As a data analyst, I find myself coming here for the interesting articles and comments too. I agree that a filter for non-programming articles would be hugely beneficial for those people in the community that do not program or those that are coming here to take a break from their general work schedule.
Can you talk on the challenges and strategies of creating a community of people like Imzy? Not necessarily just online, but also in real life, how do you bring people together?
Mine's on silent 24/7, no vibration, but never off. Also, being a millennial woman with small pockets that don't fit my phone, I almost always have it in my hand so I can see anything I've missed every 15-20 minutes at least. I have all of my notifications for social media turned off.
I love mindmaps, and I find them extremely useful. I think that a search engine for these would be extremely powerful. While not everyone will find mindmaps useful, some will, and I can see other people posting theirs on a variety of subjects too.
I like to meet with people for coffee, so messaging people you look up to (try linkedin) is always a good idea. Ask if you can meet for coffee to get to know them, and over time, a mentoring relationship might develop. As some other people have said, you can't force a mentoring relationship, they form naturally.
I've been looking for something like this for a while.
It would be cool if this integrated with social media platforms automatically to figure out when we communicated with someone via text/email/facebook message.
Also, I would have probably liked this more if it was an app, though I know not everyone will agree with that.
I think that its okay that you don't have side projects. I just graduated with my undergrad and was quite close to my professors. I'd say, if you can still go to office hours, go to them prepared and with good questions. Let them know that you did your research and noticed that they were into cryptology, and tell them that that's something you'd be interested in learning more about - ask them if they have books or papers that they would recommend. After a couple of office hours, or when you're comfortable, ask them if they would be willing to grab coffee. This will create more of a personal professional relationship rather than one just related to class. If you do not feel comfortable, continue to talk to them about the papers you've read and so on. Ask them how you can learn more, or if they'd be willing to help you code some stuff. Show them that you're truly interested.
I don't think you have to be at the top of your class to have a good relationship with your professors (I definitely wasn't!)
I'm also one of these people - I recently landed a job which required me to learn how to code. I work with the tech department at the startup, and so everyone around me reads HN. I've found that it's valuable for discussion (the articles and stories are often talked about over lunch or in meetings). Plus, I've been looking for a source for interesting news that I care about. While I don't read most of the techie articles about how to do stuff or the newest updates to software, I read all of the other stuff that pops up. I enjoy the community, asking and answering questions and I've found myself hooked on.
I personally chose to come to University in the US and had a great experience. While my campus had issues with international students and domestic students being divided, we did a lot of research for our newspaper and wrote opinion pieces on how to bridge the gap.
Next to the search bar, there's a little button that says "advanced" that I believe will still allow you to get to the functionality you're looking for in a less intuitive way.
I've been bullet journaling for a while and I found it particularly useful for handling school, work, family, friends and general life throughout college. Now, as a working person, I've found my bullet journal change with me, which has honestly been really nice.
Thanks Chris for writing such wonderful content! Me and my friend are super excited to get started, and we're glad we have so many great resources, both from you and from everyone else on HN!
Good luck for the next one, I can't wait to check it out!
That's very true, I actually ended up subscribing to pro because I was also learning JavaScript and HTML/CSS at the time (new programmer), so I found the pro stuff useful. However, if you're not wanting to drop the $20 or so for the month, I'd say that you can find plenty of fantastic online resources.