Re:Ask HN: How do you get started by yourself?
by jasiek on Thursday November 18, 2010 @06:37PM
(#1919791)
I agree completely - during your studies you have tons of free time. Once you graduate and have to find a job all that disappears, and you may not have enough energy to pursue your ideas after spending time at work.
If there's a project you can't get out of your head, there's no better time to work on it than now. Even if it doesn't grow into anything useful, you'll learn tons of stuff and you'll be able to apply that knowledge in the future.
Don't "Finish your education" first. Do side projects while you're still a student - this is the best time to find other passionate people that are willing to work for nothing and are easy to convince to join you. Also - during studies you usually don't have to worry about your paycheck, so it's easier to spend a lot of time on your thing.
I'd suggest the exact opposite - don't worry about As. As long as you pass you're good. People that focus on As study so much that they don't have time to work on their own stuff and I'd much more like to hire 23 year old with some nice portfolio and Cs than an A student with no portfolio.
And the final piece of your advice I also disagree with. Don't do specs! Specs are for people with experience. If you have no experience there is no way you will make a good design.
Go with the flow, do projects that you're passionate about. Your code will suck, your user interface will suck, but it will get better with time.