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What would you recommend to a junior CS major to avoid falling into this pattern?


Specialize. Pick a subfield of CS that you really enjoy, that really resonates with you -- machine learning, NLP, algorithms, whatever -- and become an absolute expert at it. Know your subfield inside and out.

Start thinking about what specialty you want now, today. Do some research, talk to professors and other students, etc. By the time you are a senior, you should know what you want to specialize in and be well on your way.

Then, you can get a job that actually requires deep knowledge. Since you actually care about this, you'll quickly become bored and frustrated if you take a standard startup code monkey job where you are expected to write Rails or PHP code all day, but then that's the only experience you'll have. You'll also be competing with less well educated programmers who are willing to work for less.




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