I'm not sure if you know this, but I went to the best university in the country and I'm not joking when I tell you that all companies drop their jaw at getting fresh Bachelors hired from there and I've automatically been enlisted as top priority for hire. This has been shown by the tons of e-mails I've gotten from the country's top corporations but 9 out of 10 I just let pass by because I'm too damn afraid of my lack of skills.
The great advantage about our university is that when we graduate from there, we actually have real-world skills. We are pioneers in the fields we study. I know more about programming than most programmers but again, my confidence just sucks hard and yes, my skills have watered down.
Thanks to my university, I've already been years on LinkedIn
Not only that, but I've done tons of professional projects for uni and they are actual real-world projects, not some fake dummy projects. Our university works hard at preparing us for the real world. Graduates fight blood, sweat and tears for that degree. I've also been to a ton of developer conferences.
Do you realize corporations want to hire Bachelors from our university without working experience? Yeah, they give us a company car, all the benefits, high salary (if you call 2.5K a good IT consultant starter salary) and everything. It's not for nothing the best university in the country, but I screwed up, I let my skills weaken and I haven't practiced or studied as much as I wanted to.
I probably won't need the three years, ideally I could start right now. I actually got a job offered at my second interview a few months ago, right after graduation. They wanted to offer me the job until I panicked and I told them I suck at programming, which led them to opt out from me. What do you want? My confidence is at an all time low.
Anyway, I've searched around on LinkedIn and all the great companies now have more than 500 classmates of mine already working for them! I'm one of the only (and probably only) losers who was too afraid to take a chance.
I'll do my best to fix this situation. You have a point in that I need some relevant IT experience on my CV or my chances of getting hired won't be that high, even though my university's reputation should tremendously increase that. We have the best connections with all the corporations in the country. It's all one big happy family. I couldn't have a better situation going for me and here I am moping around about my situation.
Thank you for your advice.