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Comment by soared | Hacker News Reader

You’ll benefit 100x more interning than doing things on your own at this stage in life. Stay in school and get an internship - if you have the extra time to kill you can just take the minimum amount of credits and spend your extra time on skills.

But my actual suggestion - stay enrolled and go study abroad. The job skills you learn now won’t matter compared to the trip you took to Europe which generated lifelong friends and memories.

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The idea is to get an internship in Europe in the middle of college to upskill. In HS I didn't learn as much CS as I could've, unfortunately this puts my programming skills "behind."

> In HS I didn't learn as much CS as I could've, unfortunately this puts my programming skills "behind."

My kid refused to try programming 'coz that's what dad does so didn't even start until he was half way though his undergraduate program (math). And he was hired upon graduation by FAANG as a developer.

Do you really think "upskilling" at this stage is better than learning theory? You'll write code for class and can work on some packages with your friends, probably in a more tightly coupled loop than you would in industry.

I'm not sure how to answer your last question, really. I mean it might be rhetorical but I honestly believe I'd benefit from both coursework and this year off. A lot to consider, but I appreciate the advice.

It does not take more than a couple years to get fine enough programming skills to make it in the professional world. Do not consider yourself behind, I highly doubt any significant % of engineers knew what cs was when they were in high school. Focusing on personal projects, interning, freelancing while in school will put you waaay ahead of your peers.

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