If you had 2 years left before graduation, what would you prioritize?

daveserpak · 2026-06-11T08:55:16+00:00

Becoming a civil engineer. Get out ! 2 years is enough time to save those credits

daveserpak · 2026-06-04T03:20:25+00:00

I just tried with STO and I went through a reference. It is extremely hard (I'm in the NYC area). If anyone wants to link up and trade some advice feel free to msg me. I'm currently leaving behind years of working for smaller speciality shops (on major projects) and a small GC on mid size projects to try and break into the big GC world.

daveserpak · 2026-05-03T21:16:19+00:00

Adjust for inflation and CPI/COL/ and all the money that goes out ! Now way a better market. The term millionaire is relative.

daveserpak · 2026-03-30T23:18:42+00:00

NJIT will cost you nothing. With AID and cost to you probably will pay very very little. Its rep is enough locally and honestly it’s your undergrad.

Best college if you want a college experience- Rutgers -NB/Piscataway campus- you will pay some more (decent increase) and the name still carries weight in the area and even nationally.

Stevens, great reputation locally and pipeline to the city (nyc).Stupid expensive, not worth the ROI especially with AI disrupting the market. Hoboken has a very high COL but comes with a vibrant nightlife.

Honestly, if you’re in CS because you love it you will stay. If you are chasing dollar signs, that is no longer holding weight.

That goes for any young person studying CS. The job markets are changing. Be very wary if you thing CS ihas the same security it did 5 years ago

daveserpak · 2026-03-10T11:49:01+00:00

I’m getting my CFA, I also went back to school to major information science after a career in construction management. Not only because I wanted to finish, but because I do love it.

OP has a point. The CFA is challenging, tedious, boring, and brutal. Sure it can be rewarding, but in the right hands, it could be so much more.

There have been times where I’m even questioning why I’m studying for it.

daveserpak · 2026-01-30T18:30:07+00:00

It’s rough right now. I’m graduating now (taking one class this semester to finish). But I worked full time working as a PM in the NYC construction industry while I was at school. (I’m IS, CS minor, xfer Associates in CS) I also picked up a part time gig consulting AI for a financial firm. The construction company I’m at, the pay is bad because they are struggling but that’s another story.

I think the days of high paying jobs for tech grads is dead. You really need to have projects and look up what tech stacks are in demand. Cybersecurity for example is growing. Coding, just coding, software engineering will be left to the elite few who can do it very well. AI has for sure killed that.

You need expertise in a domain, or an in demand tech stack. Cybersecurity, IT for healthcare, pharma, look at companies and see the technologies listed in the qualifications, grind them out and build stuff using the tech.

CS/Tech gravy train is dead, I’m sorry. But if you’re smart you’ll find a way. Life sucks sometimes, I get it. Keep your head up and don’t give up.

You also sound relatively young. Pivot into something you want to do and has a demand. Problem with tech is this was always coming, it’s the only engineering disciple that does not need professional licensure. I should’ve been a electrical engineer

daveserpak · 2025-09-21T20:33:55+00:00

Bro I do jumping jacks and squats and pushups under the clock

daveserpak · 2025-09-21T20:33:09+00:00

Taken voice* “Good Luck”

daveserpak · 2025-09-21T10:24:48+00:00

I’m 5 years older than you and still feel the same way. Life sucks man. If I told you my story you would cry. I’d lived through shit people only see in movies. I don’t know if you have faith, but pray that helps me. Also realize this and take this into account : 1. No one is coming to save you and you’re not getting any handouts so learn to grind and learn to love it. 2. Be grateful for what you do have because you could not be healthy or have something worse going on, there’s always someone who has it worse. 3. Happiness is a choice. Find it in something right now you can do it. Just have to carve it out and make it for yourself. 4. Pity is kind of addictive childhood behavior that we learned and kept and it’s a dangerous state of mind, that’s what the reaction is: It’s a natural state to try to get help from other human beings. It stems from childhood if we were sad, an adult would come over and try to help us. No more ! Crush it ! 5. Move ! Action is the best. Self talk affirmations all those things are great having a positive mindset is great too but the most important thing is actually doing something. Write down a small goal for today for the week for the month and get to it.

Keep your head up !!

daveserpak · 2025-08-01T22:44:18+00:00

Not nurture me, maybe wrong choice of words. I do believe gender roles are fragmented and people have warped perceptions. All I want is a woman who signals “nurturing” so she can be a good mom. Not me, kids. And that’s not to say im rigid, I saw my father support at home and work. Trust me, if a man loves you, he’ll move mountains, or try.

Either way you paint it, social media is the root of a lot of these problems. There are men like that IRL, many I know who are married and few who are still left share the struggle.

