With finals wrapping up for the fall semester, we thought it would be helpful to think proactively about what you might want to do with your winter break:
- Rest. Recover. Regroup: Sleep, enjoy time with friends and family. You are given breaks for a very good reason – you need time to rest your mind and assimilate what you have learned all fall. When you feel rested, take a step back and figure out your goals, and create a plan to get there.
- Work on Planning and Time Management: While we all have the same number of hours in a day, we all know someone who seems to be able to use those hours more efficiently. Better planning means more time working towards the goals you set in #1. We recommend checking out these sites to learn about work/life balance and efficiency:
- Cal Newport – a CS professor at Georgetown who writes about the intersection of technology and society. He’s particularly interested in the impact of new technologies on our ability to perform productive work and lead satisfying lives.
- Barking Up the Wrong Tree – Eric Barker’s blog brings you science-based answers and expert insight on “how to be awesome at life.”
- Create a personal website: If you don’t have one already, you will have to have a personal website eventually. As a programmer this is a great way to showcase who you are as well as what you have worked on. Learn from your peers at Columbia who wrote “The Importance of Having a Personal Website (& How to Make One)” in The Prospect. Read the full article by Sophie Stadler here.
- Create a GitHub profile: Many of you probably already have one, but if you don’t have a GitHub account yet, consider setting one up. Nearly every employer or recruiter you meet in the future is going to ask you for your GitHub account. This is where you showcase the raw code that you’ve written up to this point. We suggest including school projects, and if applicable, any side projects you’ve worked on. Which brings us to…
- Start a side project: There will be few times in your life where you will have a month off during the Holidays. Take advantage of this time to start a side project that you can use to highlight your skills and interests to employers.
- Understanding Why Side Projects are Looked At So Highly in Tech by Ming Y. Chow
- Personal Lessons on Personal Projects for CS Majors Pt 1 by Hyunrae Kim
- A Software Developers Guide to Side Projects by Jon Sonmez
- Update Your LinkedIn Profile: Check out the Top 25 Computer Science Student Profiles.