#Is taking all the hard classes “worth it”?

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

sullen geode
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the class being hard or not isnt the only measure i would use

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it depends on if the content is useful to you based on your interests, and then it would be good if the class was challenging

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if your issue is not having time for other things then just stop doing leetcode stuff?

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or just learn to balance better

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i am also a systems guy

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so i get it but also having school be a huge part of your time is just how school can get

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eh not really you can just pick it back up

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when needed

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i used to work at Boston Dynamics

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i guess

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but my point is, yea school can be a lot but that is just school

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bad how?

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its your life, there is no right way to do it

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so?

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why does everyone else matter when it comes to your interest?

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i mean lets understand the issue then

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to be clear, other people being interested in something different than you, is not relevant at all

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good

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glad we agree on that

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there are plenty of systems jobs out there

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i say this as someone who did all this already

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so i am unsure of your concern

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?

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no?

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that isnt related to the job

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right?

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?

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okay

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i want you to ask yourself a bit more logically what you are asking me

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you are asking if a potential emplyoer would care if you have skills that are not needed for the job or product

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i am wanting you to ask yourself these questions

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because you are not dumb

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please consider what you are saying aha

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i personally have literally no idea how to make an app or a website

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homie

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why would it matter

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i really want you to be able to ask yourself logically why it would matter

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like where is this coming from

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okay

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everyone around you does not matter

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even more so when it comes to interest

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other people saying they like the color blue should not dictate what your favorite color should be

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it is simply what you are into

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i mean anything that uses that stuff

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i useed to work in healthcare, robotics and now finance

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keyword?

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you have been using the word "systems" this whole time

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i mean eh it just depends on how the company is defining these things

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i would never say i was an embedded engineer

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but my first job labelled me as that

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C++

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confirm what?

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hmmm

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i would say most of my roles wanted me to know OS related fundamentals and C++

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when i got hired at Boston dynamics one of the specific reasons becuase i liked OS and OS related stuff

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there not really frameworks when working on lower level things like that

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there are some solid libraries out there but for the most part the lower level you get the less abstraction there is

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hmmm

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i have never really looked into but i would say it depends on waht you are actually doing in "game dev"

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for example if you are writing physics engines, an employer would probably look for someone with C++ skills but way more math skills than i have

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but if you were writing something less math heavy, they might care less about math skills

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and a lot of game stuff is C++, from my understanding

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but heres the thing about software roles in general

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or i guess software skills, there is a wide variety of jobs out there

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oh yeah for sure

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OS and distributed systems are very similar

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compilers sounds awful

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but i am very biased on that opinion

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gun to my head

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i would pick distributed systems, parallel algos, and gpu programming

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useful for many many roles in systems and even in more "web dev" type roles

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gotcha

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oh fun

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i mean sure

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lots of ways to get there but i would take the ones i named if it were me

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little secret though

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if you learn systems programming type things, like OS, concurrency, distributed systems, C++ whatever
those skills translate well to all types of roles, that stuff is really hard to self teach or learn on the job,

even roles at web dev type companies that you might feel unqualifed for because you dont know JS or react. many places wont care because languages arent a big deal to learn

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hiring someoen who knows complex stuff already and jus needs a crash course on javascript is WAY easier than a JS expect who needs to be educated on Operating systems, race conditions, how memory works, etc

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and all those things matter in complex systems

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weather its web dev or not

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so my point is starting "low level" it is easier to grow to "high level" work, than the reverse

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in my opinion

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once you get into actual complex systems like netflix or amazon or google, its all systems knowledge anyways

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all those OS issues of memory managment, concurrency, etc, are issues in those companies as well

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100%

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yeah that seems hype at the moment but eh, there is always a thing

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there are many paths to "success" and success looks different to everyone

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i mean

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you aree already doing good stuff by taking those types of courses

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and being interested in it

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really from there its about making a resume that conveys those things

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and that shows you know your stuff

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that could be projects or actual experience

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i personally was the Lab/Teaching asssitsant for my OS class, and put 2 projects on my resume that showed those kinds of things

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but they were school projects

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not personal or anything

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i mean if you have web dev stuff put it on there

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fill the resume with your work for sure

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i had a custom OS we made in my OS class on my resume for the longest time

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and a VR game i made for my senior design project

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i mean that 100% would be awesome on your resume

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that is awesome

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aha sure

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sure ping me if you have other questions @golden marlin but i think you are on a fine path

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and one more thing to remember is your personal circle might have good ideas of what sort fields then wanna get into

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but i would say from what i have seen, most people graduate without knowing what field they wanna get into, so dont be so comparative, its really whatever

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web dev is more common because it is more in peoples face, but that doesnt mean its the only viable path by any means

somber phoenix
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personally I think that if you're legit highly interested in them then you'll be fine in terms of adapting to the workload

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if you know that it will take a lot of your time and you can't afford it then yeah consider how useful it'll be to your career

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if you narrow your career scope then it should help guide you in what classes you should take versus those that you don't need to

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but imo if you are legit highly interested in all of these classes and topics then just take your time and do them all over time