Advice for third year students
As a third-year student, you already have the fundamental knowledge of your field of study. The work that you will be doing over the next two years is to immerse you in the core of your selected field so by the time you graduate, you will have both the knowledge and the skills needed to start a professional career.
Success in the next two years depends not only on the knowledge of your field but also on how to apply that knowledge into something useful. This is the time to apply what you have learned to develop your skills because you need to know how things work. For example, it is not enough just knowing the software development life cycle but you need to know how each phase work and how to implement it correctly. You need to go into inside the concept that you have learned to know every detail of how it works, and how to do it with quality in mind. It is not enough just to understand software requirements but you need to know how to analyze the needs of users, verify them, then design, develop, and test the software solutions and make sure that they meet the needs of users.
By this time, you at least have some knowledge of C, C++, Java, Dot.Net, J2EE, HTML, PHP, XML, MySQL, or UNIX. In the next two years, you will need go into more details by implement applications using these common hardware and platforms. For small projects, you may be able to apply your knowledge to manage the full software development lifecycle. For larger projects, jobs are broken down into groups that focus on one specific function of the application. Therefore, you must learn more about specific roles and responsibilities such as Software Architect, Design Engineer, Configuration manager, and Software Quality Assurance specialist etc.
By this time, you must have a clear career plan on what to do with your education. Do you plan to go to work? Do you want to go to graduate school for a Master or Ph. D degree? Do you want to study oversea? Do you want to start your own company? Do you want to work for your family business? Depend on your career plan, you must be prepared by this time, else it is too late and you will waste precious time.
If you want to find a job after graduate, this is the time to do research on the job market. You need to know what the industry needs, what skills they want you to have and who are hiring in both your local area and in other cities or countries. This is the time that you must consider applying for internship or summer job to gain experience and let the company know that you want to work for them.
If you want to go to graduate school for advanced degrees, you must carefully select where you want to apply and start to visit those schools to learn more about them. There are certain requirements for graduate admission that you need to prepare. Many students wait until their fourth-year or after graduation then apply; it is too late because admission to good universities is highly competitive. You must prepare now and ready to submit your application when you start your fourth year. If you plan to study oversea, you need to prepare for certain exams. For example most schools in the U.S require the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).
The third and fourth year in college often require a lot of readings. It can be overwhelmed for some students so you need to have a good habit of reading. The more reading you do the better are your skills. You must learn to identify and focus on the most important parts of a book or article so you can get the most out of it. Learn to take notes so you can review the materials quickly by follow these notes instead of re-read the entire textbook.
This is also the time to really build relationships with your professors. You will need their advices. You will need them to write recommendation letters for graduate schools or references for job application. If they do not know you well, they cannot help you.
By this time, you should keep interest in the field of study and your passion for it. Build on that passion by continue to read more, learn more to broaden your knowledge. Every academic field has thousands of websites and forums where professionals in that field discuss their research, current events, and news. This is where you will find more information as well as people who share your interests. In these forums, you will learn more about your industry, companies, and global trends. If you graduate but knowing NOTHING ELSE besides academic knowledge, you will not be successful for long. What you have learned in school may be obsolete in few years but what you learned from the industry, global trends, companies will help guide you to continue to update your knowledge and that is how you will be ahead of others in your career. If you have not be familiar with some technical websites or forums, now it is the time to be familiar with them.
This is your best time; this is your precious moment to make good use of all information available for you. It is possible that you will never again be able to immerse yourself so fully, so exclusively in the field that interest you the most like this last two years in college. This is your moment to capture everything to build a professional career. Do not waste it.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
