Story: Microsoft offers free developer tools to students
Exactly my point
As a graduate you are unlikely to get a job as a programmer unless you can demonstrate some real world experience and that is hard to get in a commercial environment.
Learning Microsoft's ide is all well and good but it abstracts a lot of the principals away so you only ever see half the story. Also working on open source projects gives you a lot of exposure to team working which is what most employers will be looking for. Trust me a C# college project counts for nothing as far as employers are concerned. I will always employ someone who has managed to get commiter status on an open source project over someone with 'college experience'.
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