What I have learned from C&T.

[Sonic Offline]

Synapt

Sonic Offline

Whelp, I managed to d**k myself.

I let like 6 assignments slide til the due date thinking they would be easy. I just gotta rely on the final to bring my grade up to passing, then study for a semester to make sure I don't forget anything because I couldn't get into a programming class next semester.

Just remember for what it's worth, the majority of software stuff (whether actual like application software or web dev) looks at actual experience far more importantly over a 'schooled' education in it.

That's how I'm looking at it. I'll eventually do these projects for the experience but overall I doubt I'll do them anytime in the immediate future.

[psychic stalker]

Sonic Offline

Synapt

Sonic Offline

Whelp, I managed to d**k myself.

I let like 6 assignments slide til the due date thinking they would be easy. I just gotta rely on the final to bring my grade up to passing, then study for a semester to make sure I don't forget anything because I couldn't get into a programming class next semester.

Just remember for what it's worth, the majority of software stuff (whether actual like application software or web dev) looks at actual experience far more importantly over a 'schooled' education in it.

That's how I'm looking at it. I'll eventually do these projects for the experience but overall I doubt I'll do them anytime in the immediate future.

That's not going to help you.

Having professional experience is what employers want, yes, but practical experience above and beyond your professional or scholastic work speaks volumes about your level of skill.

[Synapt]

psychic stalker

Sonic Offline

Synapt

Sonic Offline

Whelp, I managed to d**k myself.

I let like 6 assignments slide til the due date thinking they would be easy. I just gotta rely on the final to bring my grade up to passing, then study for a semester to make sure I don't forget anything because I couldn't get into a programming class next semester.

Just remember for what it's worth, the majority of software stuff (whether actual like application software or web dev) looks at actual experience far more importantly over a 'schooled' education in it.

That's how I'm looking at it. I'll eventually do these projects for the experience but overall I doubt I'll do them anytime in the immediate future.

That's not going to help you.

Having professional experience is what employers want, yes, but practical experience above and beyond your professional or scholastic work speaks volumes about your level of skill.

^ This basically

I mean to summarize it more specifically, if you look at a lot of general dev jobs in any language, the large majority (as in like 98% of the s**t I see/get offered) straight up will normally say Bachelor's (so roughly 3~ years) or 1 year "Working experience".

The main reason to this is the majority of colleges, even if you go to like Harvard or some obscene s**t, hire two-bit halfassed programmer teachers (hell sometimes they're even regular professors for a different class who simply did web s**t on the side), people who couldn't cut it doing it for real and instead figure "Hey, they'll pay me, even if shitty, to teach it, so I'll teach people my shitty way of programming that got me nowhere in life!", and that's generally what it comes down to.

The ones that -really- always pissed me off are the ones I've had people tell me about how their teacher would basically tell them they weren't allowed to learn anything on their own, they had to stick to the teachers course and style exactly (down to even the style of writing function/method/variable/etc names). Those kind of teachers need kicked in the a** a few times.

But yeah, the amount of college kids I still deal with on and off who get out of school expecting huge offers and a lot of work but end up floored by the fact they're offered entry level positions working under someone who's only been doing s**t for like 2 years and has no degree is admittedly silly, though it generally amuses me at least, lol.

[Sonic Offline]

Synapt

psychic stalker

Sonic Offline

Synapt

Sonic Offline

Whelp, I managed to d**k myself.

I let like 6 assignments slide til the due date thinking they would be easy. I just gotta rely on the final to bring my grade up to passing, then study for a semester to make sure I don't forget anything because I couldn't get into a programming class next semester.

Just remember for what it's worth, the majority of software stuff (whether actual like application software or web dev) looks at actual experience far more importantly over a 'schooled' education in it.

That's how I'm looking at it. I'll eventually do these projects for the experience but overall I doubt I'll do them anytime in the immediate future.

That's not going to help you.

Having professional experience is what employers want, yes, but practical experience above and beyond your professional or scholastic work speaks volumes about your level of skill.

^ This basically

I mean to summarize it more specifically, if you look at a lot of general dev jobs in any language, the large majority (as in like 98% of the s**t I see/get offered) straight up will normally say Bachelor's (so roughly 3~ years) or 1 year "Working experience".

The main reason to this is the majority of colleges, even if you go to like Harvard or some obscene s**t, hire two-bit halfassed programmer teachers (hell sometimes they're even regular professors for a different class who simply did web s**t on the side), people who couldn't cut it doing it for real and instead figure "Hey, they'll pay me, even if shitty, to teach it, so I'll teach people my shitty way of programming that got me nowhere in life!", and that's generally what it comes down to.

