Expect twists and turns in your career.
I did a talk for graduating students in computing science the other week. This is a slide summary of what I talked about. There were a few questions at the end, which is always good.
While this is correct for computing science, I also think it applies to most other subjects too.
Keep these three truths in mind as they cover everything. I have talked about these before, and heard them first from Katherine Kirk, who I always found inspiring when I had an opportunity to talk to her at a conference:
- everything is in a regular state of change so make it easy to adapt as you learn more
- we need to collaborate in our work so talk to people regularly to make it easy to align your work (you can’t work in isolation)
- satisfaction is temporary so be aware of possible sources of change (and make it easy to apply changes)
Learn to be a good collaborator: do the work together to learn together
Follow DORA and use XP in your work: DORA focuses on quality delivery, and xp enables quality work. The two of these work well together, and ensure the team is collaborating well to do the work together.
Be aware of the ethical context in your work: This will keep you from making dangerous mistakes. This applies to all that we do. Think of who you’re talking to in your work, and whether all the relevant voices are being heard.
Coding speed was never the bottleneck. It is always the feedback loop (approval and comments): This is why communication is so important. As Rob Bowley, discusses in his blogpost, this is an old theme.
Experiment and create opportunities because your role will evolve over time: You have the least responsibilities and greatest potential now if you’re a student. Young students usually graduate with few responsibilities, and are used to living without much income. This means they can take the chance with a start-up, or other opportunity.
Beware your passion (heart over reason) and instead focus on developing your skills (what you know how to do). Yes, I know people often say follow your passion. However, this is a bad idea. Passion is tied to emotions, and those can lead you astray: this is why there are crimes of passion. You are more likely to be successful if you focus on the skills you are good at, and where you enjoy spending your time.
Work with people smarter than you and create learning opportunities. These people become your mentors and you accelerate your learning. There is always more to learn, so be patient, and find ways to learn more smoothly.
Keep exercising your critical thinking: This should not be off-loaded. Use your CS experience to guide you. Clarke Ching calls this ‘ the Clancy trap‘ because he noticed it when reading Tom Clancy novels: wow he knows so much about submarines and the CIA. But, when Clancy wrote about computers, Clarke realised he had it wrong, because he knows about those. So, pay attention to what you do know, and leverage your critical thinking carefully there.
Grow your network of people: You need to know people in other companies so that you can use them when you need them. Find the meet-ups and similar things in your town and talk about things. Look on Eventbrite, Meet-up, etc. You are unlikely to stay with the same company your whole career, so find other people doing similar work, who might be able to help you later.
Keep life sustainable with ‘no’. Saying ‘yes’ too often will stress you out with too many commitments. If you say ‘yes’ to everything, then you are giving equal priority to everything, and that is not sustainable. Eventually, you’ll overcommit, and not be able to deliver. You’ll also get more stressed too. This is never good. So learn to say ‘no’ to people. There are many reasons, and ways to do this.
Find the fun thing that recharges you. THIS can be your passion. This can be you following your passion and enjoying yourself as you have fun after work.
Get outside regularly. Fresh air and sunshine recharge you. You know this is good for you. Even if you grumble while you do it.
As you apply for jobs Evidence your skills and show where you applied skills in hackathons, group projects, volunteering, internships. Keep track of what you do, and what you liked. Also what you didn’t like too. This goes into your “to don’t” list. While this is often about productivity, as in that link, it should also cover the bigger roles too as you develop your career. If you don’t make conscious choices, then you drift, and will eventually end up someone you didn’t intend to. So, pause and reflect on where you are, and what you’d like to change on regular occasions.
Save for your future: Use ISAs and pensions to best effect. You don’t know what the future holds. The sooner you start putting money into places the tax people can’t reach, then the better your funds grow. Do put some into stocks, shares, etc too.
This post is part of a project pulling together my materials and ideas about Teaching Team Collaboration: the Human-Side of Software Development for software development to students.
If you’d like to be notified of future posts, then please sign up for more using the adjacent form. When you sign up, then I’ll send you a free copy of the collaboration rules as a PDF from the book. You can also follow me on LinkedIn
The ideas above are from my book 101+ Ideas to Improve Team Collaboration, which covers all of these little things that students can do to improve their collaboration. Also available via Kindle.