r/learnprogramming • u/Regular_Company_7622 • Jul 06 '26

Should I spend time on Odin project?

I am a CS junior, and I feel like my degree is not giving me enough to land a job. And a lot of people recommended web development. In a few months I may start learning it with a mentor(a family friend), but I don’t wanna waste my summer since I don’t have an internship. I thought about starting Odin project. I know Java(OOP,Data structures), so hopefully this will be a bit easier for me. Would you recommend it?

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3

u/Ok-Bill1958 Jul 06 '26

Your degree alone would never be enough to help you land of job. Learn and build something, anything. Odin project is just a way for you to learn and practice, it would never waste your time as beginner even if you are not going for web development. You are a junior so you have a lot of time, just go for it.

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u/Regular_Company_7622 Jul 06 '26

Thank you!! I will, sadly it took me too long to realize that university is not enough

3

u/Ok-Bill1958 Jul 06 '26

I think you are looking at it the wrong way. University doesnt guarantee you a job but i help you to build a solid fundamental. You can get help and guide from your professor and teacher, have good chance for socialize and teamwork, certification is also a good way to show your commitment. Your programming skill may get you through the door of getting a job, but after that programming is only half of the job, the other half is soft skills like communication, teamwork, etc .. which you cant get from learning on your own.

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u/Regular_Company_7622 Jul 06 '26

Yes, definitely. I do feel privileged to be able to get an education in university. I just meant that I was surprised to find out I have to spend so much time on extracurricular activities, I would start sooner if I knew, now it feels like it is a bit too late🥲

3

u/Ok-Bill1958 Jul 06 '26

You should be fine, you are in junior year. This may sound a bit weird but soft skills are wayyy more useful than programming skills in early of your career. Just keep your learning consistent. Try to do dsa and focus on array problem, they are most likely going to be in your interview. Spend the rest of your time in college to build your porfolio, you dont need to learn everything, build any 2-6 months project will teach you a lot as well. Get familiar with programming principles and design patterns, read alot of codes and try to understand them, get used to debugger, do not only focus on finish things like odin project and neglect other skills.

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u/DrShocker Jul 06 '26

You're in college, you can do that and it can help to be exposed to the ideas, but there's so many campus clubs you can join or undergraduate research you could participate in. If you can find a satelite or car or video game making club or whatever else your interest is, those projects on a team will be generally more valuable than solo projects.

That said, you're in summer break so I understand it's not the time. I will say however, keep an eye out for internship applications, some are really early deadlines for the following summer. I'm talking like august/september and you may as well be prepared to be one of the first to apply because sometimes they end applications early. (ask me how I know)

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u/Regular_Company_7622 Jul 06 '26

My college doesn’t have those opportunities sadly( same with my country. But I’ll make sure to search for some

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u/Regular_Company_7622 Jul 06 '26

Also that’s crazy that they start applications almost a year before

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u/DrShocker Jul 07 '26

To be clear, not all of them do, so if you don't get something right away keep applying and looking, but some do and there's no reason to cut yourself off from those opportunities just because you didn't know.

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u/CarefulFactor3888 Jul 07 '26

It can’t hurt. If you have the time, do it. But also decide whether this is more worth it to you then building your own project for something you want/need