
Ask HN: What did you do in your first year after school? - marclave
A year has passed since I finished my engineering undergrad, and am curious what the people of HN did in their first year after school?<p>Was it a transitional period of reflection, did you travel, jump straight into a degree or work?
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sethammons
I had a kid when I was 15. Getting to work post undergrad degree was
imperative. Heck, working _during_ my degree was an absolute requirement. But
work post-degree meant I could earn more. I minored in CS, my major was
business. In my first year post undergrad, I went to work immediately selling
and servicing insurance. Sometime after, I then moved onto financial services,
then to construction as I got my teaching credential, then teaching, and,
finally, after all that, eventually found my way to a 2yo start up doing
software development (toss in a couple more kids along the way). It took me
about 7 years to find software, and now I've been doing that ever since. It
was the first time we had some wiggle room in our finances. We got our first
real travel-somewhere-vacation last year. Never had a real vacation before
software (even as a teacher). The first several years as a developer, time off
meant repair projects around the house.

Long story to say that it's ok to not get directly into your career if you can
manage it, but realize that the cost is potentially a year longer/delay on
your financial goals, whether that be your ability to raise a family, buy a
car, purchase a house, or until retirement. Also, once you have
responsibilities, you won't likely be able to get back off that treadmill.

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quickthrower2
I went straight to work. I took about 6 months and many interviews to find a
job, so I did some labouring work while looking for a coding position.
Travelling around the world seemed too scary / not me.

In retrospect I wished I had given a PhD a go. Even if I dropped out I'd just
get a job, and the stipend was generous enough for a single person to live.

I encourage people to consider travelling even if they thing it's not for
them. It doesn't have to be like everyone else does it. I'd go back and travel
to meet other like minded tech people, go to tech conferences, and get some
nature walks in amazing places. It would be light on the partying and well
trodden backpacker routes, using non-plane transport as much as possible. It
also could be 2 weeks initially with an option to go home or carry on.

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marclave
Appreciate your retrospection and thoughts.

Do you have an idea on what area you would do your PhD in?

Do you think that if someone is apprehensive about travelling for awhile after
grad, that you would recommend a transitional period to explore ideas and not
jump into any commitments? Which kind of feels as though it is an implicit
side effect of going travelling for awhile.

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quickthrower2
PhD would be computer science related. Maybe related to compilers or
programming languages.

I think what I'm saying is a 2-4 week holiday is a good way to test if you
like travelling, and what sort of travelling you like. If you don't like
travelling as in constantly moving, maybe a holiday in once place for a while
might give you the cultural experience without all the hassles. Depends on
what you like. I've met people doing back to back organised tours for months,
not sure how they do that without going mad!

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marclave
Those are both pretty neat fields.

Ahh I see, yeah makes sense and can vary between people for sure :)

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ohyash
Been 3 months since I graduated, I have been working.

Corporate life is much more lame than I anticipated it'd be.

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omosubi
Haha I completely agree. The big five or six are really good at selling the
"change the world and have fun" aspect, when in reality it's just sitting at a
desk for 8 hours a day looking at jira tickets or whatever. Not that there
isn't value in that sort of work but some perspective helps

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trykondev
After I graduated with a computer science degree, I spent a year playing
competitive chess. I had already dedicated a lot of my free time in the last
two years of my degree to chess and I couldn't wait to be done with school so
that I could go all-in on chess.

I learned a lot of valuable life lessons during that year and I am glad I took
that time before diving right into my career in tech. At the time, I was
nervous that I was ruining my life by not getting started right away at a
"real job", but things turned out completely fine -- in fact, I think my
manager at my first big tech job was more intrigued by my chess skills than my
coding skills :)

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marclave
Cool :) What was competitive chess like? Also what was training like for
chess, was it speed training alongside putting yourself in specific scenarios
to get out of?

Any fav chess players?

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atsushin
I took a temporary job that was not in my field (software development), stayed
there for a few months then joined a product life-cycle management startup as
a web developer for half a year. That didn't work out, so I quit, then went
back to that temporary job.

I'll be taking the GRE in September and am applying for graduate programs in
my area.

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scanny
Straight into work, as school was rounding off I sent of applications to
various companies and NGO's over the world. The responses were interesting
enough not to need an OE or something. Just go work where you will want to
travel.

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fmahaztra
Not exactly the kind of school you’re implying, but I’ve spent the past year
after my high school graduation working. I’m currently a software engineer at
an asset management firm and will start university simultaneously soon :)

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marclave
Cool :)

What are you going to be studying at Uni?

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fmahaztra
Good ol' computer science

