A recent Harvard-backed study of 285,000 firms found that junior software engineering roles have declined by 23%, while senior roles have increased by 14%.

Part of the reason is that many graduates come out of university with similar academic results. A good CGPA matters, but on its own, it rarely shows employers how you will perform in a real work setting. At the same time, with AI boosting productivity, companies often see more value in pairing senior developers with AI tools than hiring juniors who still need time to adapt.

That is exactly why hackathons matter. They give students a chance to stand out by showing they can solve real problems, work with real technologies, and create solutions that add value beyond what AI can do. It is one of the clearest ways to build credibility and open doors in a market where traditional first jobs are getting harder to land.

I did not begin with a big international hackathon. My first hackathon was a small one on campus, and to be honest, I almost did not go. I had never built anything outside of class assignments, and I worried I would not be good enough. In the end I signed up anyway, even though I did not have a full team and had no idea what to expect.

That first experience showed me that hackathons are not about being an expert, they are about being willing to learn on the spot. I made mistakes, but I also picked up new skills and met people who were just as nervous and curious as I was. The point is that hackathons are meant for learning and experimenting, just like university, only here you get to do it in a setting closer to real-world. Realizing that took the pressure off and gave me the confidence to join bigger competitions later.

When my team “Sweetzerland” joined the Hilti IT Competition 2024 with support from my university, Asia Pacific University of Malaysia, it was not the usual hackathon. Instead of a weekend sprint, it lasted months. We had time to do research, design the system, build it out, and finally pitch it.

The process was tough, but it gave us real exposure that lectures rarely provide, and it opened doors I never expected. I even used it as the solution for my final year project, which later received the best project award during graduation.

Here’s why I believe every student should try participating in as many hackathons as possible during their college/university days.

Table Of Contents

• You Meet People Who Care as Much as You Do

• From Case Studies to Real Solutions

• Teamwork and Feedback

• Opportunities and Growth

• It’s Simply Fun

• Where to Find Hackathons

• Final Thoughts

You Meet People Who Care as Much as You Do

One of the best parts of hackathons is the people you meet. You are surrounded by others who are just as motivated to solve problems and willing to put in the effort to make their ideas work. Everyone brings their own strengths, whether it is coding, design, research, or pitching, and you quickly see how much energy and passion fills the room.

I remember in my previous hackathon, some teams were experimenting with VR while others used machine learning, all tackling the same theme in completely different ways. It was exciting to see how many different approaches people could bring to the same problem. And when the community is small, you often find similar participants in various hackathons.

That shared drive creates a special kind of connection. The people you brainstorm with at 2 a.m. or share a quick meal with between sessions often become friends, collaborators, or mentors long after the hackathon ends. It is not just about competing, it is about finding a community of people who are just as curious and committed as you are.

From Case Studies to Real Solutions

In university, most projects come with fictional case studies and guided hints. Hackathons are different. You are given a theme and have to figure out the real problem behind it, design a solution that actually fits how the company/industry works, and make sure it is viable to roll out with a clear return on investment. That shift from schoolwork to solving real-world issues changes the way you think.

Along the way, you also end up using industry standard tech stacks, solving problems under real constraints, and learning how to push past self-doubt. Imposter syndrome is common when you see so many great ideas around you. Our brain is built for survival, so it naturally reacts with fear when facing something new and uncertain. What helped me was reframing that fear, not as proof that I did not belong, but as proof I was stepping into a new territory. Breaking problems into smaller wins, asking questions openly, and remembering that even the most confident people in the same room will feel the same way made it easier to keep going. Over time, the progress you see in yourself becomes the best confidence boost of all.

Teamwork and Feedback

What surprised me most in a hackathon was how much the team dynamic mattered. I usually worked on the frontend or as a full stack developer, but I quickly learned that code alone would not carry the project. The real challenge was keeping research, design, coding, and slide preparation all moving in parallel. With limited time, you cannot afford to wait for one task to finish before starting another, so clear delegation and trust in each teammate’s role are critical.

A good teammate is not just skilled, but committed. The teams that thrived were the ones where people showed up consistently, shared ideas openly, and pushed through even when the energy dipped. In longer hackathons especially, perseverance mattered more than raw talent.

The feedback from mentors also changed how I thought about building solutions. In one hackathon, a mentor asked us, “What is the main feature in your solution?” That hit me, because we had built a system that did a bit of everything, but nothing stood out. After that, we focused on one main feature we had researched, the one we knew could create the biggest impact for the business. We spent most of our time refining that flow and only mentioned the smaller features briefly.

That lesson stuck. As software engineers, it is tempting to show how many features we can build, because our mindset is often stuck at “more features mean more skillful, which means a higher chance of winning.” That may work for school projects, but businesses care about ROI. They want to know if your solution is strong enough to justify the resources it would take to implement. Focusing on the feature with exponential upside not only made our pitch clearer, but it also shifted how I think about software engineering as a whole. It is not just about writing code, but about creating value that matters to businesses.

Opportunities and Growth

Hackathons open doors in ways you might not expect. When I started applying for jobs, having hackathon experience on my CV made it easier to stand out. Recruiters saw it as proof that I could solve problems under pressure and collaborate with others.

Some opportunities also come in unexpected forms. For me it was getting featured in The Star, Malaysia’s national newspaper, which showed me that hackathons can give you visibility and credibility beyond the competition itself.

Most importantly, hackathons shifted my mindset. After competing I found myself saying yes to more opportunities and pushing past my comfort zone. And once I did it, I kept doing it. Each step gave me more exposure and confidence, because the last time I did that, it gave me a life-changing experience. This has benefitted me in many ways once I started working. When we are young, we have time, energy, and fewer commitments. That is when growth can be exponential if we take risks with minimal downsides.

It’s Simply Fun

The most important point is that Hackathons are also fun. You meet people, you get swags, you grow your portfolio, you get cold hard cash, and sometimes you get to travel. And out of all the hackathons, for me it meant a trip to Switzerland, something I never imagined a student hackathon would bring. And I wouldn’t change a thing if I was given them same choice again.

Where to Find Hackathons

If you’re ready to try one, here are some platforms that regularly host student-friendly hackathons:

• Major League Hacking (MLH): Global student hackathons, both online and in-person.

• Devfolio: A hub for hackathons in AI, Web3, fintech, and more.

• Devpost: Popular for online hackathons with international participation.

• Hackathon.com: A global directory of upcoming events.

It’s also worth keeping an eye on hackathons run by universities, or by companies like Google and AWS. Sometimes they have student ambassadors who organize hackathons on campus, and many of these events are open globally. These can be great entry points to start building experience.

Final Thoughts

If you have never joined a hackathon, the question is simple, what do you have to lose? The answer is nothing. There are no downsides and only benefits. You gain skills, exposure, and experiences you will carry long after graduation.

