I'll roll back the clock somewhat to 1992 when I graduated. A different time, but also a challenging one. (As with all reminiscing context matters, and those elsewhere likely have a different history. )
I graduated into a world without internet (we had it at university, hosted on Unix and Vax machines, but it wasn't available commercially. )
People who had computers were running DOS. Most businesses had no computers at all.
So the job market was both good and bad. We graduated with skills that were hard to find. But we graduated into a world where big companies had computers, small companies had paper.
So huge market opportunity, but also huge challenges. We'd either graduate into big business (banking, insurance, etc) or start something new.
I joined a person doing custom software development. We'd sell both the need, the software, and usually the hardware. ) When we didn't have work we'd work on our own stuff, eventually switching from custom development to products.
We had to bootstrap, there was no investment money in our neck of the woods.
I won't pretend the job market is the same (or even vaguely similar) now, but it seems to me that opportunities for self-employment still exist. Software is still something you can build with basically zero capital.
Ultimately a job is just someone else finding a way to add value to society. Software us one of the few ways you can do that yourself, skipping the employer.
95% of people see "a job" as the goal. I get that. My own kids are like that (zero interest in starting something new.) But there are opportunities for the other 5%. Yes, it's lot more than just coding, and yes it's a lot more risky, but the opportunities are there.
As for me, I'm closing in on retirement, but at the same time building a new (not tech) business from scratch, because there's still value I can add, and a niche I can service.
I say this all to encourage current students. You can see the world as "done" or you can see it as an infant just waiting for you to come and add your unique value. And in 35 year's time feel free to encourage the next generation with your story.
I graduated into a world without internet (we had it at university, hosted on Unix and Vax machines, but it wasn't available commercially. ) People who had computers were running DOS. Most businesses had no computers at all.
So the job market was both good and bad. We graduated with skills that were hard to find. But we graduated into a world where big companies had computers, small companies had paper.
So huge market opportunity, but also huge challenges. We'd either graduate into big business (banking, insurance, etc) or start something new.
I joined a person doing custom software development. We'd sell both the need, the software, and usually the hardware. ) When we didn't have work we'd work on our own stuff, eventually switching from custom development to products.
We had to bootstrap, there was no investment money in our neck of the woods.
I won't pretend the job market is the same (or even vaguely similar) now, but it seems to me that opportunities for self-employment still exist. Software is still something you can build with basically zero capital.
Ultimately a job is just someone else finding a way to add value to society. Software us one of the few ways you can do that yourself, skipping the employer.
95% of people see "a job" as the goal. I get that. My own kids are like that (zero interest in starting something new.) But there are opportunities for the other 5%. Yes, it's lot more than just coding, and yes it's a lot more risky, but the opportunities are there.
As for me, I'm closing in on retirement, but at the same time building a new (not tech) business from scratch, because there's still value I can add, and a niche I can service.
I say this all to encourage current students. You can see the world as "done" or you can see it as an infant just waiting for you to come and add your unique value. And in 35 year's time feel free to encourage the next generation with your story.