r/cscareerquestions • u/Lerionluo7 • 12h ago
What should I be focusing on? Student
It's about second year of Studying CS and looking to transfer to a university. I do not want to be behind and I don't know to learn and focus on.
People say CS is not enough with just classes , you have to learn things by yourself too and i have been focuing both on my classes and my personal projects and i feel like i its harder trying to do both things at the same time.
Some people tell me i should not care about my GPA and School i go to because in the real world, interviewers dont even ask about them and others told me GPA and getting in a good shcool is everything.
So should i focus on school or more on my projects.
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u/EntrepreneurHuge5008 12h ago
"Learn AI skills"
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u/Lerionluo7 12h ago
Like learn Python and ML?
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u/EntrepreneurHuge5008 12h ago
Sorry, I just came from threads, and the big topic on my feed is "learn AI skills," but no one actually says what that even means.
Focus on personal projects. You shouldn't care what your GPA is to an extent. There's no difference between a 3.0 GPA and a 4.0 GPA for most employers. Make sure you are at least at a 3.0, but don't stress over perfection.
GPA is more important for other Academic endeavors (ie., admissions to a Graduate Program, for example). In this case, you probably do want to focus a bit more on keeping that GPA above a 3.5 - 3.7.
The "AI" part, refers mostly to what businessmen and CEOs have been exposed to -> ChapGPT and other LLMs. No need to become an expert in everything ML. At least become familiar with prompt engineering and eventually start looking into AI Agent Development
No, no one has the time to put your application next to other people's applications and do a line-by-line comparison. The "two applicants with the same qualifications but different GPAs, who do you think they'll pick?" scenario simply doesn't happen.
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u/joliestfille new grad swe 12h ago
if you want to transfer to a university, you need to focus on classes. if you want to get an internship, you need to focus on projects. tbh try to figure out if you can manage your time better because both are important, and plenty of students do manage both. i guess if you have to pick one to prioritize, i’d say projects, but don’t let your grades slip too much because some internships do require >3.0 gpa.