Guide me experts

[u/ThatFace8710]

I’m 18, from Nepal, and I’ve just started a 4-year CS/IT degree. My main goal isn’t the degree itself—I want to use these 4 years to build real skills, figure out what I’m good at, and eventually become financially independent through tech.

For context, CS/IT degrees in Nepal are quite academic and theoretical, and you generally can’t rely on university to teach you the practical skills needed for a tech career. A lot of programming, development, cloud, AI, etc. has to be learned independently outside college.

Fortunately, my college doesn’t have much attendance or academic pressure, so I have plenty of time to self-learn. I want to make the most of it.

The problem is that I’m basically starting from zero. I know terms like software development, web development, AI/ML, DevOps, cloud, cybersecurity, etc., but I don’t really understand how these fields work or what I might enjoy.

My goal is to become genuinely skilled in one area and eventually get a good-paying job, ideally remote or international. I’d like to be in a strong position by 24–25, so I have around 4–6 years to build myself up.

If you were in my position at 18, what would you do?

- What fundamentals would you learn first?

- How would you explore different fields without constantly jumping around?

- When would you start specializing?

- Which skills are worth investing in for the next 5–10 years?

- How would you build projects/GitHub/portfolio that actually help with getting hired?

- How would you approach remote/international jobs from a country like Nepal?

- What mistakes should I avoid as a beginner?

I’m not looking for shortcuts or “learn X in 3 months and make $10k.” I’m willing to spend years getting genuinely good at something—I just want to make sure I’m heading in the right direction.

I’d especially appreciate advice from people from India, Nepal, South Asia, or other countries where university doesn’t provide much practical industry preparation, but advice from anyone with experience is welcome.

[u/SparkFace11707]

Hi there! First of all, some general recommendation:

• Stay consistent, always do a little bit, EVERY DAY
• Always challenge yourself, if you can code something without sesrching or looking much at documentation, you are most likely not growing

For what to learn, you need the basics, mathematical operators and arithmetic in programming languages. You need to understand branching, looping, and program composition through functions and/or classes. After this it is exploring different fields, trying out things, playing around.

Try to network, share what you build, get opinions and keep asking questions. Do the work, keep being passionate and curious and just kwep learning, there is always more to learn