Cool

...

 

Have you the possibility to work 'part-time' in your job for the next couple of years and reduce the workload? Explain this situation to your employer and there may be something they can do for you.

 

"How much value do you guys think 2 years work experience will amount to after graduation?"

Lots. Having experience in the field you study before you graduate doesnt only help you during your study but also makes you very interesting for companies once you finish.

I think your best bet would be to see if you can work a little less, but what's also important is how long you've already been in this position, if you only recently started working at this company then you can expect things to get easier, you'll gradually adjust to the workload and start managing it better in your daily life.

The work ethic that's demanded from the company you work for will also reflect back in your studies. In your case you just need to manage your priorities. Schedule everything and you should be fine doing 20-24 hours a week + studies.

 

Are you strong in front end? Back end? If one of them is lacking you should quit your job to get better unless you are learning it from your job. There are so many web technologies these days that you should try to learn as many as you can because when you search for a job after you graduate, there is a good chance your new workplace would do things differently than your current workplace. Having a broader skill set will definitely help you.

 

It depends on what you want from life.

Also, your numbers don't exactly add up. Even the most motivated of people would need 4-6 hours of sleep a night for the time frame you're talking about. Running on a maximum of 4 hours a night is not possible. How much of your time do you spend productively from day-to-day?

Back to your motivations for life, where do you want to be in 5, 10, 20, 40 years? Your actions have to be conducive to reaching those goals. Look to people who were in your situation 2-3 years ago. Where have they ended up? Is that where you see yourself?

 

I don't think you can manage sub four hours for 2 years straight, 7 days a week, unless you have a rare mutation that allows you to get by on less sleep (not many people do). To put what you're doing into perspective, you work more hours than an investment banker, earn less money, have worse experience relatively speaking, and those investment bankers burn out at lets say a 30-40% rate per year. Statistically, it is extremely likely you are going to burn out at those hours.

If you're asking how valuable the work experience is, you've stated that it seems to be at the cost of both your schooling and work. If it affects your schooling or work, it may affect your ability to reach your goals in the future insofar as it affects your resume and candidacy. What's the opportunity cost if you quit your job? With your side projects and self-learning, how does what you could learn by yourself compare with what you are learning, and will continue to learn on the job?

 

I don't think you'd be able to function well for however many semesters on that schedule.

Let's assume you're working for 130 hours a week. How many hours do you allocate to university, and how many hours do you allocate to work?

If you're not learning much on the job anymore, then I assume the large expected benefit of pushing through with the 2 years of work experience is to get a job upon graduation? This comes back to your goals and what type of job you want out of college. Honestly if I was a recruiter, and I saw that you'd worked full time for 2 years while maintaining a 4.0 at college, I'd go wow that is impressive, but I would never think that you'd put in 130 hour weeks - perhaps 80-90 at most. If you told me you put in 130 hour weeks, I'd probably question your time management abilities or competency. I honestly don't think what you're doing is worth it especially given you're not learning much anymore.

Also, are you going to have any time for internships (is that the norm for a candidate such as yourself)? Do you plan to do any internships? Can you do any internships while keeping your job?

 

Imo work experience is pointless for entry level jobs. I'm sure most places would prioritize a diverse skill set over any work experience if you show them you can apply your knowledge in a practical setting. My friend dropped out of our program (Computer Science) because he wasn't feeling it. He knew he wanted to specialize in web development and in our program we were doing stuff he would never need like studying LEGv8 instruction set architecture and building a minimal operating system. He ended up enrolling in one of those "coding bootcamps" aimed towards web developers which just basically threw a bunch of web technologies at him. Ironically, last year he wanted a degree but didn't want to finish computer science so he just graduated with a psychology degree (he already had enough psychology credits). He just landed a job at Yahoo in California as a software engineer after 3 interactive interviews (he had to do a bunch of algorithm solving on a whiteboard). What helped him was all of the side projects he did that demonstrated that he could practically use different web technologies.

TLDR if you are skilled enough you shouldn't need to worry about competing for jobs -- your proof of applying knowledge (side projects) and how you conduct yourself in interviews will get you the job.

