Getting a CS Job After Graduation
Oct. 22nd, 2007 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
le_bebna_kamniGoing for a computer science degree is wonderful, but I'm constantly reminded that the degree rarely gives you practical application skills. You might learn the theoretical knowledge of how to develop a programming language, or how to do a Big O analysis of a particular chunk of code, or how to program the hypothetical LC-3 in binary, but so far they've taught nothing about good software design (or anything GUI-related, for that matter) or managing a network or understanding basic security.
And from reading the course descriptions, that probably will never happen, because as one of my instructors pointed out to me recently, "computer science" is not the same as "IT" or "software engineering" or "database management" or any of the other fields that people are routinely hired into. Which means that if I actually want to learn these things, I'm going to have to learn these things on my own for the most part.
But the hardest part for me has been where to start. Compared to the average end-user, I know quite a bit about computers (a scary thought), but compared to my friends and peers in my class, I'm a clueless newbie. I could search the internet all day following links from different computer-related topic to another and not know if I've hit on anything remotely useful for acquiring job skills. And it's so easy to say, learn 10,000 things and I'll be fine, but where should I start?
First of all, I'm pretty sure I want to be a Code Monkey, and not an IT/Sys Admin person. One friend suggested that I do an internet job search to see what kinds of qualifications were in high demand, which brought up a huge number [of the non-IT jobs] requiring experience with .NET.
Prior to today, I've always resisted downloading and installing .NET developing tools and programs that require .NET frameworks (with my last laptop I actually went out of my way to remove the .NET that came pre-installed). And while the reasons might be silly, I did so mainly because I actually read the EULAs associated with .NET and didn't like their particular data collection and privacy policies. But today I gave in and downloaded the free Visual Studio 2005 for all the various languages because, dag nab it, if that's what I have to do I'll do it. But it's definitely making me itchy to get back into an open source environment.
Of course, my searching for tutorials on how to use .NET also brought me across a very disturbing article on how Vista's push for DRM is hurting legitimate users and threatening open source. Reading this article makes me glad that my primary OS is Debian, and when I have to use a Windows product I still have XP to fall back on. But the reading of all the EULAs and registering all the Visual Studio components has given me a severe headache.
Playing with Linux is a dream -- a frustrating one at times, but inevitably fun once I figure things out. I haven't even scratched the surface of what I want to learn with Linux, and I wish I could block out a chunk of time to learn it inside and out. But time is a limited resource, and I want to teach myself skills that will get me a job out of college. Proprietary software, especially Windows-based, seems to be the way to go if I want to get a job someday. So my issue is that I'm worried I'll have to give up learning open source (at least temporarily) to become more "marketable".
But I'm finding another problem when searching the jobs: the majority of "entry level" positions still have requirements like "1-2 years of experience in..." So I need some advice: how should I go about getting that experience? Most of the people in my degree program already have computer experience and just want "that piece of paper". So how did they (or most people) get their first CS jobs without "that piece of paper"? What did they need to know in order to get them, and how many years did it take for them to learn what they did? How did they learn what they now know? IT jobs seem to be in higher demand, so should I aim for an IT job and try to work my way into coding? And are paying for certifications helpful, or worthless?
There is so much out there when it comes to things to know, and I'm just not sure where to start. Any advice would be a help....
And from reading the course descriptions, that probably will never happen, because as one of my instructors pointed out to me recently, "computer science" is not the same as "IT" or "software engineering" or "database management" or any of the other fields that people are routinely hired into. Which means that if I actually want to learn these things, I'm going to have to learn these things on my own for the most part.
But the hardest part for me has been where to start. Compared to the average end-user, I know quite a bit about computers (a scary thought), but compared to my friends and peers in my class, I'm a clueless newbie. I could search the internet all day following links from different computer-related topic to another and not know if I've hit on anything remotely useful for acquiring job skills. And it's so easy to say, learn 10,000 things and I'll be fine, but where should I start?
First of all, I'm pretty sure I want to be a Code Monkey, and not an IT/Sys Admin person. One friend suggested that I do an internet job search to see what kinds of qualifications were in high demand, which brought up a huge number [of the non-IT jobs] requiring experience with .NET.
Prior to today, I've always resisted downloading and installing .NET developing tools and programs that require .NET frameworks (with my last laptop I actually went out of my way to remove the .NET that came pre-installed). And while the reasons might be silly, I did so mainly because I actually read the EULAs associated with .NET and didn't like their particular data collection and privacy policies. But today I gave in and downloaded the free Visual Studio 2005 for all the various languages because, dag nab it, if that's what I have to do I'll do it. But it's definitely making me itchy to get back into an open source environment.
Of course, my searching for tutorials on how to use .NET also brought me across a very disturbing article on how Vista's push for DRM is hurting legitimate users and threatening open source. Reading this article makes me glad that my primary OS is Debian, and when I have to use a Windows product I still have XP to fall back on. But the reading of all the EULAs and registering all the Visual Studio components has given me a severe headache.
Playing with Linux is a dream -- a frustrating one at times, but inevitably fun once I figure things out. I haven't even scratched the surface of what I want to learn with Linux, and I wish I could block out a chunk of time to learn it inside and out. But time is a limited resource, and I want to teach myself skills that will get me a job out of college. Proprietary software, especially Windows-based, seems to be the way to go if I want to get a job someday. So my issue is that I'm worried I'll have to give up learning open source (at least temporarily) to become more "marketable".
But I'm finding another problem when searching the jobs: the majority of "entry level" positions still have requirements like "1-2 years of experience in..." So I need some advice: how should I go about getting that experience? Most of the people in my degree program already have computer experience and just want "that piece of paper". So how did they (or most people) get their first CS jobs without "that piece of paper"? What did they need to know in order to get them, and how many years did it take for them to learn what they did? How did they learn what they now know? IT jobs seem to be in higher demand, so should I aim for an IT job and try to work my way into coding? And are paying for certifications helpful, or worthless?
There is so much out there when it comes to things to know, and I'm just not sure where to start. Any advice would be a help....