Looking back, one regret I have is that I only joined a few during my four years of university. Even with the handful I did, the impact was huge. It makes me wonder how much more I could have learned and experienced if I had joined more. Every hackathon brings something new, it could be a lesson, a connection, or even an opportunity you never saw coming.

Don’t wait until you feel ready. Sign up, show up, and figure it out along the way. Your future self will thank you.

Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors are student leaders who collaborate with Microsoft to help fellow students learn about technology and engage with various Microsoft technologies and services.

It is important to note that Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors are not employees of Microsoft. While they work closely with Microsoft and have access to certain resources, training, and support from the company, they do not receive regular employee compensation.

Instead, student ambassadors often receive benefits such as networking opportunities, skill development, and recognition within the tech community.

Responsibilities of Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors

At the very high level, the responsibilities of student ambassadors include encouraging their peers to use Microsoft Learn, Microsoft's educational platform. It offers free resources, tutorials, and courses on various Microsoft technologies in a bid to help students build skills that open doors.

Student Ambassadors also represent Microsoft technologies on their campuses. In this capacity, Ambassadors engage with faculty and students to showcase the benefits of these tools for education and innovation.

Student Ambassadors are required to complete a variety of pre-determined activities in order to advance through the well-defined program milestones. As you complete these program milestones you can unlock additional program benefits.

You go through these milestones in the following order: new to alpha, alpha to beta, and beta to gold. With each milestone achievement, program certificates are updated.

The different milestones

To attain the Alpha milestone, new student ambassadors are required to complete a learn path on Microsoft Learn within four months of joining the program.

To reach the Beta milestone, first you need to complete the program's technical onboarding as a alpha student ambassador. Then you must host and report an approved event or actively participate in a Student Ambassadors project within twelve months of joining the program.

Finally, to achieve the highest milestone in the program (Gold), you are required to go above and beyond program expectations by demonstrating significant reach and impact.

How to Apply to Be a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador

Before applying, it is important to note the following:

• The minimum age requirement for applicants is 16 years.
• Full-time enrollment in an accredited academic institution (such as a College or University) is required for applicants.
• Applications are restricted to individual persons and not open to corporate entities.
• Individuals who are Microsoft employees or current contractors are ineligible to apply.

If you meet these qualifications, you can apply to become a Student Ambassador.

The most important thing to know about the application process for the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador program is that the application is open all year long. But applications are only reviewed (and applicants are gotten back to) quarterly – in January, April, July and October.

You can find the application form here. The application consists of four major parts – privacy and terms, personal information, academic institution, and application questions. Let's go through each one now.

Privacy and terms

In the privacy and terms section, you are required to agree to the Microsoft Privacy Statement and confirm your eligibility for the program.

By completing this section, you accept that as you submit your application, your information will be shared with the Microsoft program lead who manages Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors selection in your region.

Also in this section, you are informed that if your application is not accepted, although all the information you provided will be removed from their servers within twelve months of the application submission date. You can request removal of your application data at any time without constraints.

Personal information

In the personal information section, the required prompts include your name, contact email address, date of birth, gender, pronoun and country or region.

You can also enter your preferred programming language in this section (but this particular question is not required).

In this section, you can also add the social media profiles you use for community leadership as an allusion to your online influence and network.

Academic institution

In the academic institution section, as the name implies, the prompts are aimed at getting the country and region of your academic institution, its name, your degree program and your expected graduation date.

The available options include Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Engineering - Other, Information Systems, Cyber Security, Business and Others). You'll also be asked to list your degree level (the selections accessible are Bachelor, Master and PhD).

Application questions

In the application questions section, as an applicant, you are required to answer the following three questions.

• Tell us about one specific technical skill you have learned, and how you were guided to learning it. How would you use that experience to be a better Student Ambassador? (Guide)
• Tell us about a specific time you welcomed a new person into one of your communities. How would you use that experience to be a better Student Ambassador? (Welcome)
• Tell us about a specific event you have planned that connected diverse audiences together. How would you use that experience to be a better Student Ambassador? (Connect)

Now, here's the catch. Whilst every applicant gets to answer all three questions, each applicant also gets the opportunity to answer any two of their choice with written responses and one as a video response. I think this is an attempt to get applicants to demonstrate their public speaking skills.

The video must be under two minutes and should be recorded in a quiet space without background noise. The written responses, on the other hand, must be a minimum of 100 characters and maximum of 2000 characters each.

Also, the video response's link has to be publicly accessible to anyone with the link. If an applicant chooses to record their video in any language that is not English, they must include English subtitles.

There's an option to pick from a list of technologies and highlight which ones interest you.

Finally, in more than 100 characters and less than 1000 characters, you can share the link to your Microsoft Learn profile (if you have one) and provide the reviewing team with details about your engagements within your community, both in online and on-campus settings.

In that space, you can also let them know about any organizations you are part of, particularly if you hold leadership roles. Feel free to share any additional information you consider important in this section.

The list of technologies to choose from

The application process/essays may seem quite lengthy. But the good thing about it is that the essay portal automatically saves your application as you go, so you can leave at any time and come back later to continue your application.

Benefits of Being a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador

The benefits of being a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador are many. First, you benefit from comprehensive technical and leadership training and gain access to Microsoft's extensive array of learning materials. You also get to connect with a worldwide community of students who share your enthusiasm for building the future you envision.

In my opinion, the biggest thing student ambassadors stand to gain is the community they become a part of alongside fellow ambassadors. This community offers an extensive network of peers, mentors, and professionals who are all invested in the same mission. It becomes a platform for collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and personal growth.

Here are a few other benefits that are accessible as you progress through the milestones:

Benefits of the New Milestone

Microsoft 365: This is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. As a student ambassador in the new milestone, you get Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

The Microsoft 365 subscriptions include full Office desktop apps such as Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access and Publisher for Windows PCs, as well as access to additional OneNote features.

Benefits of the Alpha Milestone

In addition to the benefits that comes with the new milestone, student ambassadors get access to Visual Studio Enterprise. This annual subscription provides Student Ambassadors with $150 monthly Azure credit, license keys to various Microsoft Products, and many other benefits.

In addition, in line with the program's dedication to the growth of student ambassadors, student ambassadors in the Alpha milestone and beyond get free access to LinkedIn Learning.

Benefits of the Beta Milestone

In addition to the existing benefits, upon reaching this milestone, student ambassadors get a Beta swag box.

The Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador Beta Swag Box

Benefits of the Gold Milestone

On top of the previous benefits, student ambassadors who achieve this milestone get a Gold swag box, more program leadership opportunities, consideration for special events and activities, and consideration for MVP mentorship and nomination. This is the highest milestone in the program.

The Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador Gold Swag Box

Windows Insider for Student Ambassadors

Finally, one last benefit I want to touch on is the Windows Insider Program for Student Ambassadors.

Thanks to the Windows Insider Program's collaboration with Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors, when Student Ambassadors become part of the Windows Insider Program, they will get a chance to preview upcoming Windows features and offer input to influence the direction Windows takes in the future.

Wrapping Up

Once you graduate from the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador program at the Gold milestone, you will be eligible for nomination to the Windows Insider Most Valuable Professional (MVP) program.

This prestigious status comes with exclusive interaction opportunities with the Windows engineering team, special event invitations, and complimentary subscriptions to tools such as Visual Studio Enterprise, Office 365, and LinkedIn Premium. You you will receive a personalized award kit to commemorate this achievement.

I hope this guide helps you apply for the program and know what to expect! Thanks for reading.

Fortunately, the GitHub Student Developer Pack comes to the rescue. This pack provides students with exclusive access to a variety of top-notch developer tools, allowing them to learn through practical experience.

What is the GitHub Student Developer Pack?

The Student Developer Pack is made up of a selection of benefits generously provided by GitHub's partners and collaborators. These partners joined forces with GitHub to extend these valuable offers to verified students.

Why? Because they understand that the most effective way to support future developers is by offering hands-on experience with industry-standard products and tools.

In essence, the GitHub Student Developer Pack eliminates the obstacles faced by students who are passionate about technology but may not have the resources to pay full price for all these tools.

The pack grants students access to a collection of resources and empowers them to acquire firsthand knowledge and skills through the use of cutting-edge tools.

In this article, I will touch on some of the highlights of the GitHub Student Developer Pack and how you can access to it.

Highlights of the Student Developer Pack

This pack comes with a plethora of offers across different domains in the tech space. For every speciality, there's likely an offer that'll help you get ahead in your career and access the best developer tools used in that industry for free.

These tools cover many topics, including Cloud Computing, Design, Game Development, Infrastructure and APIs, Internet of Things (IoT), Marketing, Mobile Development, Security Analytics and more. So it's fair to say no stone is left unturned with this pack.

Here are some examples of what you'll have access to:

Microsoft Azure

Access to the pack comes with Microsoft Azure's free access to 25+ Microsoft Azure cloud services plus $100 in Azure credit.

Namecheap

As part of the GitHub Student Developer Pack, Namecheap offers free one-year registration on a .me domain that comes with an SSL certificate.

DigitalOcean

With the pack, you will get access to $200 credit valid for one year to pay for cloud infrastructure services such as virtual servers, storage, and networking resources. on DigitalOcean in a pay-as-you-go basis.

Educative

With the GitHub Student Developer pack, as a student, you will get access to six free months of 60+ courses covering in-demand topics. This can help you learn to code, grow your skills, and even succeed in tech interviews.

1Password

The importance of security cannot be overemphasized. With access to 1Password, you can ensure the security of your accounts by monitoring password breaches and identifying other security issues.

As a student, this enables you to maintain the safety of your online accounts. With the Student Developer Pack, you will get 1Password free for a year.

And then, my personal favourite...

The GitHub Campus Experts Program

The GitHub Campus Expert program is geared towards empowering University students to become student leaders while advocating for technology and open-source collaboration.

Campus Experts are trained to organize events, mentor other students, and foster/build a strong tech community on their respective campuses.

But it's important to note that the GitHub Student Developer Pack is a prerequisite for being able to apply for the program.

In all, the pack provides students with a wide range of essential developer tools and resources that are typically expensive or require paid subscriptions for free. Being able to use and learn these tools can help take your career to the next level.

If you're curious, you can take a look at my GitHub Campus Experts profile here.

What Are the Requirements to Get a Student Developer Pack?

To be eligible for the GitHub Student Developer Pack, you must meet the following requirements:

• You must be a minimum of 13 years of age.
• You must have a user account on GitHub.
• You must possess a school-issued email address that can be verified, or alternatively, provide documents as evidence of your current student status.
• At the point of your application, you must be currently registered in a program that grants a degree or diploma.

To gain further insights into the application process and the types of documents that are accepted, I encourage you to check the comprehensive Education documentation.

How Do I Get this Pack?

First, you'll need to visit GitHub Education. Sign in with your GitHub Account by clicking the Sign-in button on the top-right corner.

Then click on the Sign up for Student Developer Pack button.

You will be required to fill a form. The questions in the form are as follows:

• What e-mail address do you use for school?

If you have a school-issued email, select (or add) it. It is important to note that these email addresses must be verified.

From my experience, selecting a school-issued email address gives you the best chance of a speedy review.

If you don’t have a school-issued email, follow the prompts to fill out some additional information. You will still be eligible even if you only have a personal email address, as long as you can provide alternative documentation to verify your current student status.

• What is the name of your school?

This prompt is automatically filled out if you provided a valid student email. However, if your school is not listed, then you need to enter your school's full name and continue. You will be asked to provide further information about your school on the next page.

• How do you plan to use GitHub? and then click 'Continue'

And boom!

Yes, it is that easy. By following the steps I have outlined, you can unlock a world of opportunities and resources that can elevate your career to new heights. Armed with the GitHub Student Developer Pack, you now have access to a variety of tools, software licenses, and educational resources that can accelerate your learning and growth.

Finally, I share my articles on Twitter if you enjoyed this article and want to see more.

This allows you to use GitHub Pro, as well as having many other benefits.

In this quick guide, I'll show you the steps to sign up for GitHub Education and I'll discuss its benefits. Then I'll show you how you can get free access to Replit Hacker for a year.

How to Get a Free GitHub Pro Account as a Student

If you do not already have a GitHub account, you will need to create one. Sign in with your personal email address (so you can use your account even after your school email address gets deactivated when you graduate).

Next, go to settings and click Emails. Here is where you will add your school email to your GitHub account.

Add your school email in your GitHub account

Add your school email address and verify it. Once it is verified, go to https://education.github.com/. This will allow you to be eligible for GitHub Pro. Sign in with your GitHub account.

Then, head to Benefits. Scroll down and click Get student benefits (just make sure you are eligible first).

Student benefits

Select Student as your academic status. Scroll down and use your school email address. After that, you have to select your school name as your school. Using a few sentences, explain why you are using GitHub.

Once you have completed those steps, press continue.

You’ll need to verify you’re a student at your school. To do this, you can upload a screenshot of an email from your school board or another official school document. It’ll take a few days to verify, so you’ll have to wait until then.

After that has been completed, you should see your dashboard looking something like this:

You'll now have access to many student benefits, including a $200 Digital Ocean credit, a free domain from Namecheap, and a free subscription to the JetBrains IDE, which you can renew annually.

Next in this tutorial, you will be learning how to get the Replit Hacker plan for free (which is not mentioned as a student benefit offer).

