One thing that worked well for me was to look for a mentor early on. Try to find someone experienced in the field that could lead you through your career, recommend books and give you feedback. Two things that happened to me while following this:
1. I was learning much quicker and way more valuable content than my peers during university. I think it was mainly because I was getting curated content/tips from my mentor which saved me from learning things that I will probably never gonna need.
2. I got job offers even while not looking for jobs. Interesting enough, my mentor casually mentioned me within his network and those people ended up contacting me.
The best part of it is that you can get it 100% for free if you search carefully. The tech field is full of good people that are willing to give their time(usually very expensive) away to help newcomers. Specially those like me that got help from the start, paying it forward feels like a obligation.
But you might ask: “how can I connect with those experienced people?”. There are many ways to do it, but some very effective are:
- go to meetups and talk to people. Don't just sit there and watch the talks. Be part of it.
- use Twitter. You will be impressed by the amount ok knowledge that is being shared there.
- reach out To your local companies. Send them emails, knock at their doors. There is nothing cooler than seeing folks interested on your product/company.
What would be a good way to find a mentor? I had looked into that topic a while back, but haven't found something promising.
And I think the first step for me would be getting to know people in the institute district we have here next to the university. But meetups are definitely something I want to go to in the future. But Twitter was something I always failed on. Any tips for Twitter?
1. I was learning much quicker and way more valuable content than my peers during university. I think it was mainly because I was getting curated content/tips from my mentor which saved me from learning things that I will probably never gonna need. 2. I got job offers even while not looking for jobs. Interesting enough, my mentor casually mentioned me within his network and those people ended up contacting me.
The best part of it is that you can get it 100% for free if you search carefully. The tech field is full of good people that are willing to give their time(usually very expensive) away to help newcomers. Specially those like me that got help from the start, paying it forward feels like a obligation.
But you might ask: “how can I connect with those experienced people?”. There are many ways to do it, but some very effective are:
- go to meetups and talk to people. Don't just sit there and watch the talks. Be part of it.
- use Twitter. You will be impressed by the amount ok knowledge that is being shared there.
- reach out To your local companies. Send them emails, knock at their doors. There is nothing cooler than seeing folks interested on your product/company.