah, GitHub is stacked with projects — problem is, it’s kinda overwhelming when you don’t know where to even start or what’s worth digging into.That’s why I keep thinking how useful it’d be if there was a space where stuff was a bit more structured — like projects you can actually pick up, tear down, get some guidance on, and then later flip into your own. Way less random than drowning in a million repos.
Pick out some open source project you like and look into contributing. But, yeah it'll take some digging.
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The fact that you are questioning yourself means that you have the ability to introspect. I work at a major university and hire/manage people of all ages--as young as 15 and as old as 65. I have seen all kinds from the super smart and motivated to those who will sit in their position and do the minimum until they retire or those who are so incompetent or incapable of learning that they wash out of their own careers.
You probably compared yourself to that small number of people who did robotics club in high school, got into the elite CS/CE program, and already have a job offer from Meta for $150k. Don't do that, those people aren't normal and have never learned to just live. They also tend to experience constant and unending anxiety, which is why they drive themselves so hard. Do you really want to live that way?
I am always looking for that person who questions themself. If you are concerned about your ability to do something, you will put in the time to make sure that you do it well. If you have a Dunning-Kruger thing going on, then you're going to be a terrible employee and I will eventually resent you and find a way to get you out of my department.
My advice:
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accept that you will suffer some form of imposter syndrome for life. This is fine--it is better to be a bit insecure than a bit overconfident. You will constantly work to make sure that what you output is the best quality it can be simply because you are worried that it isn't.
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accept that you have little experience in your industry. You're not supposed to as a new graduate. The whole point of your training has been in learning how to think professionally and approach a problem academically. Once you have that basis, you can learn the details.
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be kind to yourself. You're your own person and you don't need to use others as a metric. Avoid the "I'm supposed to have..." sort of thinking and just do the best you can.
Running Krueger's other meaning - the more you learn the more you'll realize how little you know.
I'm a senior in the field and I still go into every job feeling completely unqualified. No one knows what they're doing day 1, day 30, by day 90 you just hope to know enough to be contributing a bit. It takes years to be the go-to guy at a job though.
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