Open source. A friend of mine commented that within one month of working in an open source project, you will learn more about technology than in a year of commercial work. The people that you get to work with and learn from are an awesome resource. You will learn about how to structure real world applications, learn about issues in production as well as best practices. You will also make contacts, which are
the single most important thing in any career. These people may be able to recommend you to their colleagues, put you in touch with someone doing similar work commercially near you, or they may have work within their companies. Contributing also demonstrates to a potential employer that you are a self starter, and are willing to learn off your own initiative. Find an area that you would like to work in, check out a corresponding project (check out
Apache,
OpenSymphony,
CodeHaus, and other resources like
Ohloh for professional open source projects), and kick the tires, write documentation, report bugs, contribute some fixes and you will be amazed at where it will lead you.
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.