The ones that -really- always pissed me off are the ones I've had people tell me about how their teacher would basically tell them they weren't allowed to learn anything on their own, they had to stick to the teachers course and style exactly (down to even the style of writing function/method/variable/etc names). Those kind of teachers need kicked in the a** a few times.

But yeah, the amount of college kids I still deal with on and off who get out of school expecting huge offers and a lot of work but end up floored by the fact they're offered entry level positions working under someone who's only been doing s**t for like 2 years and has no degree is admittedly silly, though it generally amuses me at least, lol.

That's how my first semester professor was. We had to declare everything in lower letters (so noVariableNamesLikeThis), all variables were declared on their own line (which in his examples was several pages of just declarations, most of which were global) and we got points off if we didn't do prototype functions with their definitions below main.

However, in all honesty I have no real interest in being a programmer. I was kind of shuffled into the classes by my sister. I'm considering swapping majors over to networking because that's what I personally find fascinating.

-[edit]-

I actually don't know if I do or not. Some days I wake up thinking it's fun or I think nothing about it and just do it, and other's I wake up ******** hating it.

[Synapt]

Sonic Offline

That's how my first semester professor was. We had to declare everything in lower letters (so noVariableNamesLikeThis), all variables were declared on their own line (which in his examples was several pages of just declarations, most of which were global) and we got points off if we didn't do prototype functions with their definitions below main.

However, in all honesty I have no real interest in being a programmer. I was kind of shuffled into the classes by my sister. I'm considering swapping majors over to networking because that's what I personally find fascinating.

-[edit]-

I actually don't know if I do or not. Some days I wake up thinking it's fun or I think nothing about it and just do it, and other's I wake up ******** hating it.

Yeah those kind of professors are like ******** god damned stupid, there should be laws against stupidity like that, they're there to teach in general, not try and make failtastic personal clones out of their students.

Now networking yeah, college is pretty near mandatory for getting into higher level networking, but that's cause getting general experience with networking is hard to do in general/freelancing/etc, so college courses for like CCNA's and such are a good idea if that's going to be your route.

Either which way though, the money can eventually be good, just if you do stick with software stuff just make sure you sneak in some actual work and experience where you can, getting out of school with a BA and a good 2~ years of real hands-on working experience while at college can generally impress companies beyond just one or the other.

[Lanackse-Kanvae]

I really need to move out of Cornwall then. All that's around here is the seasonal work, nursing (they always demand RGN qualifications at least or you're the dogsbody that everyone else shits on both metaphorically and probably quite literally if you're in an old people's home), or it's temporary.

[The20]

Using AMDs tools to find the right driver for my laptop seems to have solved the problem of constant bluescreens when waking up the computer. Finally.
And the computer didn't hang since i installed mouse drivers for the mouse instead of relying on the default drivers.

Putting that aside, finding work to gather experience when everyone is looking for people who already have experience might prove somewhat difficult. Oh well, i've got to do this at some point anyway ...

[Sonic Offline]

The20

Using AMDs tools to find the right driver for my laptop seems to have solved the problem of constant bluescreens when waking up the computer. Finally.
And the computer didn't hang since i installed mouse drivers for the mouse instead of relying on the default drivers.

Putting that aside, finding work to gather experience when everyone is looking for people who already have experience might prove somewhat difficult. Oh well, i've got to do this at some point anyway ...

Generally speaking volunteeri and freelance both count.

[Synapt]

The20

Using AMDs tools to find the right driver for my laptop seems to have solved the problem of constant bluescreens when waking up the computer. Finally.
And the computer didn't hang since i installed mouse drivers for the mouse instead of relying on the default drivers.

Putting that aside, finding work to gather experience when everyone is looking for people who already have experience might prove somewhat difficult. Oh well, i've got to do this at some point anyway ...

As crazy as it sounds, craigslist is usually a great place for generic quickie jobs that you can get experience from depending what you're trying to do (if dev wise). Alternatively you can write something functional, like a generic framework or tool just to show how well you can code as that works too with a lot of places if you can't show like actual website experience. Had to basically do that as I had gotten into a lot of NDA gigs when I first started web dev so couldn't really say most of the crap I worked on.

Alternatively as sonic said, even freebee jobs for whoever, really it comes down to what I just said, companies don't necessarily want to see a couple years worth of jobs listed on a resume, if you can show code that looks like it was written someone competent that's been learning something for a year or two they'll usually take it well too.

