Yea! You heard it correctly, a BCA degree has got no future, and BCA is on its way to becoming the next B.Com! In this blog, I'll be pointing out why you should not pursue BCA as your career degree, and if you are already in then I'll be guiding you to the better path to at least get a nice-looking package.

Before getting started, let me tell you that I am a BCA student. I have 500+ LinkedIn followers, and most importantly I have got some great connections among people who are already working in big multinational companies. I have been guided by some really amazing people. So I am not any other Mr. Random writing some youtube shit here. I know what it means to waste your 3 valuable years here. One more thing most of the things I'll write here are on the basis of my experiences with teachers, syllabus, and placement opportunities at 'Savitribai Phule Pune University'. But these things are widespread in every tier 3 college.

The mentality of students

There are 90 students in my class and almost every one of them thinks that they'll get an excellent, attractive job after completing their BCA, they only have to walk into any company interview, and Boom! all set! Most of them got admitted to this course by thinking the same even though I used to think that. if you're still one of them sorry my friend you are gonna be depressed after that "The average salary of a Fresher at BCA Fresher is ₹ 2.4 Lakhs per year CTC! according to ambitionbox.com" which is around 15 to 20 thousand per month in hand due to that CTC factor and you will only get that average amount if you go into an interview only on the basis of your degree. Imagine that feeling when an illiterate factory worker is earning the same as a guy who paid thousands of rupees in fees and three important years of their life.

There are three types of students

1. who study only for exams and enjoy the whole semester

2. who study hard the whole semester

3. who study only for exams but work hard for the skills

In my class of 90 future brilliant software developers, there are only 3 - 4 students in the third category. It is sad but those who want their parent to proudly tell people about their child's awesome salary package, really have to change their learning mentality, more on this topic in a later section.

Unforgettable issues with the syllabus

I am regrating every passing day over my decision of BCA. You'll find extremely strange subjects around you every semester that I don't think that we will ever use as software developers. Here in my university, we have a subject name Business Communication, in which they teach you to write letters and e-mails, c'mon man we are not 5th-class students now! SPPU could have easily added something related to coding but chose not to. I am sure that's the case with the majority of universities!

Forget about theory now let's talk about the most important technical subjects now. In the first semester you get a subject named 'Principles of Programming and Algorithms.' Forget principles now focus on Algorithms, you might have heard the term DSA aka Data Structures and Algorithms. Yea! It is supposed to be that DSA wala Algo, for your general knowledge DSA is the most important part of any SDE interview, you'll have at least get 2 rounds of DSA, but BCA's syllabus has made it limited to only writing algorithms of addition and multiplication. These are not even real algorithms! The algorithm is a very vast topic in itself.

Talking about DSA you'll get a Data Structures subject in 3rd or 4th semester, not showing off but this is so freking easy that I was able to help my senior in an exam by only knowing the basics of it. They don't teach you graphs, they don't teach you trees it is only about Linked lists, stacks, and queues. and again you are wasting six months learning only the basics of these DS, I guess the questions asked in the exam are not even leet code easy level, so the a quality issue there as well.

The syllabus hasn't been updated for decades. You still have to learn rather I would say face PHP for two long semesters even though you'll rarely find any PHP developer in the market. They teach you AngularJS which is officially dead. Low-tier universities really need to update their syllabus.

Lack of skills to add to resume

sure sure you can fake your resume by adding everything possible. But the interviewer sitting over there ain't your teacher to believe you, he'll test every possible skill from that resume.

I know the last two BCA toppers from my college both copied their final year project from GitHub and passed BCA. Sure they have great theoretical knowledge but in the practical world, they are nothing. In the actual IT industry, no company will ask you if you were the topper or not. Most of them want you to have a degree and proof of your actual work. copied projects won't help you, and you cannot make any good projects by doing BCA only. Because for BCA teachers skill means you are able to change the background color of a webpage. Talking about teachers here comes my next point.

Teachers!

Man our teachers are extremely talented, I can't even say a word about them. After all they are masters in wring for loops in multiple languages. Ask them to give you a thousand-page assignment they'll do it with a smile on faces but ask them any intermediate-level doubt they have to google it or simply say "don't try to be smarter than the syllabus." They are the reason behind students are not willing to level up despite having so much potential in them. In our class, we have some students who have got 100 marks in some really hard subjects but they aren't enjoying BCA! Why?

According to my observation, every 4 out of 5 teachers have bad habit of reading the textbook loudly teachers are not skillful enough to explain points, They are always in a hurry to complete the chapter, But this loudspeaker mentality is the reason why most students are not being able to build their passion for computers. But not every teacher is the same, there are some really fine teachers in my college too.

