[CS-FSLUG] College / University

[Nathan T.]

Personally I do prefer to learn at my own pace from books, rather  
than having to perpetually cram and take tests as was the case for me  
through most of school. I've been considering college simply because  
it would get me off to a good start on independent study and because  
it would provide some kind of post-secondary credential that I could  
use when applying for a job in that field. I've never really cared  
for managerial positions, which is what made me uncomfortable talking  
to some people I've discussed post secondary with. Most people think  
it's about the money, but for me I simply enjoy the building process  
of programming, the fun for me is actually writing the code, testing  
it, fixing it, and ultimately seeing it work. As for job  
availability, I've always considered the possibility of being self  
employed, although I understand there are risks since we've gone over  
that here before.

That said most companies now are looking for programmers who can put  
together solid network or database centric software, I have no  
experience at all with databases beyond actually writing my own  
libraries that would read and write from structured files. As far as  
network programming goes I haven't touched on that beyond grabbing a  
few files off the internet or writing an IRC bot with an already  
existing Java library.


On 10-Dec-06, at 5:45 PM, Robert W. wrote:

[snip]

> Don't expect a college course to teach you good programming skills.
> Those courses show you what's available. If you're foundering with no
> direction, then college may help you find it.