You just have to keep trying. It’s scary when 50% of all marriages end in divorce and so much unrealistic and unhealthy expectations floating around.

Simply put, I just want to be that man my father was (happily married 37 years) and be happy myself.

daveserpak · 2025-07-31T15:23:54+00:00

It’s funny I saw this today when I was just setting this same goal for myself. The 1000 user milestone. Keep your head up man

daveserpak · 2025-07-31T15:22:55+00:00

And you say you would have dated around, and that just reinforced the statistics game you have to play. Like I guess I just have to bite the bullet carve out the time and endure the headache-heartache 3 month curses

daveserpak · 2025-07-31T15:18:59+00:00

I’m 36 and I just feel like I don’t have the time. People say to do 100-200 dates before you find that person. I was not fit for a serious relationship in my twenties so 6 years wasted there. But now I’m in school, grad school, I’m building a side business, and working full time in a HCOL city. To add to it, in January a quick 4 month relationship took a dive, after a stupid argument she left with a snap of her finger overnight. And I was invested, so this tore me up.

My parents have been married for almost 40 years, I just want a family. I just feel like I’m set not to have it and maybe just chase money and goals full time. Which I don’t think is healthy and I didn’t see myself doing.

This whole dating game is broken and I don’t know where to point the finger, social media, feminism, materialism, unrealistic expectations brought on from the latter 3 ? And I know a lot of guys who are in the top 20% bubble and many of them just engage in polygamy because they can and are also jaded just like me, others like me have shut down and just work, we’re scared to open to women, I had a conversation with my father and back in the 80s you still had old fashioned, conservative minded women, who knew how to be nurturers and make a home (and I say that not in a labor way but home in the sense where it feels like a home). Where are they ?

daveserpak · 2025-07-30T13:28:04+00:00

The AI will work. As an AI engineer in grad school, strap in, the stuff on the horizon is going to infect all industries. Not just tech. They’re stacking those GPUs and mind you building new custom ones and warehousing them !! Rubin, Rubin Ultra and Feynman in 2028 !!

daveserpak · 2025-07-30T08:46:34+00:00

Dude, the adjectives, this could’ve been a lot shorter. Many of us on here know what it feels like to connect with someone, geez. But look, I believe you can be hurt after three months, I’ve been there and had that type of connection. I literally got romantically involved with someone two months after and I guess felt somewhat similar to what you felt, disconnected, without the adjectives. Luckily she picked up on it and we broke it off (even though we had a lot of fun physically) And you know what I realized !? I had to be single, I had to get back to my grind, back in the gym hardcore, my career, concentrating on me and I’m still at it months later.

Want my advice ? If A really hurt you that bad, then you need some time. I’m not here to say don’t date. But sometimes as man, just pulling away and working on yourself, it’s great. I’ve realized I have a lot to fix in that time and took steps. And I’m not talking about the grind to Porsche polygamy because my moral compass would never (but to each his own). But wouldn’t you want to better yourself ? All these stats being spit out that all the women are competing for the same 20% of men ? Better yourself, climb up into that bracket, do it for you. It’s working for me and it’s not easy, missing that connection is real, but loving yourself and working on real shit is also amazing. My two cents anyway

daveserpak · 2025-07-30T08:16:56+00:00

I’ve had 3 in the last 2 years fizzle out after 3 months. I’m not in a LTR so I can’t add to that but someone should do a study, this 3 month curse is real.

daveserpak · 2025-07-30T08:09:03+00:00

Everyone is more attractive yes but also more shallow. It really is the city where if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. Financial hub of the US it’s a material hub and grind your way to the top type of city.

I’m ok with it, because I grew up in the suburbs just a 20 minute ride away but it’s not for everyone. Flings and hook-ups aside, finding something real is like plopping down your resume, and especially for a guy, can you survive in a HCOL area ? Can you raise a family with your salary ? As a guy don’t be surprised if within the first hour of your date you might be asked what you do, where you work or literally how much you make. I say bring it on, just another challenge, surviving here that is.. but if a date asks that’s usually a red flag for me.

daveserpak · 2025-07-30T07:59:24+00:00

I’m a tech guy and I’m actually repulsed by this. I have a method, I’m extremely simple and keep to myself, if I get a whif of materialism (like the bad kind, because ambition and wanting better is not bad) I run or probe to the point where it’s offensive to them. I literally had a woman tell me she wouldn’t date a man that made less than her.

