The Like/Hate Thread

[Jonathan Meer]

To be honest, I'm 28, going for a Software Engineering degree, and I'm not even sure if this is what I want to do. I'd rather just get certificates for my areas of knowledge... but, like you said, the workplace these days requires an associates degree to even start out. And even then, they want you to have experience in the field before they hire you. Which always struck me as odd, since for me to have experience, someone would need to hire me first.

My mom started as a computer programmer at around 26, self-taught, never got a degree, and is now a lead designer ('Data Architect' or some shit; XML and databases) for the state of Maryland. That's one thing I love about this field: People don't give a shit what your degree is, they care what you can do, and the resources are freely available for anyone with the aptitude and inclination to spin up within a year.

There are entry-level jobs out there. I don't have a sense of how competitive they are, but if you know what to do, it's actually pretty easy to set yourself apart from the rest of the candidates.

1) Learn how to use source control, and demonstrate that ability. Wherever you go, you're going to use source control, and schools don't seem to teach it. Which leads to...

2) Finish a project to completion, and make it publicly available. Create a repo on GitHub, follow through the tutorial (will give you the basics on how it works), and finish up a personal project. A small, simple game would be a fun example. This will be a great opportunity to showcase your coding ability and style, and it will show that you can follow-through. Use Git to make regular commits to demonstrate ability in item 1.

3) Get involved in open source. This one is more of a monster than the first two; you should do items 1 and 2 regardless, and that will probably set you apart from 80-90% of the other candidates, but this one is a beast. It takes time to get involved in an open source project. But if you do get involved, and make a public commit, that will be a _HUGE_ advantage. It demonstrates that you can integrate into an existing project, get up to speed on their coding conventions, learn the structure of the program and make active contributions. Seriously, if you do this, you'll get a job, and probably a good one.

All of this said, you really do need a certain passion about programming to succeed in the field. Jeff Atwood writes about it here: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/12...ve-it.html

Also consider, though, whether the lack of passion is a problem of environment. When I got my degree in comp sci, I took it online, and didn't have anyone in my direct social structure to bounce these ideas off of. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't really that interesting either. Then I found Reddit, and subscribed to some programming sub-reddits (/r/learnprogramming is a great one for beginners, and even intermediates), and now I'm a huge fan.