How to Get a Free Replit Hacker Plan

Once you have GitHub Pro, you’ll have access to many other benefits as well. One of the most notable benefits is a free Replit Hacker Plan for one year.

If you don't know what Replit is, it's a web-based IDE which allows users to create amazing projects (called Repls) that are stored on the cloud.

I have found Replit incredibly useful for coding in Rust, as it makes installing packages and setting up the dev environment really simple and easy.

You can also import GitHub repositories directly into Replit, so you can work on your code from any device, as long as you have an internet connection.

Replit is free to sign up, but having the Hacker plan gives you certain benefits that are extremely useful for development.

One notable benefit is having unlimited private Repls. Some more advantages are having 10x the account storage, and double the Repl storage. This plan starts at $7.00 a month, but luckily for students, there is a way to get the plan for free (Source).

If you don’t have a Replit account, create one with your personal email address (so you can use your account even after you school email address gets deactivated when you graduate).

Next, head to Account in the home menu.

Scroll down to Connected services and connect your GitHub account.

You should now have GitHub Pro (until you graduate) and Replit Hacker (for one year).

Enjoy!

Conclusion

Now with your upgraded accounts, I hope you enjoy creating amazing things! Feel free to check out my GitHub and Replit to view my projects.

If you'd like to reach out, my email address is eszhd1 (at) gmail.com

Many companies give their premium services to students for free, and others offer discounts on their products.

If you're a student, basically all you need to take advantage of these discounts and offers is your student email.

Having a student email will come in handy especially if you can't afford expensive products or premium services. In this article I'll give you a run down of the benefits that are withing your .edu email and how to get access to them to help you in your education and career.

Some of the general benefits include:

• Free access to online educational courses
• Free access to content and streaming tools.
• Free software.
• Access to premium entertainment services.
• Access to graphic design tools.
• Access to discounts on products.

Let's get started.

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. – Malcolm X

1. GitHub Student Developer Pack

To begin with at the top of the list is one of my all time favorite packs with tons of deals in it.

In order for you to qualify for this deal, you must:

• Be in school, enrolled in either a degree or a diploma program.
• Have a verifiable school-issued email address.
• Have a GitHub account.
• Be at least 13 years old.

Now depending on the different companies that have partnered with Google for this particular program, terms and condition may vary and some point the service may not exist in every region. But for now you will still be able to get a majority of the benefits.

Some of the companies that have partnered with GitHub for this particular program include: Canva, DigitalOcean, namecheap, educative, datacamp, Drovio and others.

Benefits offered by these companies range from access to production tools, credit cards, and even hosting services. This means that as a total beginner you can get:

• free access to premium learning materials.
• free design tools.
• free domain names for one year.
• free hosting plans with credit from organizations like Microsoft and DigitalOcean.
• Access to streaming platforms

...just to mention a few.

If you haven't yet gotten your pack, Check out the GitHub education page and get your own share of these amazing resources.

2. Figma for Students

Even though Figma is freely accessible to anyone on the internet, it does have a proffessional plan. This gives you extra benefits like:

• being able to create private projects
• being able to work with teams without limits
• being able to share private prototypes with clients and also get access to the audio conversion feature.

Now, in order for you to be eligible for this plan, you need to be at least 13 years old and a student.

An important thing to note is that, when you apply you will be required to provide some proof like: your school name, school website, and a valid .edu email. Once you've done this your verification process for the plan will begin.

Once approved, your education status will be valid for two years. If you are still a student at the end of the two years, you can reapply for education status again.

To get access to this, check out the Figma for students and educators page.

3. Office 365 Education

You've likely used some Microsoft product either for school or a personal project. And all of them require a product activation key in order to use them – which means you need to buy it.

But with a .edu email, you are able to get some of these products at no charge. I am talking about products like Microsoft Teams, Office on the web, OneDrive, content creation tools, and desktop apps like word, Excel and PowerPoint.

To get started all you are required to have is a school email. To get access to this plan, check the Office 365 Education page.

4. Microsoft Azure for Students

Azure is a cloud platform with more than 200 products and cloud services designed to help you bring new solutions to life — and to solve today’s challenges and create the future.

With the Microsoft Azure for Students pack, you will be able to get resources to help you build, run, and manage applications across multiple clouds, on-premise, and at the edge, with the tools and frameworks of your choice.

Azure has two programs running for students:

Azure for Students

This pack will get you a $100 credit valid for 12 months and more than 25 free services. To be eligible for this pack, you must:

• be 18 years of age or older.
• Attend an accredited degree granting institution.
• Be a full-time student.
• And finally, verify your academic status through your organization's email address.

Azure for Student Starter

This is different since you don't get as much compared to the former. With Azure Students Starter, you will be able to get started with the Azure products you need to develop in the cloud.

This benefit provides you access to a free tier of services like: Azure App Service, Azure Functions, Azure Notification Hubs, Azure Database for MySQL, and others.

This pack is available to verified students at no cost and without any limit. To be eligible, you must be:

• age 13 or older if in USA and age 16 if outside the USA.
• You must verify your academic status through your organization's email address.

To get access to these plans, check the Azure for Students page.

5. RoboForm

As a developer (or anyone using the internet, really), having a secure way to store your passwords is essential. Much of the work you do will be online, so internet security is very important.

Because of this, it helps to have a service that will allow you to keep track of your passwords without having to memorize them.

Most companies do charge for password management services, but with a .edu email you can get the service from Robo for 1 year. Your student email will help you get premium features such as:

• Syncing across all your devices
• Cloud backup
• Two Factor Authentication
• Secure Shared Folder
• Web access

To get started, check out the official RoboForm site.

6. Autodesk

Autodesk is a global leader in design and they make technology dedicated to preparing the next generation of tinkerers, makers, designers, engineers, and revolutionizers to lead in the Future of Work.

If you are a student studying any of these fields, you'll likely encounter AutoCAD in your studies. Well, thankfully with a student email, you can get access to more resources.

Once you've registered and provide proof that you're a student, the subscription will remain free as long as you are eligible.

To get tarted with Autodesk, check the registration Autodesk educational products page.

Other Student Packs include

• AWS Educate
• Adobe creative cloud
• SquareSpace
• Amazon Prime Student
• Spotify Premium Student
• HP Student Store

Conclusion

One difficult part of being in college is being able to get access to all the right learning materials. But with your school email you are able to cut down the costs for these services.

I hope this article helps you manage and get access to useful resources that will help you in your career.

I appreciate your time reading. Enjoy Coding ❤.

Why we are thinking about time optimisation completely wrong

Technology has caused a radical change in the way we live our lives. Our eyes are opening to the damage apps like facebook and twitter do to us. We know that the infinite scroll was something we shouldn’t be engaging in.

