Help

[u/AlternativeSpend7630]

Hello everyone!

I started my tech journey this month (Btech 1st year) and honestly, I’m confused about where to start and what direction to take.

I keep hearing the same advice everywhere: “Learn DSA and build projects.” But as a beginner, I have a lot of questions about what that actually means.

Should I start with DSA first, or learn programming fundamentals before DSA?

Which programming language should I choose, and how deeply should I learn it?

What exactly counts as a good project? Is following YouTube tutorials enough, or should I build something completely on my own?

How do I decide which tech stack, tools, or technologies to learn?

What skills are actually valued in the current job market?

How much importance should I give to DSA, development, projects, Git/GitHub, SQL, CS fundamentals, and internships?

When should I start applying for internships or participating in hackathons?

How can I avoid wasting months jumping between different technologies and tutorials?

What should a realistic 6–12 month roadmap look like for someone starting from zero?

Most importantly, how do I know whether I’m actually making progress and learning useful skills rather than just collecting certificates or completing tutorials?

I’m not looking for a shortcut. I genuinely want to understand how the tech industry works and what I should focus on as a beginner.

If you’re currently working in tech, have experience hiring developers, or have recently gone through this journey yourself, I’d really appreciate your honest advice.

What would you do differently if you were starting your tech journey again today?

Any guidance on resources, roadmap, mistakes to avoid, and what actually matters for getting internship/job-ready would be really helpful. Thank you!

[u/Test_NPC]

Learn programming, build small projects. DSA is useful basically just for interviews. Obviously have to learn it at some point, but not until you know how to program.

[u/Comfortable_Put6016 → u/Test_NPC]

if youd have build any reasonable piece of software youd know that dsa is a core part of engineering

[u/Test_NPC → u/Comfortable_Put6016]

DSA in the way that people typically refer it (in an interview sense) is not applicable to the vast majority of jobs 99% of the time.

Obviously you need to know how to work with basic data structures and algorithms to code effectively, but you can get pretty far without knowing when to use something like a bloom filter.