Graduated Technova College

I've just had my graduation ceremony (06-07-2025)

Here's team I did my exam with: myself, Sander, Yucan and Fabian.

This means I'm a Software Developer now, as having a degree is obviously the only metric that matters when it comes to tech.

Jokes aside, I do think it was very helpful and most parts were enjoyable enough. The most important stuff in my personal opinion was:

1. Projects: Building things is how you learn, but I'm pretty satisfied with most of the software I use today. Which means I probably won't be building the next Linux.

But school projects need not serve a specific purpose except that you learn how to build software. They also don't need to be maintained, which is a skill on its own, but you get to maintain enough software when interning anyway.

The relatively quick feedback loop is great for learning as well, since most projects were allotted 2 to 4 weeks of time on average.

2. Getting to intern: Real world experience is a bit harder to get when you don't have any connections and aren't getting a degree. Companies and institutions don't expect much from a student because well, their a student!

You can of course do it without being enrolled somewhere, but I imagine its harder convincing people to take you onboard.

3. Working with other people: Learning in your garage, on your own, using some clunky hardware is a bit romanticized due to how traditional and social media portrays it.

But I've liked and appreciated working with other students and people. Vaguely following what's going on in their life and what their struggling with or succeeding in. I think its valuable.

4. Databases: I quite enjoyed designing, creating and running relational databases. I've forgotten some of the material (basically writing SQL queries) but some stuff was great fun and stuck with me.

I haven't come accross a bunch of database related content online so I think it was extra valuable in the sense that I probably wouldn't have gone looking for it either.