I’ve enjoyed the headspace of turning my phone into a device that doesn’t have social media on it. I then went one step further and removed email for a ‘month’ challenge. Two weeks into the challenge I stopped even thinking about the challenge and my phone is just a device that doesn’t do email anymore. It’s totally great, I don’t have a burning to-do list of people talking to me in my pocket 24/7. I feel odd that I ever wanted that or felt proud about being such a productive person. Regardless this is not what this blog is about.

The brilliant rise of ‘Edutainment’ with fantastic podcasts and the ability to listen to Audiobooks is not something that we have really scrutinised. But it is worth investigating. I will explain why even using your phone for education should be limited. Your creativity and mental health will blossom and you will thank me for it. This blog will cover why limiting education time will make you a smarter and happier person.

An Extreme Example

There is a ratio of how much time you should spend studying and consuming new content in comparison to how effective you will be. In simple terms, this is astoundingly obvious.

If you spent 0% of your time studying or learning anything you would be clueless. You would get nothing done.

Conversely, if you spent 100% of your time studying and learning. There would be no time at all for having idea’s or doing anything with them. You would be a highly intelligent but equally useless entity. A net drain on humanity. No one wants that. Least of all you.

The Modern Problem

However, in the modern-day, we are surrounded by increasingly mountainous volumes of information that we can never keep up with. We are also surrounded by tech that can supply this information to us in a low-cost manner. We can instantly plug ourselves into learning at every spare moment. You feel wise as you ignore Facebook and other social media distractions to put on a podcast when you walk to work, make your food or hit the gym. You can watch educational videos during your lunch break. This all contributes to making a minor dent in the overwhelming amount of information you aren’t keeping up with.

But where is the time to process this information and make connections, have ideas or use it?

The Argument for 'Edutainment' and Plugging In

If you are studying, building a business, or trying to stay at the top of your field you don’t want to miss opportunities. You want to use the massive amounts of dead time that you have to learn more.

There is so much time in a day to consume the huge variety of useful information available on audio and video. It can give you different opinions about your field or help you learn complex ideas about new things.
You can also learn about humans by even listening to fiction. It shows you how to create a good story or a bad story, and you can even learn about love from 50 Shades of Grey when you are looking for it.

By not using all the extra time to learn you will unlikely be a change-maker in your field.

Before you Press Play

There is a happy medium between optimising your life for learning new stuff and spending spare time with an unoccupied brain. It is hard to find exactly but crucially important.

Like the endless scroll of social media, we have an infinite scroll of edutainment available to us. I started a list of books to read this year from recommendations and 6 months in it is already 350 books long and I’m certain they are all pretty awesome. A ten-minute session looking in my podcast feed easily gives me 100 new podcasts to get through. I get bombarded with lists of amazing blogs that grow my mind and science journalists and (some) newspapers produce brilliant content. Then there’s also politics, the economy, and of course the news. Let’s not even talk about the great content available on the BBC, Youtube and Netflix.

We feel we need to keep up with it. As you start your walk to work and you aren’t listening or doing something, your brain is free to roam around. It feels inefficient to just do nothing, you can instantly solve that with your readily available edutainment and can constantly feel productive.

The Unrecognised Value of Doing Nothing

Doing ‘nothing’ doesn’t provide an instant reward of productivity. You never ‘know’ that you are going to have good ideas if you do nothing for the next 20 minutes of walking. Leaving your brain at peace is setting sail into the unknown with perhaps zero rewards, and it all seems very boring and pointless.

We need to train our brains to not require instant gratification, this feeling of needing to do something is what kicks the brain into gear. It can trigger the brain to do awesome things all by itself if you let it. If you hear that trigger of the brain wanting to do something and just stick on someone else’s thoughts to listen to then you are turning off your brain instead of firing it up.

I will go as fire as stating that you are pissing on your own bonfire instead of adding fuel to it.

You need to learn to like that feeling of an unoccupied brain and embrace it instead of quickly finding a way to suppress it. You need to recognise the brains' inbuilt hunger to do cool stuff for what it is. Let your brain wrestle with the world's problems like the innovator your podcasts are telling you it be.

Body Analogies

Exercise for your brain

If every time you started to feel slightly out of breath someone sat you down and did everything for you, you would not be fit. You would get no exercise at all. This would be grossly unhealthy for your body and produce a feedback loop of decreasing fitness, even getting out of your chair would begin to challenge you. You would end up never using your muscles that would waste away. You would stop being able to walk and become a bed-bound bag of uselessness.

My question to ask yourself. As soon as your brain is about to do some work by itself, should you be sitting it down and making it rest?

Over-Feeding

If you spent all day surrounded by sweets and biscuits you would be constantly reminded of the available food. You would become obese if every time you had a passing thought that perhaps you could eat one of those biscuits you then ate one.

The human is designed to be able to overeat whilst food is available. This prevents it from starving in periods of no food. Humans need to stop their innate behaviour to eat when food is available to be able to stay healthy.

We now live with a device in our pocket that is a constant reminder that we can be learning more things. Our brains are designed to feel a need to satisfy that hunger. Our brain is used to an environment of low information. It was engineered in a time when books didn’t exist and the odd occasion you found something new in your environment you investigated the crap out of it. If once a blue moon someone turned up with news about anything, you listened as if your life depended on it because sometimes it did.

Thus your brain wants to learn about every new thing in its environment to stay up to date so it doesn’t get killed.

That is a powerful innate behaviour optimised to keep your genes going to the next generation. The reason you exist today is directly because your ancestors were better at obsessing about new things in their environment than their peers.

However, the modern world is not going to kill you if you don’t know every new thing. Just like with food, if you let your brain operate on default behaviour it will make you incredibly unhealthy. You need to stop trying to learn everything.

What Even is 'Being Productive'

We need to learn that actually doing nothing is doing something. Your brain is making connections and its best ideas come when you do things like meditating, menial work or exercise without anything else going on. You need to learn to hear your inner voice and become good friends with it.

Focussed vs. Diffuse Thinking

In the science of learning, you need to spend focussed time on new material to understand things. But the magic happens when you stop thinking about it and let the brain go into a 'diffuse' mode of thinking where it makes connections happen between different ideas. This is where billion-dollar ideas like AirBnB and Uber came from, uniting two different bodies of knowledge in the brain into a novel concept. This simply doesn't happen whilst you are in focussed mode.

Learning vs. Rating

You learn much more from a book or podcast if you try and recall it than if you were to just listen to it again. Yet madly most of us consume all this stuff just once and then never revisit it. We quickly forget all the specifics, we can vaguely remember how it made us feel if we remember it at all. So you are basically just creating a pile of ratings in your head by optimising all this time for consuming.

