My college visit after 18+ years

I recently gave a webinar for post graduate computer science students, on a topic " Where To" - Choosing your career path in the fast paced tech industry.

Thanks to Head of the computer science department Dr. Muralidharan and Dr. Priya for facilitating that webinar. It was a humbling experience to connect with graduate students and professors.

It's been 18+ years since I graduated with Master's with Computer Science major. When I was doing my masters my roommate and I were writing device drivers and games using C and C++ and dreamed about building Operating system to compete with Microsoft OS, recent computer graduates got much larger technology landscape to play with ( they are not limited to just system programming) there are many industry verticals and horizontal technologies to choose from, pretty much every industry verticals ( Retail, Financial Services, Automotive, Agriculture etc,. ) needs tech.

Following is the essence of mu webinar.

Top 3 Opportunities

1. By 2025- India will add 65+ Million jobs in tech industry, many startups and mid size companies offer interesting tech jobs as Multinational Companies.
2. Training and micro courses are widely available( Udemy, Linkedin Learning), lectures from professors are not the only source of knowledge anymore for the students
3. Technology is changing at a fast pace, so new graduates are almost equal to 5+ years of experienced professionals when it comes to tech skills and knowledge

Top 3 challenges

1. Social media distractions - ( Facebook, Whatsapp, Youtube, Instagram etc.,) almost all students stay engaged in social media and devote 1/4th of the study time to social media, they don't get focus time or flow in skill development or at study.
2. Knowledge overloading
3. High expectation and peer pressure

How to choose the technology career path if you are in college now?

1. Learn and build hands on with least one cloud platform ( AWS, Azure, Google, IBM, ORACLE)
2. Select one stream of work ( Web User Experience, Mobile, Data Science, Service(API) development with JAVA/.NET/NODE.JS etc., QA , Cloud Admin), test it for few years before change the workstream
3. Practice soft skills ( it's going to be a differentiating factor in many situations)

I really liked that experience and I don't want to stop at the webinar ( just to give the speech and leave) , so I planned to take 5 students to mentor and be part of their journey for next few years. I wish them good luck to become successful and contribute to the society.