What I would do differently as a College Student Interested in Tech
This Medium article is a little outside of my wheelhouse, but I had some current college students ask me recently if there is anything I would have done differently if I had a do-over again in college. This was a really interesting question, especially because circumstances changed drastically for anyone who graduated in the Class of 2020, or, as in my case, the Class of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic when all of our universities (in the United States and elsewhere) went remote starting in March 2020. So fundamentally, I had to account for this in my response since I completed the last few semesters of college remotely.
That being said, I thought it would be good to write down my thoughts in the hopes any college students who read this can make better decisions about how to spend their remaining years in college if they are interested in pursuing a career in technology.
Tip #1: Don’t Waste Time Double Majoring or Minoring
When I was a freshman in college, I saw all my successful seniors, who did all the FAANG tech internships, double major in CS + X where X may have been any humanities subject, math, statistics, economics, or business. And, fundamentally, I felt like I had to overcompensate for not having enough experience/being not a CS major, and earning a second major or minor seemed like a good way to show you have “a lot on your plate”.
The problem with double majoring or minoring, especially for students interested in tech roles, is that it offers you very little time to 1) take classes in things that actually interest you since you are so busy fulfilling requirements for a second major or minor you don’t really need or find enjoyable, and 2) you aren’t able to focus on building great extracurriculars in areas you are passionate about academically — these could be opportunities to do research with faculty, pursue part-time internships/consulting gigs for startups or local businesses, or exploring interesting areas of technology that you enjoy such as blockchain, machine learning, or quantum computing.
I learned very quickly that by pursuing interesting side projects and consulting gigs with startups/VCs, I had a lot more to talk about in interviews that caught people’s attention rather than earning an extra degree or minor that would be an additional line-item on my resume.
Tip #2: You don’t have to Major in Computer Science/Engineering
It’s no secret the fastest and “easiest” way to break into tech is to become a software engineer by majoring in computer science or computer engineering. And while it’s true that starting salaries for software engineers as new grads is in the range of 90K-120K in Silicon Valley, there are a lot of great jobs for people who study other things. For example, if you want to study electrical or mechanical engineering, there is a lot of interesting work being done in robotics and cloud data center design; in the fields of material science and physics, there is a lot of applied work in nanotechnology, quantum computing, and semiconductor manufacturing. With a math or statistics background, you can also consider becoming a data scientist/analyst for a tech company.
And outside of STEM fields, there are a lot of business roles open to humanities, social sciences, and business students. With a non-technical background, if you have some understanding of psychology and user behavior, you could make for a great UX designer. If you have a quantitative economics background, you could consider data science as a career path; otherwise, with an economics or business background, there are a lot of roles open in sales, finance, marketing, customer success, and IT — all of which are great starting points for people with non-technical backgrounds. As long as you are willing to put in the time to understand new trends in technology and what cutting-edge work is being done at a high level, you can easily find roles in tech companies within these spaces.
Tip #3: Take some Computer Science classes
While I said above that you don’t need to major in computer science, it’s definitely a good idea to take CS classes. By studying a little bit of CS, you get to learn the fundamentals of data structures, operating systems, and algorithms, and you will be able to talk more freely with engineers at your future company and get a better understanding of your product you are working on or selling if you come from a nontechnical background. That being said, you definitely don’t need to minor in CS — just take the classes that interest you. If you like design, maybe classes related to UI/UX are enough. If you like AI, maybe some math classes plus a data structures class would be helpful. It’s really up to you.
The same rule is true if you are interested in roles outside software technologies, but instead, just take the relevant engineering classes you can. If you are interested in working in the medical device space, a couple classes in bioengineering and electrical engineering would certainly be helpful if you have the opportunity to take them.
And if you are worried about the difficulty level of these classes, that’s perfectly okay. Just take the class on a Pass/Fail basis as opposed to a letter grade. Remember, you are taking the class for learning, not for your GPA.
Tip #4: Start Something, Literally Anything
The best thing you can do if you are interested in tech is to become a “builder”. If you are interested in software engineering, build something. If you are interested in hardware engineering, build something. If you are interested in design or data science, build something (could be new modelling techniques for economic forecasts in an industry, designing web apps in figma, etc.). If you are interested in business roles in tech, build something — and yes, any type of nontech business counts.
Hackathons and group projects with friends are a great way to go about things. Even better is to go out of your way to find people who have different academic backgrounds from you since you can all bring different skill sets to the table and build something unique.
Tip #5: Risk Aversion will get in the Way of Success
In college, many students are so focused on internships and getting good grades — even I had the same mentality for my first two years. If I had to do it over again, I would have gotten more involved in the startup community right from the start and maybe joined an early stage company or worked as a growth intern at a VC firm since you learn a lot more about how to build products, manage teams, and handle any finances as part of the growing pains of starting something new.
If you are averse to risk, you can definitely still be successful, but taking more risks means you learn a lot more which can help you find the right job for yourself or actually find the right people to start a company with.
Tip #6: It’s Ok to NOT do Internships (sometimes better even)
Related to Tip #5 above, it’s okay to not do internships if you are taking risks or studying abroad to learn more about how other people perceive various technologies. There are a lot of great engineering schools outside the United States for study abroad both in Europe and Asia and there is a lot you can learn from understanding their cultures since in your job, you may interface with vendors and customers based outside the United States.
Additionally, if you may be interested in research and grad school, it’s often better to do research than do internships since you may get the opportunity to write/contribute to papers with faculty.
Fundamentally, internships may train you to think a certain way, especially if you work in a bigger company, and this type of thinking may not be conducive to creativity and entrepreneurship if that’s something you are interested in.
Tip #7: Don’t be the Kid trying to Namedrop Buzzwords
Last tip: don’t be the person who vomits tech buzzwords like blockchain, VR/AR, AI/ML, IoT, SaaS, B2B/B2C/DTC, metaverse, etc. on their resume and in interviews. It shows that you lack depth of understanding since you are not trying to actually understand a topic, but rather, give a really really really bad sales pitch about it. Instead, take the time to actually understand a topic, and be willing to learn as much as you can about it. You will find way more success by being genuine in your passions within various tech fields.
Final Take
Be authentic about your passions, don’t do stuff just for your resume, and go build cool stuff. If you’re a current college student, you have time to take risks and figure out what you want. There’s no need to follow a rigid path in order to be successful.