If you spend some time after each podcast or book chapter to think about what you just learnt and test yourself on why it’s useful, you will genuinely gain twice as much from it. That takes 5 minutes but it doubles the effectiveness of the hour you just spent listening to it.

Life Processing

Then there is everything else in your life that you are learning about and dealing with that needs its own processing time. If you don't put time into thinking about what's going on and learning from it and how to improve, then surprisingly you don't learn from it or improve. Tools like journaling can radically increase your rate of improvement and benefit your levels of happiness and well-being.

Playtime

Imagine you are at work and for some odd reason a toddler appears out of nowhere and wants to play with you. It wants to go for a walk and look at flowers and jump in puddles. (or in my own experience, look at puddles and jump in flowers). Then it asks annoying things that are hard to answer:
"why is the sky is blue?
Why are Spaghettis O’s unhealthy and Baked Beans healthy, they grow on the same tree?
And then why does anyone even care about flowers in the first place if they aren’t for jumping in?"

It wants to explore the world and it seems to want to explore your mind and put things together. This is tragically unhelpful for you and so you give it an iPad and hope that it occupies itself and won’t disturb you.

This distraction technique in the hope of getting more work done is what you are doing to your own brain. When your own inner voice pops up and lets you know that you aren’t doing anything you realise you have some spare time. You feel like you could be ‘doing work’ by sticking on a podcast. Your brain will just do pointless stuff otherwise and you’ve got an endless list of things to get through.

When you do this you are turning off your actual consciousness. And yes when you first listen to your consciousness it does pretty dumb stuff as it explores the contents of the environment and your mind. Sometimes it is a whiney bitch and sometimes it is obsessing about the wrong things. But if you let it play around and listen to it and take it seriously, it will reward you back. Let it explore the environment and let it explore the contents of your mind and just like the toddler it will learn profound things.

This isn't a toddler but I saw a puppy and then it magically ended up here for no sensible reason

Change What you Think

When there is a spare moment and you start thinking for yourself for a second, you need to hear your inner voice and say:

"SHOOT. Hello me. Wow, it’s great to find some time together. What’s going on buddy. Let’s have a chat"

Instead of the current:

"SHOOT. I was hoping to get work done. Let’s give you something to do. So I can carry on working"

Your inner voice is not a toddler that you have nothing in common with. This is not a massive drag on your day that you need to escape from but instead a blessing to make the most of.

We need to stop feeling like we are constantly at work and we need to stop feeling like our inner voice is a bad thing to spend time with.

This is important, because your inner voice isn’t just your best friend. It is literally the actual real you. You need to get to know it, listen to it and take it seriously. It’s essential that you stop treating it like a pathetic things that needs distracting. Stop putting stuff in front of it in the hope it never bothers you.

Find out what you actually think and know. Explore ideas and actually take useful thoughts to the next level.

Exercise time

The combination of exercise and not having other stuff going on in your brain is the perfect breeding ground for good ideas.

Exercise very mildly occupies the brain but leaves a lot of space for thinking. It also releases hormones that make you think more positively. This prevents any negative doubts from blocking potential good ideas before you have given time to think about it further. It provides a golden period where your brain can just explore random stuff that it knows and make connections.

Optimising all your exercise time for learning keeps your brain in a focussed mode where it never has ideas. You have to unplug and let your brain think it’s own thoughts instead of permanently listening to those of others.

The Minimum Requirements

Depending on your current situation there are different guidelines. As I mentioned at the start you will fall behind if you never engage in learning useful stuff. The books I have read on my list of 350 this year have done incredible things to how I think. But I’ve also found that unplugging is where I put all that information together and do something useful with it.

I think you should have an obligatory 20 minutes a day where you are completely in touch with yourself. Meditation is brilliant, but if you want to do yoga or walking or cooking it really doesn’t matter. And this is just minimum to be a human.

The Thinking vs. Listen Ratio

After the minimum requirements are filled I think shooting for a balanced ratio is the best strategy. The same as the saying of two ears and one mouth. I think two-thirds of your time listening to info is fine. But you should block out one third for actually thinking your own thoughts.

This depends on the person and the situation. Sometimes I feel like I do just want to do nothing and that my brain has too many ideas anyway. Sometimes having something to listen to is what gets me out the door to go for a run in the first place. But other-times you can feel overwhelmed by problems and you should use all your time available to think.

Conclusion

Based on the best research on how to learn, giving your brain unfocussed time is key. This time is the ultimate source of creativity and brightest ideas.

Stop distracting yourself with other peoples thoughts and give yourself time to listen to your own thoughts.

This is an ironic conclusion as I run the Growth Mindset Podcast which I'd like to think is Edutainment at it's finest. Hopefully this proves I'm not trying to sell you anything except a better life. This wasn't driven by some anti-Apple anti-Amazon complex and just a product of my studies in evolutionary psychology and general anthropology. (human watching). Putting one domain of knowledge together with another and having ideas.

Effects

I was in Tel Aviv last week and wanted to go for a run to the beach and have a swim. Not wanting to leave my phone on the beach I went for an hour run with just myself. An actual human with no device attached to it running around a city it's never been in. How did this become a rare thing so quickly? (ten years ago I drove around America with just a compass...)
It was one of the most lovely mornings ever. I came back with more solutions to my problems and writing ideas than I thought possible. It seems crazy that I usually spend so much of this valuable time with myself having someone else’s thoughts permanently distracting my brain.

I don’t know how far I ran, how many steps I did or where I even went. But that doesn't actually matter. I focussed on new metrics of success for a productive run, number of ideas and sweatiness. I smashed both records.

Question Yourself

I think we should all step back and define what our phone is actually for. As we realise the importance of our mental health and the problems our devices are causing us, this is more important than ever. We need to let go of our FOMO to keep up with the world to spend more time with ourselves.

Simply put. No one else is going to think for you and solve your problems. If you stop being able to think for yourself you are screwed.

Related Reading

Enjoyed this? You might like these similar posts on the topic of being more sensible:

• Top Strategies for Better Decisions (That You aren't Using)

• The Best Life Hack that isn't on any Life Hack List

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This will form part of a five part "pentalogy" (learnt a new word). Be sure to not miss out on the rest of it!

I remember the day I graduated college like it was yesterday. Surrounded by hundreds of close friends, family and peers, I listened to the Dean of our University as she described the grandiosity of this occasion. This was the moment that I had been waiting for… the last four years had finally been worth it.

I remember sitting there and smiling with eager anticipation. I was ready to prove to the world how bright I could shine in the industry with a tenacity to pursue my dreams I had never had before.

Myself at the Webster University Walking Ceremony (May 2018), where I received my Bachelors of Science in Computer Science after graduating in December of 2017.

The six months prior to graduation, I remember filling my time with job fairs, coffees, and numerous interviews. “Just wait until you graduate” each recruiter told me, “You have a promising future ahead of you in this industry. Just hang in there. We always have room for young talent”.

