And if you (or anyone) works 10 hours a week, that’s 10 hours a week they aren’t spending money! At a much younger point in my career, I was working 2 weekday jobs for about 50 hours, and then I was a nanny for 12 hours on Sat and Sunday. I didn’t have time to get to a store to spend any money!
In surveys, employers of new college grads reported that the most important factor in their hiring decisions was not GPA, school name, or anything academic.-- it was work experience and/or internships. It sounds like you are not into the traditional employer/office structure. CS is unique in that there are many opportunities to work independently outside of a typical office structure, if you’d prefer. You can also choose short term work that allows you to do however much or little that you have time for. You mentioned that you are in to programming games. I started a website relating to analyzing games that became a bigger source of income than my day job in engineering. If your games are far enough along, you can do things online that can qualify as a job for resume/references purposes, as well as a good portfolio of your work. Income can come from direct advertising, affiliates, subscription model, etc. The important thing is to have some type of work experience that compliments your academic degree.
OP, you should totally get a job, AND if you get one that actually may INCREASE, not decrease, your chances of doing what you want to do the future.
I work in game development at a major developer (Xbox/Microsoft Studios). It’s a really competitive field, and at the bigger studios people tend to have experience before they come in. Even at the smaller startups, so many people want jobs doing this that lots of developers have both a portfolio of games/apps they’ve coded AND some work experience at other software companies or game studios.
If you live somewhere there’s a thriving games industry, look into getting a job in test. Tester jobs are often part-time; they pay pretty well for a college student, and you will be around game developers all day long and learn about game development cycles and the business of games. Companies do prefer testers with some CS experience. Game development is also a field that is about who you know, and as a tester you’ll meet lots of folks who can recommend you for jobs elsewhere or even there in the studio (everybody in games more than 2 or so years knows a bunch of people at other game development companies).
You can also apply to be a software development tester part-time in other kinds of software besides games, too - the experience is valuable either way!
If you don’t want to do test or there aren’t a lot of software companies nearby you, another option is working at a place that sells video games or tech. For example, think about Microsoft retail stores - there are Microsoft stores all over the country and you can spend at least part of your time explaining the Xbox and its games to folks! Also think about like a GameStop, or a Best Buy (maybe in the games department), or the electronics section of a Target.
And in your location there may be lots of small businesses or start-ups that could use a part-time student developer to do simple things, like help them put together a website or a small app to do something specific. Many times these companies don’t have the money to hire a full-time developer with a degree, but they get something tangible at a lower price and you get some work experience and something to put in your portfolio!
The field is really competitive - lots of people want to program games - and there aren’t really many part-time roles at all, but particularly not ones that are less than 20 hours a week. It’s unlikely that he’d find a job programming games that will give him 8-10 hours a week as a college student. But he can always look, and then there’s test.
Your game development at home is in isolation. In the real world, you need collaborative skills and experiences to succeed in that. If you’re good, you can find work in that area or close enough stem. If not, it’s somewhere between time wasted and indulgence.
And on top of the benefits others noted, a job, any job, is about meeting adult expectations. Beats thinking you can create your own world.
In competitive job environments (read: the jobs you will most likely desire the most) there are lots of applicants. One of the easy ways to winnow the field is to disqualify people for various reasons. One of the best reasons to pass on someone who might be a decent employee is that the other applicants have gotten off their keisters and submitted themselves to the nasty real life environment of having to do what someone else desires in exchange for merely money. They’ve proved that they can get along in the commercial world. If you haven’t, you will be in trouble. I’m not kidding. You may ultimately be able to find a job, but it is almost guaranteed that it won’t be one of the top 10 on your list.
Don’t paint yourself into a corner with laziness and indifference.
I disagree with most posters. I don’t think it’s necessary for students pursuing difficult but lucrative STEM subjects to get a job. If necessary, I believe it is actually worthwhile to get a loan against future income so that you don’t have to get a menial low-value job and put the time into maximizing your technical capabilities. I believe there is more value in programming (not playing!) games and planning entrepreneurship than flipping burgers.
I’m siding with your mom.
I have two college juniors and they both work while in school. It doesn’t even have to be a lot of hours, but having your own spending money is worth it in my opinion. Part of being adult is providing (at least in part) for yourself.
Did you work over the summer? I have too much to do during the semester, but I worked retail on breaks for the first two years of college.
Planning entrepreneurship- ClassicRocker- what is that exactly?
Entrepreneurs need to understand customer or client service, project management, basic principles of cash flow and tax, how to get along with all sorts of people. Yes- taking an accounting class or a marketing/psych class can help.
But how does one plan to become an entrepreneur in the absence of actual workplace experience?
Menial jobs are not low value. Speaking as an employer- I would MUCH rather see actual work experience on a resume- delivering pizza, mowing lawns, flipping burgers and dealing with irate customers, than “planning” on a resume.
The dad isn’t suggesting a 40 hour a week “pushing a broom” experience. But the OP doesn’t have time to man the help desk at his college’s IT department for two shifts a week? Doesn’t have time to train employees in the alumni relations office on new fundraising software once a week from 9-12? Doesn’t have time to work with a professor editing or fact-checking a book- work that can be done from his laptop in his dorm room whenever he can grab an hour or two?