[The20]

Sonic Offline

The20

Putting that aside, finding work to gather experience when everyone is looking for people who already have experience might prove somewhat difficult. Oh well, i've got to do this at some point anyway ...

Generally speaking volunteeri and freelance both count.

What does "volunteeri" mean?

Synapt

As crazy as it sounds, craigslist is usually a great place for generic quickie jobs that you can get experience from depending what you're trying to do (if dev wise). Alternatively you can write something functional, like a generic framework or tool just to show how well you can code as that works too with a lot of places if you can't show like actual website experience. Had to basically do that as I had gotten into a lot of NDA gigs when I first started web dev so couldn't really say most of the crap I worked on.

Craigslist?
Ok, i mean, i could look it up, i guess i don't need to get in contact with those people, just look for something that needs to be done, implement a solution and keep it as work sample.

Synapt

Alternatively as sonic said, even freebee jobs for whoever, really it comes down to what I just said, companies don't necessarily want to see a couple years worth of jobs listed on a resume, if you can show code that looks like it was written someone competent that's been learning something for a year or two they'll usually take it well too.

I do have the odd tool that i wrote myself, most of them aren't really complex, though. Most were between a week and and maybe two months of work at most - except for this one program that went completely out of hand because i never had a clear goal or a plan.
I need to find something sufficiently complex to work on ...


Unrelated: You know your social competence sucks if it takes 9 years to realize that girl that spoke to you back in this one university class wasn't really interested in the image of your notepad, she just wanted to start a conversation. Yeah, i completely blew that one ...

[Synapt]

The20

Craigslist?
Ok, i mean, i could look it up, i guess i don't need to get in contact with those people, just look for something that needs to be done, implement a solution and keep it as work sample.

Never used Craigslist before? o.O

It's pretty much where I started out way back, I'd find people in the web related categories looking for someone to do little things, small sites, fixing up broken code and grew from there pretty rapidly.

[Sonic Offline]

The20

Sonic Offline

The20

Putting that aside, finding work to gather experience when everyone is looking for people who already have experience might prove somewhat difficult. Oh well, i've got to do this at some point anyway ...

Generally speaking volunteeri and freelance both count.

What does "volunteeri" mean?

I managed to typo volunteering on my iPad.

[The20]

Synapt

The20

Craigslist?
Ok, i mean, i could look it up, i guess i don't need to get in contact with those people, just look for something that needs to be done, implement a solution and keep it as work sample.

Never used Craigslist before? o.O

It's pretty much where I started out way back, I'd find people in the web related categories looking for someone to do little things, small sites, fixing up broken code and grew from there pretty rapidly.

I've heard of it before, but mostly negative stuff.
Putting that aside i never saw a reason to use it.

[MyNameIsKir]

The20

Synapt

The20

Craigslist?
Ok, i mean, i could look it up, i guess i don't need to get in contact with those people, just look for something that needs to be done, implement a solution and keep it as work sample.

Never used Craigslist before? o.O

It's pretty much where I started out way back, I'd find people in the web related categories looking for someone to do little things, small sites, fixing up broken code and grew from there pretty rapidly.

I've heard of it before, but mostly negative stuff.
Putting that aside i never saw a reason to use it.

Craigslist hasn't proven to be all that shady in my experience. Once out of boredom I posted in the strictly platonic section of the Personals. "Nerd for Nerd." Got 97 emails in response over the period of a month and only 4 of those were shady, and I'm sure that they weren't sent by a human given the responses to me replying to tell them to gtfo.

The unskilled job listings are a nightmare though.

[Saruwatari Kooji]

MyNameIsKir

Craigslist hasn't proven to be all that shady in my experience. Once out of boredom I posted in the strictly platonic section of the Personals. "Nerd for Nerd." Got 97 emails in response over the period of a month and only 4 of those were shady, and I'm sure that they weren't sent by a human given the responses to me replying to tell them to gtfo.

The unskilled job listings are a nightmare though.

The personals section of Craigslist is almost nothing but bots. I peruse them from time to time out of boredom and almost every one I respond to comes back with a near identical response asking for my pics.

I have grown to dislike craigslist for my area. I'm trying to find a cheap dryer and there are either none cheap enough or the ones I do find that are cheap enough require a fix that will cost me just as much as the dryer itself...putting the total cost through them almost as much as purchasing an old "scratch/dent" from an appliance store.

Long story short...I'm still hanging clothes on the line or when it's too cold to do that, trudging down to the laundromat...