jomendoz

Generally, in a CS major you will get accounted with many great things that are the baseline of computation, I really enjoyed my time in university with intense math discussions, really good friends and lots of new experiences.

But math passion started to peak at my last semesters when knowledge started to get denser and denser. And because I decided that I wanted to work in private sector instead of academics, I knew that that knowledge in very different areas of computation will irrevocably start to fade away. I don't regret having done my major though!

Enter real life work... Well, the real thing about real life work is that you have to manage a lot of non technical issues, namely coworkers, lead tech(s) planification, discussions about what to do next, what to do with inherited mess, resolutions in those regards, etc. Being practical before being correct. And then, balance practicality with correctness through simplifying.

I started to learning how to code in 2006 but I had a part time job in web development in 2010 and roughly I could say that I have used many different technologies since then. In every team you'll be working, you always need to handle those issues (at least in my limited experience).

Now a little bit of non-requested advice: 1. Don't worry too much about tech stacks, they change over time, at varying frequencies, but a rule I have seen is that almost no library or framework endures a lot of years without major adjustments or complete overhauls. 2. In CS major I learned a few tricks about the foundations of now-a-days flashy features of new tech stacks so don't let them blind you. Experiment with due diligence (I mean, new tech inherits a lot of risk in adoption, so test thoroughly and mindfully). 3. Balance practicality with correctness (again).

Lastly, let's talk about passion. I left this point intentionally as the last thing to talk about because it's something very important to me that I started to reflect intensively lately (I'm 27 btw). CS and computation in general is a whole world by itself, you can do thing for the very sake of doing that, solving math problems, coding new features, read HN for the sole intent and joy of knowing more. But that's not the only way to view this regards. CS and computations in a wider view is just a tool for something else. A tool for creating art, creating experiences with games, creating music, preparing trips around the world, exploring worlds far apart, learning different cultures and languages, helping people in need and so on and so for. So at the end, my last non-requested advice is to experiment life in different places, with different people. I'm very passionate about languages and linguistics in general so I can say firmly that easily I could spend a decade on working something related to language / linguitics. Take deadmau5, he did CS and was passionate about doing music. Take Paul Graham, he knew was passionate about CS and art, but later in his life he turned into an enterpreneur and created Y Combinator. Take solo-devs of indie games, they enjoy computation but are passionate with games. At this age, explore as many areas as you can and hit your passion right away, even if that mean to spend some years in the finding. I recommend to you reading the conception of DuckDuckGo by Gabriel Weinberg [1].

Have a nice journey.