If any of my classmates is reading this article (Not sure if anyone will read this :P but still), I have a question for you, can you print a multiplication table using the do while loop? Teachers really have to make themselves interview ready with such a mindset that they can explain complex problems to a 14-15 year old kid. They are not here to make 'Rattebaaz Students' they must give their best to make every student a creative problem solver. It's ok if you're ignoring some students with the intention of disturbing you but there are only a few of them, most of us desperately want to learn new things, try to make them problem-solving engineers, and teach them something out of the syllabus, please!

The Trap to Top

I am not against anyone who is trying hard to top the class but with this syllabus my friend, you're just wasting your valuable time. If you are doing this course your main goal might be of getting a well-paid job, and that well-paid 12LPA job requires you to be skilled not a topper! Being skilled doesn't only mean that you must have a great theory knowledge it requires your practical experience above a lot of candidates.

The current layoff situation is so complicated. Big tech companies like Google, Amazon are firing thousands of employees overnight! So your competition is not only with the seniors but also with some of really skilled and experienced engineers. Competition is so hard that you must start to code from your first semester otherwise you'll fall a lot behind in the race of getting a job! So allow me to tell you the path of getting a nice job for you!

What should be your approach to being a job-ready dev

I have a few friends, some LinkedIn connections, and some community members who have done BCA and now they are having better jobs than average BCA students. I am making this roadmap only on my conversations with them.

1. first thing first try to find your passion. Think about what you love most about computers, for me it is websites and applications, they both excite me a lot. I started learning web development in my first semester. I have a classmate who thinks her passion is in UI and UX development. The other one says he like android app development so he started learning it.

2. After you find your passion the very first thing that you have to do is start learning its basics as soon as possible, why ASAP remember that Ui/Ux enthusiasts friend of mine? Actually, she never started learning it until she lost her laptop and now she is regrating that she must have started at least!

3. Try to join a community of people with similar interests. They will guide you on what to do, and where to learn. You will grow with like-minded people. You can join communities on Discord, Twitter, or even Whatsapp. If you can't find any DM me on Twitter or on Linkedin I'll join you one. Being in a community helped me a lot in fact it was the best thing I have ever done for my career growth. If I was not in that group I could have been still learning CSS, these people encourage you every time to do new things, and they teach you how to step out of your comfort zone. If you join a community make sure to ask every possible doubt there even if it is silly, they will help you to get reach the answer unlike college teachers :)

4. Practice everything you learn, never get stuck in a tutorial loop for that, and never follow channels like code with harry and apna college! (Most beginner developers make the mistake of choosing these channels to learn. They have the most theory-oriented approach on entire youtube, at starting it feels warm but as the level ups you will realize your mistake. So take it as a pro tip and thank me later.) Remember, your practice is more important than your college studies. Practice by making multiple projects.

Focus on one thing at a time, learning to code is a never-ending process. I have connections with some people who have been working in this industry for the past 15-20 years but they still have to learn new things.

Alternate options for BCA

For me alone is just a waste of your valuable time and waste of your parents hard earned money! If you haven't yet been admitted to BCA then I would say try for engineering in computer science from a good college. If you are not from the science stream then I would suggest you to do BA or BCom and save some money. With that money, you can get online bootcamps and get a job probably faster than a BCA student.

A BootCamp with or without a degree can add a lot of value to your resume. I have a friend who is also my co-admin in a developer community who has done his mechanical engineering, after that he took online 6 months online bootcamp from NeoGcamp, he worked really hard on his skills during that 6 month time period, with that he got a job in Infosys and now he is working in a Hydrabad based company.

Scrimba's frontend developer career path is a nice option if you are looking for a nice quick job. In this Course you will learn every skill required to become a job ready frontend developer including basics of web development, git, react, Ui, deployment etc. I am also doing this course so I can guarantee that teachers here are top class. You won't be disappointed by any teacher. Scrimba provides this course to some students for free under their scholarship program, I can help you to get that benefit for that you can connect with me on LinkedIn or on twitter.

Final Verdict

Again a degree is not just a piece of paper. These three years adds a lot of value to your life! The people you meet, the friends you make, the fun, the enjoyment you are not getting it elsewhere! But all these things are just temporary. If you only want to do all these things then you can surely do, but then you don't get the right of complaining over your salary and your friend salary. If you read it till here, I hope that this will be helpful. Study smart not hard so that your parents can proudly tell your salary number in society, after all its all about making parents proud! I wish you a good day :)

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