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Tomorrow is my first day of college. I took 2 years gap from graduating highschool to figure everything out. I'm going in for computer science, hopefully cybersecurity is where I'll end up. Any advice lainbros?(USER WAS WARNED FOR THIS POST, You should always elaborate on your opinions rather than just spilling the soykaf.)

>>83568 an unbelievably oversatureated fields to find any gainful employment with, unless you network well. You know, nepotism and stuffs, go for a trade and have back problems by 30 or something

>>83569 I'm leaving a trade for this. I will say I'm a lot more sociable then most of the incelcore neets and trannies who go into the field.

>>83571 That will definitely help. >>83569 is right, you absolutely need to network. This isn't just something said by online cynics, it's the first piece of advice given out by the career services office of the university I went to. Make friends with your classmates, go to office hours when you're struggling even if you think you can work it out with a bit of time, and ask questions in class so the TAs and professors will know and remember you. Also, if you have the chance to do an internship/co-op then do it. A few months of even basic work at a company is worth infinitely more on a resume than a bunch of solo projects nobody else uses. Regarding saturation: that's only true for junior roles. Hiring is currently down for more senior roles since the Covid bubble popped, but that will correct itself soon enough. Everybody is always desperate for people with years of experience in their particular tech stack. There are a variety of reasons for this including the ability for code monkey work to be done remotely, which opens up roles to everybody from the locals to teams in India that will do it for a fraction of the price, and the tendency for the whole industry to pivot to the new hot thing every couple years*, which makes inexperienced hires a liability since they take a few months to on-board and by then whatever they've learned could be obsolete. Those are just a couple examples. *(Tired of hearing about AI yet? Remember when everything had to use blockchains? Even the Covid bubble was because of an online shopping trend that ultimately didn't take root.)

>>83569 That's true for those who just want to be programmers these days. But OP mentioned cyber-security specialty, and that's in hot demand and probably will remain so.

>>83568 Don't overdo partying. Be sure to take internships even if they are unpaid. If your colleges offers good cert(s) (examples: Security+ or CCNA), you should try to get it. Try to get a summer job.

Never skip lectures, use anki for memorization t. newly graduated masters student

>>83594 What do you think of software like logseq?

>>83594 I ranked near the top in my masters program and would say the exact opposite. Lectures are a waste of time and you need to properly understand the material instead of memorising facts

>>83621 agreed. just depends on the lecture(r)

>>83568 Bottom Line Up Front: DON'T DO COMPUTER SCIENCE. IT IS NOT AS INTERESTING AS IT LOOKS. CYBERSECURITY GETS BORING ESPECIALLY FAST. If you really want to do it, then do it at home on your own computer. There's little reason to spend all that money on college to have people tell you how to type things out on a computer. Get certs or whatever. First, realize that college is an exercise in the basics for every class you take, so don't expect much from any one of them if you're competent in your chosen field. If you really want to be stuck behind a computer your entire life go for an EE degree because you'll learn programming in addition to useful stuff that requires much more upfront cost. Network and make friends in college; use the "associative mating" thing to your advantage since you have it. My tangential advice is to take economics classes and see if you can study current/political affairs of a certain region, those classes were the most useful and extensible for me. Go for practical mathematics; advaned research algebra can be fun but it's mostly reading and following rulesets. Diversify the classes you take so you aren't a one-trick pony, breadth is good for undergrads. I have a CS degree from a prestigious college but made zero friends, industry contacts, and I probably insulted most of my professors (the only cool ones retired or died). Nowadays I recycle things for money, work odd jobs, and rebuild engines I find alone. Godspeed anon, may the last seasons of your youth be fruitful.

>>83640 Not OP but thanks for your reply I was always interested in a math degree but this made me think about taking more applied classes that could help me do something like stats/finance (for example) in the future instead of pure(r) math which was my original interest Maybe the same way I already program at home on my own I can also do pure math by self studying I'll need to reflect on that as I get more experience but I'll make sure to learn as much as I can in different areas as an undergrad so that I can move in whatever direction I find useful

>>83593 >Don't overdo partying. Setting the guy up for failure already! How's he gonna be able to network at DEF CON if he can't throw down?

>>83640 >If you really want to be stuck behind a computer your entire life go for an EE degree because you'll learn programming in addition to useful stuff that requires much more upfront cost. Agreed. Compsci doesn't necessarily teach you more about programming than EE either, if you're a lainon you'd be more likely to be frustrated by the abundance of useless classes. And an engineering background just sounds so much better, right? You may miss something like algorithms and data structures, you can reasonably cover that yourself. I started uni in CS but eventually moved to EE. The engineering classes are far more disciplined, interesting, and useful. It's also made me love electrical more as well, if I don't get the programming gig I want, I wouldn't mind working in say, power systems instead.

>>83640 What exactly do they teach you in CS? I have an IT degree but im not from US and its not CS its loosely translates to "Information Science" with a mix of computer engineering & math. I got Statistics, lin algebra, ... from math department and computer architecture/programming/compilers/algo design ... from CS department. It can be useful but to be honest i would want more math less CS because trying to do something meaningful i always feel the skill check in my math skills not obscure CS knowledge like how a gpu rasterizer works. There are also double degrees doing a mix between departments. Might be good to connect CS into something useful, heard about it way too late to even consider swapping.

I hope your first day is soykaf and you get bummed in the toilet.