Hello everyone! My name is Sushant. I am going to tell you five things that you should do in your first year of engineering. But before I do, let me tell you about me. I am a final-year B.Tech. CSE student at Maharishi Markandeshwar Deemed University. Currently, I am working as a software engineer intern at Zypp Electric. Before that, I was working at Zocket.ai. I work with different technologies and languages, but mostly I revolve around the backend development domain.
Choose a langauge
The first thing that you have to do is pick a core computer science programming language and start learning it. I am not talking about development-based languages but core programming languages, for example, C/C++, Java, and Python. You can pick any one of the languages from these three, but I would recommend you go with C/C++ because it is the core of computer science, and most of the development technologies and languages that are trending today, for example, Node.js, Golang, Django, etc., are built using low-level programming in C/C++.
Pointers and object-orientated programming are the most important topics for a newbie programmer. If you spend your first year doing this, I guarantee you that you will have a great understanding of that particular language and how programming works.
Start Data Structures & Algorithms
I am assuming that you will spend at least three hours everyday in front of your laptop during your first year. So what you can do is practice and learn data structures and algorithms for at least 1 hour a day. This will increase your logic-making capabilities. You will learn how you can convert real-life scenarios into code. I don’t say that you go very hard on data structures and algorithms, but you should know what they are, how many types they are, and how you can implement them. Also, you can try some easy-level questions from Leetcode. I won’t give any more advice on data structures and algorithms because I am the kind of person who doesn’t like data structures and algorithms, and I did not spend a lot of time during my college years doing these. Instead, I spend most of my time learning several cool technologies and languages.
Maintain GitHub Profile
Make sure to create a GitHub account. If you don’t know what it is, then just understand that it is a place where you can put your code and project and showcase your skills to the world. I still remember that I was in an interview, and the interviewer asked me to open my GitHub profile, and he was amazed with my profile because I have maintained it for the last 2 years. I have a decent number of projects and contributions. Also, if you apply to a company, they will also ask you to give your GitHub profile URL, and giving an empty profile URL is a clear rejection. If you want to see how I have organised my GitHub, you can click on this link to see it.
Maintain LinkedIn Profile
Just like GitHub, LinkedIn is also an important part of your journey. If you don’t know what LinkedIn is, then basically it is a social media site for professionals. You can make your professional profile, show your achievements and skills, and connect with other professionals. There is also a job portal that you can use to browse and apply for jobs. I still remember that I was in my second year, and I got my first internship through LinkedIn. I had a decent profile with all the sections filled out and all the details mentioned, so it gave me an additional benefit. Again, if you want to see my LinkedIn profile, you can use this link. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. If you have any questions, you can message me there.
One thing to remember is that just making a LinkedIn profile is not enough; you should be active on that. Follow people who are related to your domain. Like their posts, comment on their posts, and show that you also exist. And connect with people whom you want to be like. This is called networking, and it is most important. A good network will help you land a good job in the future.
Join Technical Clubs
If your college have technical clubs, then you must join them, or at least you should take part in events and competitions that they organize. Back in 2021, when I first entered college, I just knew how to program basic stuff, and I joined the Google Developer Student Club at my university. With the guidance of my seniors, I explored and learnt a lot of things. We went to hackathon together, organised technical workshops, and created several projects. Then, in 2023, I was also elected as president of the Google Developer Student Club. Whenever I sit in on an interview, I always talk about this part of my college life because it was incredible.
Let’s Conclude Here
I hope that this post was helpful. Again, if you want to connect with me, you can just click on this link and directly message me. Also, I have created a WhatsApp community where I will be sharing links to my blog posts that I regularly write. If you don’t want to miss any posts, then you can join the community. If you have any suggestions for me related to my next blog post, then you can comment them down. I will write on the topic. Thank you.
Thanku for your advice and I m going to do all these in my 1st year
Wow your journey is an inspiration to 1st year students like us
Thanks