How I Became a Programmer Part I
I've decided to lay out the full path to where I am today career-wise because I'm seeking some advice on some books to read to improve as a developer. I had no idea I'd get so long winded so I'm breaking this up into two parts.
Here's part one which covers the educational portion up to getting my degree:
My exposure to programming goes back to the 1980’s when my parents responded to my wish for a computer by buying a VIC-20 (I wanted an IBM XT). Sure it was BASIC and the only programming I did from scratch (as opposed to just keying from a book and debugging) amounted to “Hello World”.
At the time I never considered making it a career. When it came time late in high school to “decide what I wanted to be when I grew up” (looking back with my 37 year old eyes I realize what a lame concept that is) I thought I wanted to be a Veterinarian or Biologist. I think I’d watched a bit too much “Wild Kingdom” when I was younger and thought life was like that for all of them.
Well, picking a path that didn’t hold my interest along with not really knowing how to study since I was able to slack my way though high school and still graduate with honors led to troubles in college. Four years went by (with a couple of academic suspensions along the way) and I was not progressing toward a degree even after switching to a Mc. Major (General Liberal Arts).
So, I left school and went to work. I’d already been working for a few months while still attending school (sort of) as an auto parts counterman. I thought maybe I’d just make a career out of my love of cars. I also had some silly notion I might get “discovered” as a race car driver and started running SCCA Solo II. At the time I didn’t realize the days of hobbyists going pro in their 20’s were all but over. Most of the pros then (and I’d say all now) started racing at a single-digit age. I was already too old.
Working a parts counter can be fun if you’re a car person. You often get to help diagnose and solve problems which also happens in programming so it may be why my career has followed the path I’m reviewing here. However, some knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing dolts who think they can fix cars are also in your customer base. These people can make the worst pointy-haired boss in IT look like one of the geniuses who founded Google. The salary to put up with such just isn’t there. That fact combined with meeting who would eventually become my wife (and wanting to support her) drove me to consider returning to school after 4 years.
But I didn’t know what degree path to take. I knew Vet Med wasn’t it. Nor were International Business or GLA that I’d tried along the way. I had a friend in the Management Information Systems program and I’d had some exposure to how powerful a tool IT systems can be by working a year at Auto Zone with its computerized catalog and inventory systems and then spending the next 4 at an independent store with a completely manual system. I had a look at Computer Science but the math requirements were much heavier (I might be one of the few programmers not that fond of math) and MIS seemed to have a more well-rounded curriculum.
So I re-entered Auburn University in the MIS program (now known as Information Systems Management it seems). I also took a job on campus helping maintain the public access computer labs to get some sort of IT experience under my belt even if it was mostly just running virus cleaners and rebooting machines from time to time.
At the time they taught two languages (COBOL and Visual Basic 3). You also learned SQL in the relational database class. COBOL was billed as the way to teach logic but it was really the “weed out” course for MIS. The instructor when I took it was a hard-assed coder who had been doing it since the days of punch cards. It was murder at the time but in retrospect I’m glad the course was so hard. It gave me an understanding of the need for shop standards. I aced the course and when the professor moved on to greener pastures the next quarter the department hired me to be a tutor.
VB3 was their “object oriented” class. I now know that it was really just event-driven and to make matters worse I took it over Summer quarter and my instructor was a grad student who “taught self three week ago” using our course book: Que’s Using Visual Basic 3. The class basically had to learn on its own.
Other than self-teaching HTML and enough UNIX to be dangerous that was the extent of the technical portion of the MIS program. I did get exposure to accounting, finance, marketing and management classes. You also spent your last 3 quarters on a team working on a single, consulting-style project so you get the experience of coding, documenting and presenting all in a team environment.
Here's part one which covers the educational portion up to getting my degree:
My exposure to programming goes back to the 1980’s when my parents responded to my wish for a computer by buying a VIC-20 (I wanted an IBM XT). Sure it was BASIC and the only programming I did from scratch (as opposed to just keying from a book and debugging) amounted to “Hello World”.
At the time I never considered making it a career. When it came time late in high school to “decide what I wanted to be when I grew up” (looking back with my 37 year old eyes I realize what a lame concept that is) I thought I wanted to be a Veterinarian or Biologist. I think I’d watched a bit too much “Wild Kingdom” when I was younger and thought life was like that for all of them.
Well, picking a path that didn’t hold my interest along with not really knowing how to study since I was able to slack my way though high school and still graduate with honors led to troubles in college. Four years went by (with a couple of academic suspensions along the way) and I was not progressing toward a degree even after switching to a Mc. Major (General Liberal Arts).
So, I left school and went to work. I’d already been working for a few months while still attending school (sort of) as an auto parts counterman. I thought maybe I’d just make a career out of my love of cars. I also had some silly notion I might get “discovered” as a race car driver and started running SCCA Solo II. At the time I didn’t realize the days of hobbyists going pro in their 20’s were all but over. Most of the pros then (and I’d say all now) started racing at a single-digit age. I was already too old.
Working a parts counter can be fun if you’re a car person. You often get to help diagnose and solve problems which also happens in programming so it may be why my career has followed the path I’m reviewing here. However, some knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing dolts who think they can fix cars are also in your customer base. These people can make the worst pointy-haired boss in IT look like one of the geniuses who founded Google. The salary to put up with such just isn’t there. That fact combined with meeting who would eventually become my wife (and wanting to support her) drove me to consider returning to school after 4 years.
But I didn’t know what degree path to take. I knew Vet Med wasn’t it. Nor were International Business or GLA that I’d tried along the way. I had a friend in the Management Information Systems program and I’d had some exposure to how powerful a tool IT systems can be by working a year at Auto Zone with its computerized catalog and inventory systems and then spending the next 4 at an independent store with a completely manual system. I had a look at Computer Science but the math requirements were much heavier (I might be one of the few programmers not that fond of math) and MIS seemed to have a more well-rounded curriculum.
So I re-entered Auburn University in the MIS program (now known as Information Systems Management it seems). I also took a job on campus helping maintain the public access computer labs to get some sort of IT experience under my belt even if it was mostly just running virus cleaners and rebooting machines from time to time.
At the time they taught two languages (COBOL and Visual Basic 3). You also learned SQL in the relational database class. COBOL was billed as the way to teach logic but it was really the “weed out” course for MIS. The instructor when I took it was a hard-assed coder who had been doing it since the days of punch cards. It was murder at the time but in retrospect I’m glad the course was so hard. It gave me an understanding of the need for shop standards. I aced the course and when the professor moved on to greener pastures the next quarter the department hired me to be a tutor.
VB3 was their “object oriented” class. I now know that it was really just event-driven and to make matters worse I took it over Summer quarter and my instructor was a grad student who “taught self three week ago” using our course book: Que’s Using Visual Basic 3. The class basically had to learn on its own.
Other than self-teaching HTML and enough UNIX to be dangerous that was the extent of the technical portion of the MIS program. I did get exposure to accounting, finance, marketing and management classes. You also spent your last 3 quarters on a team working on a single, consulting-style project so you get the experience of coding, documenting and presenting all in a team environment.
posted by ScottJ175 at 5:00 PM
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