Speaker Wisdom at DDD North

This picture has nothing to do with the subject of this post. I just like how it came out.

One of the best bits of DDD yesterday was getting together with some students to talk about plans for the future. Boss had organised a bunch of speakers to have a word with a bunch of students. For me it was great to hear folks echoing what I used to tell students all those years ago. All of the speakers had great stories and I chipped in occasionally too. But I think all the advice can really be summed up very simply:

Do stuff and tell people about it.

People who might fancy hiring you will expect you to have completed your studies successfully. But if the only “war stories” that you have to tell are about your assessments you will find yourself at a disadvantage. You need to have other things you have made, done or failed at to talk about. And they don’t necessarily have to be in software. You should form a policy of finding things to do and ways in which you can use them to your advantage. If you take care of that you might find that your future will take care of itself.