I was told time and time again by family and professors alike how desperately businesses were looking for developers, and the vast amount of internet job postings I found only further proved their point. Everything I had read about the industry appeared to be true; professional Software Developers were in demand, and I was eager to join their ranks.

However, despite finally having my degree, I was in no way prepared for how difficult attaining my first job would be.

I remember staring at my email inbox a week after graduation, desperately hoping for some sign of life regarding my job search. “Position fulfilled”, “Thank you for applying”, and “We’ve decided to go with another applicant,” each email stated. Every rejection email cut me deeper and deeper than the one prior. How could this be happening to me? I was told my degree would be the key that unlocks the rest of my future, however 15…16…17 applications later, I was no closer to a full-time job than those 6 months prior.

The future I thought was so bright in front of me suddenly felt so out of reach.

The post-graduation job search is one of the most difficult and frustrating things I’ve encountered thus far in my career. How did I so greatly misunderstand what my job search would look like? You can imagine my surprise when I began chatting with others around me about their job-hunting experience, only to find out I was not alone. Between local meetups, clubs, and organizations, I was absolutely shocked to find how many individuals with a degree (or at least decent development experience) were working in the service industry simply because the job hunt had treated them just as mercilessly as it had me.

Though we are taught how rewarding a career in Software Development would be, I feel that we under-prepare our graduates for what the world of job-hunting is like in this day and age. With a world around us changing so rapidly, I believe equipping our students with an understanding of how to approach their job search is just as important as knowing the technical skills.

Despite what I experienced, I know for a fact that there is room for new graduates in the world of Software Development. We simply lack the understanding of how to break into this industry from our university education alone.

Three years ago, I graduated having no idea what my future would look like, but today I can confidently say that I am a professional software developer with a bright future ahead of me. I write this article in hopes of comforting those whose job search looked like mine, and to share the valuable pieces of advice I received about the post-graduation job hunt. This information truly shaped my career for the better and I hope you find these tips as helpful as I did.

Now without further ado… Here are my top 10 tips for the recent, job-hunting Computer Science graduate.

10 Tips for the Job-Hunting Computer Science Graduate

Below each tip, I’ve included external articles where you can find more information on the subject matter. The authors and websites do not reflect my own personal beliefs, but I found their resources to be relevant and helpful for further research. Feel free to use these links as a springboard into your own research!

1. Understand your most difficult obstacle will be getting experience.

Everyone wants developers. Heck, everyone NEEDS developers. However, are most businesses willing to take the time to slow down and teach someone the skills they need to get the job done? No.

Time is money and when a business is rushing to get products and patches out the door, they are not able to slow down long enough to bring a new developer up to speed. That is why getting a job right out of college can be so difficult. You are going to be at a disadvantage when you first start out; even if you had internships, leadership experience, and numerous volunteer hours (like I did). Companies evaluate how long it will take until they start seeing a return on their investment.

Be patient and understand that not every work environment will be conducive to your learning. There are positions out there though. Look hard, and look thoroughly, and you’ll find them.

2. Make sure your code is visible to potential employers.

This was one of the first pieces of advice I got regarding my job search and I wish I would have embraced it earlier. In college I took 3 different capstone courses, each producing a 2-inch-thick binder full of code and systems that I had personally constructed. Despite all of that hard work, not a single one of the interviews I had got to see the work I had made because it wasn’t available for them to view!

Github and Bitbucket are incredible resources that you should utilize if you’re planning to contribute to enterprise-level codebases. It is becoming more common for job applications to request links to personal repositories of code so technical recruiters can review your skills before setting up interviews. Many individuals I know have received job offers based on their open-source contributions alone! Invest in learning about these source control management platforms. You won’t regret it.

• “An Intro to Git and Github for Beginners (tutorial)” — https://product.hubspot.com/blog/git-and-github-tutorial-for-beginners
• “Introducing Git Flow” — https://datasift.github.io/gitflow/IntroducingGitFlow.html

3. Start growing your professional network through social media.

LinkedIn is a popular professional social-networking site that I have used to network from the comfort of my own home. Between meeting new professionals, setting up coffees with people I admire, and reading the helpful articles, LinkedIn is a great resource for anyone looking to grow professionally. Also, it is a decent platform to utilize when searching for that first job.

If you haven’t made an account already, look into creating a LinkedIn profile and take advantage of the recruiting resources available with the free membership. It is also important to note that other social media platforms, such as Twitter, are full of software developers sharing their knowledge and experience. Take advantage of these communities, and don’t be afraid to contribute to them yourself! Everyone has to start somewhere.

• “How to REALLY let recruiters now your open” — https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-really-let-recruiters-know-youre-open-donna-serdula/
• “Who to follow on Twitter if you want to understand tech” https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/tech-people-influencers-follow-twitter/

4. Don’t be afraid to find a recruiter.

As I mentioned earlier, there are more positions available than there are developers to fill them. Because of this, companies have a challenging time finding the best qualified candidate. We all know, where there is a problem, there is money to be made. Cue the entrance of the Technical Recruiting industry.

Technical recruiting agencies have helped close this gap by offering services to companies by providing them with talent at no cost to the individual being hired. Recruiters get paid by finding you the best fit with an employer. Recruiters have a pulse on local businesses tech requirements and where entry-level software engineering positions will be available.

Don’t be afraid to contact an agency if you’re having a hard time getting businesses to respond to you on your own. In some cities, it might even be difficult to get a job without the help of a staffing agency simply because of the trust recruiting agencies have built with local businesses.

Work with a recruiting agency, understand their process and how that will directly affect your job hunt. Not all agencies or recruiters are alike, and it’s important that you and your recruiter have the same goals regarding positions you are interested in.

• “Headhunters: The truth about working with them (an in-depth guide)” — https://www.resumetoreferral.com/headhunters/
• “What you need to know about how recruiters get paid (and how it will affect your job search)” — https://chameleonresumes.com/need-know-how-recruiters-get-paid-may-affect-job-hunt/

5. Know what you’re looking for.

Though you may not know exactly what you want to do for the rest of your life, you will probably know the type of hours you want to work during the week, the salary you will expect and whether or not you will want/need benefits.

One of the biggest things I discovered when I entered the industry was the differences between full-time employees and contractors. Though the titles themselves don’t inherently have a difference in the work at hand, it will affect how much you get paid, time-off, benefits, and overall job security. Before you begin your search and negotiating your salary, write down the things that you’ll need to take into consideration:

• Do you have any big vacations in the near future?
• How often do you need your paycheck?
• How much do you spend each month? Personal? Bills? Other responsibilities?
• Are you planning on moving anytime soon?