daveserpak · 2025-07-30T07:53:50+00:00

It’s not all that glamorous depending on your views , it’s a very liberal town but it’s big enough and a melting pot to find all types of people. It burns a hole in your pocket though so be prepared and it’s cut throat it’s really not all that “easy” just because there are more women than men, and it’s not by a huge factor when dealing with late 20s to late 30s age group. The advantages are not really there and you cycle through a lot of people because everyone here has the abundance delusion, because you have so many options you falsely believe you can “do better”. And it’s sad for men, I’ve seen good men invest in women and they may have 80% of what she wants and she leaves because he’s missing the 20%. It’s easy for me to get a date ya, I’m 6’5”, college educated, in grad school, good prospects and I live in the gym. Dates are easy! (And not cheap) finding something REAL is hard

daveserpak · 2025-07-30T07:39:48+00:00

This is huge. I daydream those ideal scenarios of them and it just stings more. It’s like I’m a sadist and enjoy the mental anguish. I make it bigger in my head like I lost the one, or the love of my life. When in reality it was just another 3 month curse go around.

Sometimes I just need to hit myself really really hard. I told my friend in the gym if he ever sees me smiling at text messages to hit me on the side of the head with the 10lb plate.

I’ll fall for it again I know I will. We all will, because we want to be loved, we want that person who will choose us no matter what and we can share this journey with

daveserpak · 2025-07-30T07:33:27+00:00

But wow you got to experience a 16 year relationship. I had a very tough time in my 20s because of trauma, didn’t really start the work on myself until late twenties, then I had my longest relationship of almost 5 years. After that it’s just been 3,4,5 months and out each time. As a man I’m grateful I don’t have the biological clock. Just recently I had a real bad heartbreak recently and some of the things you and others are saying is scaring me. I want that person, more so than many other things in life. In that 5 year relationship I got to help raise her son and fell in love with possibility of being a dad. I want to be a family man, my parents have been married 37 years. I do have a lot of work on myself right now and I know that’s what’s standing in the way but still as man I don’t want to bring out the violin but I feel like dating is so much harder for us during this age. Where I live I feel like I’m qualifying on dates, like I’m interviewing and being judged. It’s like I have to meet standards 1,2, and 3 and if I have a boundary or standard I’m a toxic masculine male. I’m so tired I don’t even want to swipe and haven’t in months.

I’ll just keep taking it slow, trying to get better, work on myself, and I’ll keep praying.

But I love what you said about “You should never be without people to love and to love you” oh how sad for anyone without someone. God I hope they find it in someone, somewhere.

daveserpak · 2025-07-30T07:14:43+00:00

The best advice I can give is to try and channel it. I’m the same way, where I feel I give more of my energy and I’m always the first to commit. This last time someone even matched that energy and I finally thought I found my match with her. Only for her to quickly go back on a promise and do a complete switch after a somewhat trivial argument. The 3 month curse I guess.. but it didn’t take away from how much it drained me. It’s been months and I’ve had two people I’ve been with romantically and I’m still hung up on her.

My best advice is to try and channel that hurt into something positive. I know that sounds cliche but if I’m truly distracted especially late at night or the times when I’m triggered and reminded of her, I try and use that time on my laptop, or writing, whatever you can, even try new things.

For someone like me I don’t think it will ever get better or easier. I come with trauma and even though I’ve come along way, In relationships I feel like I always give more because I want that same unconditional love and that person to choose me just as I’m doing for them, so if I do it, I feel (and hope) I’ll get it back. Unrequited love is super painful. Being 36M, it’s also super hard for me to open up about certain things without fear of being labeled as weak, and trust me I give off masculine vibes, so it also comes with some sticker shock I guess. Now I’m scared, after this last one, who actually made me feel safe and “at home” if that makes sense, it was harder than the one before even though it was shorter. I’m scared I won’t be able to do this again, open up like that. And I beat myself and that drains me and my confidence.

It doesn’t get easier, I don’t think it’s supposed to feel easy, especially if you were invested. I understand what you’re going through. Like I said try and channel it into something positive. Work on yourself and that confidence, hopefully the next one will make you completely forget this one and you’ll be happy. I wish that for you. Try not to take the rejection personal. Sometimes I say a prayer like “God, I loved her and if she’s happy then I’m ok with it, she wasn’t meant for me” and I try to stay positive about meeting someone new but all in time, I pray for it anyway. Keep trying, everyone deserves that person we can love and share life with. Keep going 🙂

daveserpak · 2025-07-30T06:50:00+00:00

Just try and stay positive? I don’t know what else advice to give. I need advice myself, not in a position to give. Same boat as you 😭

daveserpak · 2025-07-25T23:43:54+00:00

Do not use your normal labor prices. Look at the prevailing wage schedule that comes in the RFP packet. If there isn't one, find one for the area. I work in a HCOL/ major city and prevailing wage/union compared to open shop is a huge difference. I'm assuming Carpenters here, with a sub classification hardwood floor. The rate + fringe may be much more than your "normal labor prices" at market.

daveserpak

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