Recently I graduated from Flatiron School’s Software Engineering Program, and while I had already networked with several friends and former colleagues about job prospects, I hadn’t applied to any jobs just yet since I was working day and night to finish my curriculum, my final project, and an open source project contribution.
However, once I graduated, I found myself initially scrambling to put together a solid day-to-day schedule of what I should continue to learn, what I should learn that I hadn’t yet, do I work on open source projects or create my own, and how much time do I dedicate to each.
After chatting with fellow engineers and taking a few days off, I came back energized and decided that a starter plan is better than over analyzing, so I’ve made this schedule for myself for the last couple of weeks:
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8 - 8:30 AM - Read an article/blog from CodingHorror, Medium Software Engineering Digest, etc
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8:30 - 9:30 AM - Get critical thinking going with a few HackerRank/Codebyte problems in multiple languages/concepts
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9:30 - 10:30 AM - Learn/master algorithm concepts and more critical thinking questions by reading Cracking the Coding Interview book
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10:30 - 10:50 - Mini-break
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10:50 - 11:30 - Look for new open source issues to tackle/think of add-ons for current projects OR ideas for new project
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11:30 - 12:30 - Lunch
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12:30 - 1:30 - Prep for possible interview questions
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1:30 - 4:30 - Work on current development projects, open source projects, and/or pair code when possible
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4:30 - 6:00 - Exercise, take dog for walk, and eat dinner
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6:00 - 8:00 - Network events, online networking, and job applications
It may not be perfect, but as many former engineering colleagues and friends have told me: others aren’t smarter than you, they just have more experience. So every day, I learn more, I code more, and I get more more experience.
Perhaps this time should be scary and intimidating (sometimes it is), but I love learning about new technologies, how software works, and I am confident in my abilities as a developer
As I begin interviewing this week, I realize I can’t control a company hiring me or not, but I’m excited to learn, and I will keep moving forward!