Some individuals wish for a full-time position with a certain organization (full benefits, PTO, and holidays off), but you may have to work as a contractor there before the employer is willing to hire you full-time. Research the market in your area while you are networking. You might be financially flexible now but require more stability in a few years, you never know.

Also… important tidbit.

Wherever you land, the likelihood of you being there for more than 3 years is very low. In 2017, the Software Engineering industry had the highest turnover of any other industry, and for good reason. Between the demand and the rising compensation to entice talented engineers, the cost of your time will significantly increase the more you work. Take this into consideration as you look forward to accepting your first position; you probably won’t be there forever, so what are some compromises you can make for a year or two?

• “Contract vs. Full-time” — https://blog.toggl.com/contract-vs-full-time/

6. Your worth != what you’ll be paid

One of the most difficult pieces of advice for me to accept was the reality that the salary I am offered will not directly equal my worth as a professional.

Hypothetically, let’s say I am great candidate for an entry-level position. I’m hard-working, eager, and willing to learn and I’m worth a specific amount in the workforce. Though this is very logical thinking, it isn’t necessarily how businesses think when it comes to salary negotiation. Despite their eagerness to get talented developers, they are still in the business of making a profit. Which can mean offering a lower salary to someone who’s willing to accept it.

You might need to view your potential salary as “how much will get me motivated to go to work in the morning” versus “how much am I ‘worth’”. This change in mindset can save your self-esteem and stress-level as you begin salary negotiations. The likelihood of them aiming lower than you think you’re ‘worth’ is high. As long as there are individuals willing to accept a lower salary, you will have a hard time finding someone who’s willing to pay you what you think you are worth.

Though this might be frustrating at first, understand that the number it takes you to “get up in the morning” will increase over time. You won’t be at the low end of the pay scale forever. The more experience you have, the more power you will have in negotiating your salary. Rest assured that there are plenty of ways to climb in the technology industry.

• Glassdoor “Entry Level Developer” Salary Estimate — https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/entry-level-developer-salary-SRCH_KO0,21.htm
• Glassdoor “Know your worth” Personal Estimate — https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/know-your-worth.htm

7. Get familiar with testing and testing frameworks

Though it’s rarely covered in an undergraduate degree, software testing is something that you will encounter in almost every development job.

As an engineer, your job is to develop great solutions alongside ensuring those solutions don’t break previous functionality. Through utilizing testing frameworks, developers are able to identify when bugs produced in newly produced code.

By addressing these issues early on, you can eliminate a large portion of the bugs a client may find through regular interaction with the product. Though you can never truly eliminate all bugs, you can take responsibility for the product by using testing best-practices.

Testing can help you become a better developer. As Boris Beizer, an American software engineer and author, once said…

“More than the act of testing, the act of designing tests is one of the best bug preventers known. The thinking that must be done to create a useful test can discover and eliminate bugs before they are coded — indeed, test-design thinking can discover and eliminate bugs at every stage in the creation of software, from conception to specification, to design, coding and the rest.”

• “What is Software Testing? Introduction, Definition, Basics & Types” — https://www.guru99.com/software-testing-introduction-importance.html
• “Types of Software Testing” — https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/types-software-testing/

8. Utilize your school’s post-graduate resources

This might sound like a no-brainer, but don’t forget that your university has an incredible amount of resources at their fingertips. They have made it their business to produce young, talented professionals who are ready for the workforce. Don’t be shocked that businesses reach out to them on a regular basis asking for candidates. You will only discover these opportunities if you take the time to talk with them and ask!

I graduated from a small, private university and even there I had an impressive amount of resources to aid me in securing my first job. Between resume reviewers, local company contacts, and even exclusive job opportunity postings, Universities have a wealth of resources. Let’s not forget about job fairs that are constantly happening throughout the city! Take the time and investigate the resources available. You might be pleasantly surprised at the help they provide.

9. Interview often

Oftentimes, we put an extreme amount of pressure on ourselves during a job search. If you’re anything like me, interviews are anxiety producing, nerve-wracking, and an overall unpleasant experience. However, all of this is simply because of inexperience in the actual act of interviewing itself. If you’re not comfortable in who you’re speaking with and knowledgeable of what exactly they’re looking for, you are going to be nervous! What’s the best way to combat interview anxiety? … More interviews.

Throughout your career you are going to work in numerous places so it will benefit you to become a “professional interviewer”. You already know you won’t be staying in the same place forever, so what’s the harm in having a conversation about other job opportunities? If you interview for positions you are not necessarily wanting to accept, it will be that much easier to interview for jobs you’re very interested in.

Always make sure to keep your options open. It really sets you up for success when it comes to embracing tip #10.

And lastly…

10. Make sure you and your family are #1. ALWAYS.

This is truly the beginning of one of the biggest adventures of your life. You’re in far too great of a field to hate your job and that’s an amazing thing. If I’ve learned anything these last three years, I would say that nothing is worth sacrificing my relationships for; not even a really great paying job.

You have one of the most sought-after skill sets in the world right now… don’t forget that.

Once you’ve landed that first job, getting the next will be that much easier. The idea of leaving a job that has taught you so much can be scary but remember that at the end of the day capitalism doesn’t play well with sentimentality.

In a world that changes quickly, it is important to put yourself and your continuing education as a priority in your continual job hunt. The better of a position you’re able to put yourself in, the better you’ll be able to take care of your family and your future; and at the end of the day that’s the most important thing.

Myself outside of Slalom Consulting LLC (Saint Louis, MO), my first employer as a Software Engineer. I was officially hired one month post-graduation and I couldn’t have been happier.

I hope that these pieces of advice resonate with you as much as they did with me. There is plenty of room in this industry for all of us, and everyone you meet with have experiences that you can learn from. If you have a great piece of advice that you think new grads should know, please share it in the comments below!

Thanks for reading and I wish you the best of luck in your job hunt.

Jenna Palmer, @jpalmerproject (Twitter)

Hello people! Today I am going to show you how I got my student pack from GitHub and how you can get it too.

Here are some advantages of the student package:

• Unlimited private repositories.
• Access to developer tools for free.
• $50 in Digital Ocean credit.
• Here is a complete list.

Requirements

To get the student pack, you have to meet these requirements:

• Must be enrolled in a degree- or diploma-granting course of study.
• Must be a student aged 13+.
• Must have a GitHub account.

If you meet these requirements, we will continue.

How to get the pack

You get access here and click to join GitHub Education.

You are going to see this:

Fill out this form and click on next.

Now we have two options for validating our school degree.

With an email from your school like myname@school.com.

Or

Upload proof of your academic status.

In my case, I uploaded my academic status in Brazilian Portuguese, and it worked very well. One week later I received this:

The Student Pack will last for two years. You can renew the plan if you are still studying at that point.

This is it. I hope you have enjoyed it, do not forget to ?. See you soon.