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You have already mentioned the top one for me: passion. Colleges rarely teach you what you need to know professionally - they can't, tech moves too fast. Inste

You have already mentioned the top one for me: passion. Colleges rarely teach you what you need to know professionally - they can't, tech moves too fast. Instead, they teach you how to learn what you need to know. This is an important distinction because it should inform your approach to your professional growth. 1. Stay passionate both about software and your own growth/education in it. 2. Start some personal projects and, important, work on them until they reach a place where you can talk about what you learned, the techs you used and be able to at least show a page or two of it working. 3. Be forthcoming in interviews about your desire to create. The longer i am in software the more importance i put on hiring creative people. Finally, think of software development as modern day blacksmithing. Those who do well have a few things in common: passion, persistence and a great set of artisans (mentors) to learn under. Prioritize finding some people who have compelling opinions on software development and work with them. It will change how you build software and the value you will bring to teams in the future.

amandavinci 10y ago
I'm following the first two points earnestly and I'll start with the third one as well. And the mentor aspect is what I'm missing right now. So, I have planned to contribute to open source and/or apply to GSOC '17. Any other ideas how to find suitable mentors?
- liquidise 10y ago
  You are well on your way. The fact that you are posing the question already speaks highly of your drive, so hold your head high. I'm sure others will have better advice than i do about finding mentors. In my case my first CTO out of school was a major impact. I should also say that mentors may not be above you, but peers. Even in college i became close friends with other developers who, collectively, influenced one another with our learnings and opinions. A rising tide raises all ships, as it were.
- MarkMc 10y ago
  It's worth putting your contact details on your HN about page
  - amandavinci 10y ago
    Just did that :)
scarface74 10y ago
"Colleges rarely teach you what you need to know professionally - they can't, tech moves too fast. Instead, they teach you how to learn what you need to know. This is an important distinction because it should inform your approach to your professional growth." That's B.S. that lazy college professors use who have their heads so stuck in academia that they don't take the time to keep up with technology. Technology stacks don't change that fast in the enterprise that they couldn't do a better job of preparing students and teaching them how to hit the ground running at a company. During the beginning of 2013, for standard enterprise development, Java and .Net along with Bootstrap and Jquery were popular - they still are used today. Back in 2013, the databases that were used in the enterprise are still popular today. iPhone and Android were the most popular mobile platforms. Sure keeping up with the latest front end framework may not be easy to teach, but courses in JavaScript, CSS, etc would still be enough.

amandavinci 10y ago

I'm following the first two points earnestly and I'll start with the third one as well. And the mentor aspect is what I'm missing right now. So, I have planned to contribute to open source and/or apply to GSOC '17. Any other ideas how to find suitable mentors?

liquidise 10y ago
You are well on your way. The fact that you are posing the question already speaks highly of your drive, so hold your head high. I'm sure others will have better advice than i do about finding mentors. In my case my first CTO out of school was a major impact. I should also say that mentors may not be above you, but peers. Even in college i became close friends with other developers who, collectively, influenced one another with our learnings and opinions. A rising tide raises all ships, as it were.
MarkMc 10y ago
It's worth putting your contact details on your HN about page
- amandavinci 10y ago
  Just did that :)

scarface74 10y ago

"Colleges rarely teach you what you need to know professionally - they can't, tech moves too fast. Instead, they teach you how to learn what you need to know. This is an important distinction because it should inform your approach to your professional growth." That's B.S. that lazy college professors use who have their heads so stuck in academia that they don't take the time to keep up with technology. Technology stacks don't change that fast in the enterprise that they couldn't do a better job of preparing students and teaching them how to hit the ground running at a company. During the beginning of 2013, for standard enterprise development, Java and .Net along with Bootstrap and Jquery were popular - they still are used today. Back in 2013, the databases that were used in the enterprise are still popular today. iPhone and Android were the most popular mobile platforms. Sure keeping up with the latest front end framework may not be easy to teach, but courses in JavaScript, CSS, etc would still be enough.