Finding that hard to believe.
My CS son started writing open source code and finding bugs in other open source stuff. This got the attention of the employees of the organization and led directly to two amazing summer internships (which meant he had spending money and a nest egg) and his current job.
Other S worked in admissions and food service on campus. We didn’t provide spending money or going-out funds and were up-front with that expectation long before they left for college.
Recent grads enter the workforce at their peril without some sort of work experience. It’s not just the work, it’s the people skills. One of my former pension colleagues said the best part of working fast food was the realization that he needed to work a lot harder in college so that he had more options in life than making sandwiches.
“Planning” should include some experience. Not sitting in a vacuum. There are very, very few who can start just thinking up and creating perfected programs on their own. They miss feedback, streamlining, and exposure to principles they have not yet learned. Collaboration with seasoned others is gold.
No, flipping burgers isn’t the same, but I completely agree the work experience brings perspective, as well as responsibility.
The issue is, what sort of mindset is OP showing?
One of the top reasons why most businesses fail is because the business owner (which would be you) has no managerial skills.
“Many a report on business failures cites poor management as the number one reason for failure. New business owners frequently lack relevant business and management expertise in areas such as finance, purchasing, selling, production, and hiring and managing employees.”
Even flipping burgers at McDonald’s provides management experience. I know many people who own their own businesses who started out flipping burgers, waiting tables, or working manual labor jobs. Interpersonal skills are highly necessary in the business world, and you aren’t going to gain them holed up in your room playing games. I’m with your dad - time to get out of La La Land and into the real world. Get a job.
(Incidentally - this is the same advice I give to my own child who wants to own her own business. At 15, she’s already working in her passion. She’s not only making contacts that may help her in 10 years, but she’s learning how to deal with people and discovering all of those pesky things business owners do on a regular basis - marketing, paying rent, creating work schedules, etc. While she, herself, isn’t in charge of these things, she’s around the people who do and picks up the conversations.)
@blossom by planning I didn’t mean sitting around and contemplating. I meant going out and figuring how you’re going to raise money, what you need to do to start the business. Even reading about how to start a business is valuable. I don’t think being a minimum wage cashier is valuable at all, except to teach you that what a commodity business is and how you want to avoid them. I could not care less if a candidate delivered pizza. I would have rather seen them writing their own games and have terrific technical capabilities.
I don’t think you need to pay your own tuition, but there’s no reason that most college students can’t get a job to pay for incidentals. My grades went up after I started working 10 hours a week. And even though my job was just shelving library books, it actually helped to have that experience on my resume when I couldn’t find an architectural job straight out of grad school. I’m pretty sure you can find time for programming games in addition to the job BTW. And I agree wit others the idea that you are going to start a business straight out of college is pretty unrealistic.
I pay for my child’s Room and Board, Tuition, Books, Medical, Phone, Travel home…but after that she is on her own.
She wants funds for entertainment? that is on her. So I have also encouraged her to get summer jobs to make money for the year. She doesn’t have to have a job during college if she budgets carefully.
I also think it is good to have a summer/part time job before you have a “real” job…you get to learn about how to work in a low risk setting.
I agree with other posters about the value of getting a job. I worked sophomore through senior year in college and found it very rewarding in many ways that helped me professionally post-graduation. And equally important, it gave me something to put on my very skinny resume when I was interviewing for jobs senior year. My parents would write my college one check per year to cover tuition, room, and board. Everything else (including books and also a chunk of tuition) was on me.
But to speak directly to the OP’s point about wanting to spend time programming and preparing to start his own business… If you haven’t monetized your programming skills yet (i.e. you’re not making any money off your efforts) then you need to view this as a lesson in entrepreneurship. How do you plan to pay the bills until you’re able to monetize your efforts? You pay the bills by working a job that pays the bills, while working your side business on the side.
Bottom line - if you want spending money, earn the spending money. Either by making money off your programming or by getting a job. If the programming isn’t ready for prime time and you want spending money, don’t cry to Mom and Dad and strangers on a college board - go earn your own spending money.
There are 168 hours in a week. Lots of things can be worked into that time if you really try.
Sorry, the OP may not need a job right now, but if his parents, who are paying for college, are asking him to get one, then that’s what he should do! What many of object to in his post is the appearance of arrogance–“my work is too important for me to waste my time on such a plebeian task as a job.” That’s how it comes across to me.
My godson is in a creative field that requires much solo work. But post grad, it was his college job(s) that got him the work that paid the rent while he pursued the dream. That’s life. Your parents won’t always be underwriting you.
-“my work is too important for me to waste my time on such a plebeian task as a job.” That’s how it comes across to me
That’s how it comes across to me too.
If you want to start your own business, great! Entrepreneurship is the backbone of this country. BUT there are two things at play here. First, you want to own your own business. Two, you want to develop video games. Sorry, but anyone can develop video games - it’s part of the curriculum at most high schools and a fair amount of middle schools these days. If you want to own a business, you need a good business plan and capital (among other things). And there is not a bank nor a venture capitalist in this country that is going to fund a new businesses headed by someone who has never held a job in his life.