And get some sleep, you don't want to look 40 when you turn 30

 

Having recently graduated last Spring while trying to get my name out there, I'll try to give you my best possible advice on the situation. I apologize in advance if some of the questions/advice that I'm about to give have been brought up already. It is late here and just wanted to share my advice with you before bed.

In regards to the company that you're working with at the moment; what is the potential for growth? By this I mean, is there any room for you to find yourself in higher positions with this company within a ~few years of graduating? Do you enjoy the work itself despite the hours that it comes with?

Those are two important questions which would help in how I could answer this question for you. If you enjoy the workload and if the company sees a future with you (promotions, raises, etc.), then that would be a big deciding factor for me.

If you could care less about having a future with the company (or if the company doesn't see a future with you), feel "eh" about the work and it's having a negative impact on your education, then by all means I would get out. ESPECIALLY if the money you're currently making will have ZERO impact on you and not require you taking out loans to finish your education.

Always remember this: you are not committed or obligated to work for this company (unless you signed some sort of contract). Do not be afraid to keep your options open. Even if you were to quit your job tomorrow, at least you have ten months of work experience already under your belt in your resume. That right there is one major talking point in a future interview. "Oh so I see here that you worked for so and so, tell me all about it".

The most important thing I've learned in my four years of college education, is that it really isn't about what you know but who you know. Networking is single-handedly the absolute most important thing I took away from college. I'm sure you've met people within your workforce whom you are friendly with. "So and so" that you work with might be friendly with someone else who works at another company similar to what you majored in.

Going off of what I previously stated, use your professors as a resource. They clearly have the experience to be teaching higher-level education, and I'm sure they know plenty of people in the business. Your professors are your absolute BEST resource in college. They know that you're a hard worker from the sounds of it (your GPA is extremely impressive), they interact with you on a frequent basis in lectures (debatable depending on your class size) but you get the point. Take the time to talk to your professors after class or through email, and ask them if they know anyone in the industry. I can almost guarantee that they would be overjoyed to help a student of your caliber.

I hope this was somewhat useful to you. To recap, I wouldn't lock yourself down with the current company you're working with unless it is extremely clear that there could be longevity with them once you graduate. Networking is your best friend. If you have any other questions or anything to add off of my post just let me know or feel free to inbox me.

 

The problem I have for you is, isn't all your work experience will count for is getting an interview? Your work experience will certainly help in getting an interview, but if you botch the interview because you don't know your stuff in other areas, you won't get the job. Sometimes getting an interview can be the biggest battle depending on the type of job you want, but given you have a 4.0, provided other parts of your resume are up to scratch you should have a decent shot of landing interviews with the companies you want. Since you aren't learning anything, how do you intend to excel in the interviews? Your experience is in front-end development, so unless that is your focus for jobs on graduation, your work experience may not be particularly relevant. You could of course quit a month before interviews to prep for them, but the overall point is the same, if you're not learning anything, the only utility this job will have will be for a very small portion of your life: getting an interview.

The money and negative health consequences cancel out in my opinion. If you worked at a brand name company then maybe I'd tell you to try stick it out, reduce your load, or something. But if you're not, I think there are better uses of your time once you quit your job. You can do side projects, get other useful internships, study up on the more relevant concepts in the future (2 years is a long time, and the exciting stuff in the tech world, from what I know, isn't in front-end development). I also think you'll burn out based on the hours you work - that in itself should be an automatic disqualifier. Just remember, if you burn out, you may lose your 4.0 GPA, and you'll end up with no perfect GPA, no job, and a lack of motivation.

 

Just take less classes. No ones going to care if it takes an extra year for your masters. Having a gap of being unemployed won't look good on your resume.

 

The question here is quite confusing. You said you get to choose your hours but your only pulling 4 hours sleep. Thats a problem because if you get to choose your hours then can you not negotiate downwards? If you can then pull 14 hour days, get 7-8 hours sleep and then finish University work at the weekend. That would just about give you enough time to complete everything otherwise this company could end up chucking you out after you've failed university and you'd have to repeat the whole 3-5 years all over again.