Things You Need To Know – Technology
Stay up to date on trends and advancements
Tech moves fast. Staying up to date with trends, understanding recent developments in the industry, and speaking the ‘lingo’ used by tech companies are all important whether you are eyeing a technical or nontechnical role. There is no shortage of blogs, news outlets, or podcasts to pick from. Consider the following:
Get Practical
The best way to build skills is to work on real projects, big or small. Dream up something you might like to build and identify the skills and tools you will need to get there. If you’re looking for some formalized educational content, head over to LinkedIn Learning (free for Colby students). Find tutorials and walk-throughs on Medium and YouTube, read issues on relevant GitHub repositories, and don’t forget to read the documentation for the tools you are working with. For some inspiration, browse the GitHub repositories below.
- https://github.com/florinpop17/app-ideas
- https://github.com/MunGell/awesome-for-beginners
- https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome
Grok the Tech Interview
If you’re seeking technical roles, you will need to spend time preparing for technical interviews. In the past, technical interviews were often whiteboard problem-solving and algorithms exercises. These days, you should expect both take-home and live coding challenges, which may be administered by a third-party service provider. Preparing for these interviews includes practicing technical problems, studying up on data structures and algorithms, and polishing your communications skills. Beyond working with your DavisConnects advisor, there are many online resources to help you get ready.
- LeetCode
- Code Academy’s Free Technical Interview Course
- Interviewing.io’s library of example technical interviews
Show off your Skills
Once you’ve built some projects, you may want to share them with the world. Polish up your repositories and make them public on GitHub. Share your latest UI mockups on Dribbble. Consider making a personal website using GitHub Pages or host one on Vercel.
Showing others what you’re working on is a tenet of the software community. If you know someone else is going to be reading your code or admiring your designs, you might feel tempted to clean up or refactor your code, write some documentation, or reconsider the user-flow of your product. Getting feedback from your peers, be they your classmates or other folks on the internet, is a great way to continually self-improve.