Is it worth it to work?

Question

Freelance

I will describe the situation.
I am in my 5th year studying programming (namely, programming, not applied computer science / mathematics), three times a week from three to nine. You need to do labs, term papers, after 1.5 years a diploma. Total 2 free days per week and weekends.
What would you recommend in terms of work?
In the vacancies they write that a flexible schedule is possible, but 2 days, I think, is not enough. Now I am going through interviews, the first stage is over, two more are ahead. They say if two days, then this is a big minus in the general competition.
Maybe try freelancing? I know English, I will not go to Russian stock exchanges.
Or is 2 days a normal practice for students, I just found the wrong company?
UPD: what salary can be claimed in this case for Junior Java Developer?

Answer 1

I don't really understand the problem. From the third year I worked full time, despite the fact that we had classes every day, and not every other day, like you do.
Agree with the teachers that you will go to lectures occasionally, as you work, and you will rent labs in bulk, coming once every two to three weeks. By the fifth year, attendance is usually overlooked, the main thing is that very long tails do not form.
About the office / freelance. For a junior, freelancing is a road to nowhere. Freelancers, as a rule, stew in their own juice, the horizon narrows over time. Therefore, going from junior to freelancing is a so-so idea.
It is ideologically correct to find a decent office with a decent team and decent (interesting and large) projects. Where there is someone to ask, and there is an opportunity to look at how the TEAM works, how time is planned, how tasks are set and distributed, how the progress of the development process is controlled and all such things. Having reached the level of a strong middle, you can already try to look at freelancing there.
Here, watch the discussion: Why do people leave freelancing for the office? There, people were just talking about freelancing vs. office, and there are common thoughts.

Answer 2

I do not recommend going to the office, because there they will endure the brain so that there will be no strength to study, you will start to score like many of my fellow programmers and you will get bogged down in this office life. It’s better to do freelance part-time work, now there are very few normal freelance developers and if you achieve results, you will be in demand. Basically, developers are Indians with the appropriate quality of work, Russian programmers are always valued more. You can claim at least $10 an hour, or well, $1000 a month is the minimum, even crooked hands don't get paid less. So develop and everything will work out for you. The office will not help you develop skills, that's for sure, there is stupidly mechanical work day in and day out. I haven’t worked in an office for several years already and they can’t even offer me a salary more than I get freelancing 4 hours a day.

Answer 3

What do you think, in general, in order to learn and have the necessary skills, is it better to leave freelancing in the office? if the author is freelancing and studying on his own, he still won’t be able to become a pro??