>>> Coming from a smaller college, it makes it difficult to reach some of those opportunities. Bullshit. >> I am a technical person... what can I do to prepar

>>> Coming from a smaller college, it makes it difficult to reach some of those opportunities. Bullshit. >> I am a technical person... what can I do to prepare to develop. Im miss quoting you on purpose. Cause you have all the right ideas just not in good order! You have 4 years to just devour what ever you can. Learn in classes. Work on open source. Develop OTHER interests (all the electives you are going to have to take, find out what you like around those). Have a summer job, or an internship. It doesn't matter where because programing is almost everywhere. You could work at Walmart and graduate and be ready to go work on their tech team cause you bring a blend of retail and tech that they dont get the chance to hire for. Dont ignore your networking. Make friends, be nice, you dont have to be a door mat, or a push over, but people who ask for help that means you giving them your time ALWAYS SAY YES. They need you to help them move or swing a hammer for a day do it (more so if there is free beer). Figure out what you like in tech and do some open source work. Help with an existing project. Be a user of it and a contributor. It doesn't have to be one it could be 10 of them. These are also people in your network and will give you invaluable experience going forward. Most of all learn the basics from the past. The history of unix, why everything is the way it is. LDAP, DNS, SQL, understand these things (you dont have to be a master just know why they are that way and be able to speak to having used them once! Never forget that you like this stuff. Dont ever stop "playing" with things, have spaces where you can break things, make major mistakes and NOT screw up your job or your livelihood! Its always going to be the best way to learn!