Where do I put my focus? /u/theWZRDtheGOAT CSCQ protests reddit

To give some context: I’m a few years into my non-tech career (real estate private equity) and decided last year to transition for numerous reasons. I found I enjoy the concept of programming from following some tutorials and working on some minor things on my own.

I decided to get a second bachelors in CS and am now entering my 3rd semester (still working full time as of now). I feel this anxiety over me that I should be applying to internships and without them I’ll have a hard time transitioning from my current field to SWE. I feel to even have a shot at landing an internship I need a portfolio of decent projects, and unfortunately I currently don’t have anything other than what I’ve done in class or from online tutorials. Secondly, I applied to a few internships and realized I’m not prepared for the online assessments they come with, so I’ve been studying data structures and the pertinent LeetCode-esque questions that may get asked. Given that I’m working full-time and will be taking 4 classes, I don’t know where my focus should be.

I can’t realistically build out projects so easily because I still don’t understand how to bridge the front end and back end yet, and so would need to dedicate time specifically to this. This would involve a lot more research on tech stacks, refining my html, css, JavaScript, etc. My concern is that if I shift my focus to that, I have less time to review the material for data structures (working on this with Python) that I may get asked on an online assessment. This is all while juggling coursework and work.

I guess my question to everyone with experience is, what’s my best path forward here? If I commit to full time school I can finish by the end of 2025 but at the risk of not landing an internship if I keep my current habits/ schedule.

To give some context: I’m a few years into my non-tech career (real estate private equity) and decided last year to transition for numerous reasons. I found I enjoy the concept of programming from following some tutorials and working on some minor things on my own.

I decided to get a second bachelors in CS and am now entering my 3rd semester (still working full time as of now). I feel this anxiety over me that I should be applying to internships and without them I’ll have a hard time transitioning from my current field to SWE. I feel to even have a shot at landing an internship I need a portfolio of decent projects, and unfortunately I currently don’t have anything other than what I’ve done in class or from online tutorials. Secondly, I applied to a few internships and realized I’m not prepared for the online assessments they come with, so I’ve been studying data structures and the pertinent LeetCode-esque questions that may get asked. Given that I’m working full-time and will be taking 4 classes, I don’t know where my focus should be.

I can’t realistically build out projects so easily because I still don’t understand how to bridge the front end and back end yet, and so would need to dedicate time specifically to this. This would involve a lot more research on tech stacks, refining my html, css, JavaScript, etc. My concern is that if I shift my focus to that, I have less time to review the material for data structures (working on this with Python) that I may get asked on an online assessment. This is all while juggling coursework and work.

I guess my question to everyone with experience is, what’s my best path forward here? If I commit to full time school I can finish by the end of 2025 but at the risk of not landing an internship if I keep my current habits/ schedule.