duketon

I'm a CS student in Aus, and am neck-deep in programming. I love it, I think maybe a little too much. So when I read/hear from some sources about the state of the IT industry here I get knots in my stomach. As cheezy as it sounds I love this country and don't want to have to choose between a dev career and living here. However if push came to shove I'm really not sure.

So hopefully there are some Aussies here who could give a young guy some advice.

Cheers

I'm currently in my first year of a two year masters degree in software engineering. I'm comfortable with the coursework and am really enjoying it.

Where I feel lost is in my spare time. I have a bookmarks folder with about 200 links to articles, resources, videos, etc. I'm incredibly overwhelmed with the amount of 'stuff' out there; languages, frameworks, tools, and so on. I feel a bit lost every time I sit down at my laptop and try to do something productive.

My short-term goal is to secure an internship/junior position in Europe (Poland) over my next summer break (I live in Aus).

I'm looking for some ideas on what to do in my spare time to make myself the most competitive for an entry-level position.

With only a few months of experience I haven't really been exposed to enough different areas of development to say I want to work in X, Y or Z.

I'm suffering from the fact that pretty much everything interests me. Web dev, data analysis, machine learning, databases, and so on. I think that for me I need someone to pigeon-hole me into an area so that I can self-study in depth and get an internship in this area.

Would some more experienced developers offer some advice? Where did you start? Where would you have liked to start? What are some good ways to kick-off a successful development career?

I hope this wasn't too much of a ramble. Cheers