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Ask HN: Is spending a year learning from MOOCs a good plan?

11 points by karolisram ↗ HN
TL;DR: Is spending a year immediately after college learning MOOCs to discover what niche to specialize in computing a generally good idea?

Hi guys,

A little background. I am about to graduate from a university in 3 months with a Computer Science degree and am already experiencing pains trying to decide what to do next. I generally did well in all the disciplines, from Operating Systems to Security to AI and so on. But since you don't delve deeply into any topics while at university, I am left confused in what I would actually like to specialize in later on.

Currently, I work for my university developing their app, and have good skills in front-end in general. However, there seems to be a lot more interesting niches out there such as data science, robotics, embedded programming.

But before I make full jump into any of these new areas, I would like to test them all out and get a better feeling of what I might like doing best for the next decade or so.

Do you think spending a year learning from MOOCs, creating own personal projects is a good idea? Or would it perhaps be better to find work immediately, or find some really good internships? The problem with finding work is that with my current skills I am not confident I would be able to get the job in the niche I might want to try out. This is essentially what the year would be spent on, researching different niches, trying out some personal projects and then pursuing the needed skills to get a job in the niche that really catches my interest.

Any input is highly appreciated! How did you find your own niche to specialize in? How would you go about jobs hunting or getting relevant experience in this situation?

9 comments

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kliao
Why not ask professors at your university for opportunities on campus to do research in the fields you're interested in? This would be infinitely better than only doing MOOCs on your own (which you can also do on the side) because you are 1) receiving guidance from professors and/or grad students, 2) possibly getting paid, 3) have something concrete to put on your resume.

The thing with doing MOOCs on your own is it seems easy to get lazy and end up wasting a lot of time with nothing to show on your resume.

karolisram
Appreciate your idea! I could do that but I don't want to be stuck in the academic environment any longer than needed anymore.

And agreed about the MOOCs, while they are valuable, there might be even more valuable things you could be doing or ways in which you could be developing your skills.

runT1ME
Here's what you do. Find a couple companies you want to work for. Find folks who work there on twitter/irc/github.

Email them and say "I'd love to work at your company in a year, what can I do to prepare".

They'll tell you. You do want to get a job, be it contracting or something, so you have some professional experience.

But the main thing is you learn what you need to learn, you figure out if you need some github contributions, moocs, read a books, etc.

karolisram
That's a real good advice right here! So in summary, decide what you want to do, find someone who does it, ask them how to get where he/she is. Even if it's not the same company, you will still get a similar job if you follow person's advice.
JoachimSchipper
If you want to work in the commercial world, get a job - you have a lot of (practical) skills to develop, and people will wonder why you needed another year of coursework before starting work. Consider aiming for a job at a company that's good at an interesting niche, and note that new grads can get hired into many niches. There is such a thing as a junior data scientist, junior security expert, ...! (And there's also such a thing as a web developer working at a robotics company - such a web developer could easily dip a toe into robotics.)

It's not necessarily a bad idea to play around with MOOCs to take a look at other skills while working at your job, but if a university course wasn't enough to make up your mind a MOOC won't be either.

(In general, a thesis or internship is a good way to look deeply into a specific niche. But if you're three months from graduating, I don't think that advice will help you...)

karolisram
Yeah, you are right about the 'junior' part, I shall definitely try looking for such jobs.

In regards to thesis, I did what I thought would be interesting and it was. But essentially it was creating a product to solve real client's problem which I have done in the past as a freelancer. In hindsight, I should have probably chosen something related to these other niches, would have been a perfect opportunity.

brudgers
{Random advice from the internet}

More schooling will teach more of the sort of things that are taught in school. A job will teach the sort of things that are taught on a job.

If the priority is learning more of the things that are taught in school, get a graduate degree. There is nothing to keep a person from spending time on MOOC's while working. A lot of people do.

Work is not like school, most new grads will learn a lot really fast because the learning is by doing alongside other people with more experience in a culture with a great deal of institutional experience in the thing that is being done.

To put it another way, if there's some really interesting MOOC, take it now.

Good luck.

karolisram
Thanks brudgers. What I take from this is that you will learn a lot more in a job which I know and totally agree on. Thus if you can get such job, for example in a junior role where it is expected that you don't know everything and will have to learn a lot, take it. Meanwhile, a MOOC won't hurt but it's not the same as an actual job, just like school.
brudgers
Mooc's are easier to blow off than school. And less structured. And don't provide a widely recognized credentials.

I'll go further than I did before. If there's something interesting, just start learning it now: graduated or not, offered in a MOOC or not, working a job or getting a grad degreee. It doesn't matter.