Making a transition from the life in your college to life as young working professionals can prove to be quite daunting.
You will have a lot of questions and doubts about how to face this new phase in life.

As you venture out from your college into the working world, the points we shall now discuss should help you cross this bridge in a far better frame of mind. I hope this will make your transition to the workplace smoother.
Ask questions

I have put this as the first point since most new joinees feel that asking questions might give the impression that they do not have the necessary knowledge.
If you are not sure, never hesitate to ask!
Ask the right questions and do your assigned task properly rather than doing it unsatisfactorily because you were hesitating to ask questions about the aspects you were not sure of.
Be a Team Player

All successful products and services that you see are a result of teamwork.
Every task that you will be assigned will have a context in the overall scheme of things.
Working as a good team player is vital to the success of any work product.
Teams that do not work as a team will always face issues that will ultimately lead to unhappy customers.
If your customers are unhappy, then you will not get any work in the future!
Be Ready for Continuous Learning

As students, you have the experience of learning as per a defined syllabus.
In your working life, the technical skills that you start with may no longer be relevant in the long run as your career progresses.
For example, EJB’s were the part of the ‘cool tech’ fad in the early 2000’s but are no longer in use now.
So be ready to face a life where things will change.
As new professionals, you will be developers. Later on, you could be leaders - The level of learning and understanding will change based on your experience.
As the saying goes, ‘Change is the only constant’.
Identify the ‘Big Picture’ of the work you are doing

To explain this, let’s take a look at an example. Let’s say you are assigned to develop the logging module of a product.
Your work output is to work on generating the logs.
Seems pretty straightforward? It is so… but you also need to take into consideration aspects like :-
Who will use this logging module? Is there an easy-to-use way for these users to monitor the logs?
Will the logging help identify the root cause of product issues accurately?
Is the logging solution configurable for the users?
Are log files maintained as per data retention policy?
So, you need to have a HOLISTIC view of the work you are doing - basically the 3 W’s & H - What, Why, Who & How.
Focus on Soft Skills

I am sure you all will be pretty confident about your coding skills.
However, in a work environment, you need to have your soft skills brushed up as well.
Some of these include the following :-
How to communicate effectively (both in writing as well as verbally) with your peers and colleagues
Ability to write official emails -
Difference between writing within your organization and to persons outside like your customers, vendors, etc.
Adhere to company dress codes, code of ethics & privacy policy as well as maintain punctuality.
Respect the culture and diversity of your colleagues.
Emphasizing again here, do not be afraid to ASK if you have any doubt!
Never forget your NFR’s

You must have heard of this term - NFR, in your Software Engineering course. Just to refresh your memory, it stands for Non Functional Requirements.
This is a VITAL part of any solution in the IT Industry.
All of you must be aware of AWS - the Entire Business Model of AWS is based on the ability to cater to NFR’s.
For example, you are given a task to work on an online payment module.
Apart from the primary use case of making payments, your solution should factor in all the crucial aspects that come under NFR’s like security, privacy, scalability, response time, processing time, availability, data retention and handling of PSI (Personal Sensitive Information)
As with the above example, all your work assignments will have some associated NFR’s.
These will not be explicitly stated by your customers but your solution HAS TO cater to these or else it will fail.
Work Life Balance

This is a term that is used throughout the industry only to emphasize that work life balance is not easy in any work environment.
As new professionals, you will have a lot of zeal and ambition to drive yourself to be the best… and that is very good.
However, as you grow both in life and in the office, you will realize that there are responsibilities outside the office as well and that health is the most important part of your life.
By health, I mean - physical, emotional and mental.
So, from the beginning of your career, try to be objective about your career goals and ensure that your personal life and your family also get the same attention and time.
In a nutshell, these are some of a crucial aspects you need to be aware of when you take the initial steps of your working life. If you take care of these points mentioned above, you should be better placed when you make the transition from a student to a working professional.
Hope these will prove to be beneficial in your career.
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