3 Reasons Why You Should Learn System Design as a College Student

A lot of people think that learning System Design when you are a beginner or junior developer is useless. In my opinion, learning System Design is one of the best things you can do for your early career. Let me explain why I think you should learn System Design in college.

1. System Design teaches you to gather the parts that will build your system

Most people think that when it comes to Software Development, it’s just about deciding you want to build an application and just start coding. That’s not how it works. Before starting you have to ask a lot of questions. For instance:

• Does my application require a server?
• Will I use data?
• What is the goal of the product?
• What will my User Interface look like?

Now, these questions are not necessarily part of System Design, but the point is that when it comes to developing an application, the most important part is gathering requirements. Learning about System Design and practicing interviews will teach you that you need to gather requirements before building an application.

2. By learning System Design, you will understand the components that make an application

When I had my first Software Development internship, I remember my mentor giving me a huge project to work on: he wanted me to build a back-end system for a front-end app. He asked me to build an API, a database, and a server. I knew what a database and server are, but had no clue about the API. Furthermore, I didn’t know how each of the components worked.

I knew JavaScript, React, Python, and other technologies, but I didn’t know how a computer sent a request to a server and how the server sends a response. The result was that I couldn’t complete my project. I barely finished a small library that would arrange the data together.

As a result, I didn’t get a return offer and my dreams of working at that company were over.

This could have been avoided if I had learned System Design concepts in college since it would have allowed me to work on my project and give a better impression. A lot of people think that only coding matters, but what matters is understanding the things you build with coding. Coding is a tool just like a hammer is a tool. You cannot build a house if you only understand the hammer and not the components of a house.

3. You might get a System Design question as a beginner too.

When I got my first Software Development full-time job, I was very happy. I couldn’t believe what I had achieved; I spent three years learning Java, JavaScript, Python, C++, SQL, data structures, and algorithms in order to get the job. However, the biggest contributing factor to my success was learning System Design.

My technical interview consisted solely of designing a system for a gym website. It was surprising to me as I didn’t expect to get a System Design question as an entry-level developer, but I did it thanks to putting effort into learning Design concepts.

So, if you think you don’t need System Design because you are a beginner you are wrong. Understanding how to build systems can be the difference between getting a job or missing the opportunity.

That’s it! Hope you enjoyed this post. These are my three reasons why you should learn System Design as a college student. Please make sure to share if you found it useful and think someone might benefit from this☺️.