Few questions I have are, how is the current job market? Are most of the software engineer jobs going offshore? Are people with computer science degrees more coveted than those without a degree?

I have about 5 months before school starts, and I'm trying to get into calculus, from intermediate algebra. Can it be done?

Any other help and tips for someone trying to get the degree.

Also my plan is to get the degree then work like 20 hours a week part time and make like 30k a year. Is that frowned upon? It's not cause of a poor lazy work ethic but i got to work on my golf game ya know.

You're going to have problems with part time. Also as far as the offshore stuff I wouldn't worry about that too much. There is always a need for overseers as it were like in the company i work at. The thing is that most programmers aren't very smart and get into it for the wrong reasons. If you have a 120+ iq and actually enjoy solving problems then you can't go wrong in this field.

Of course you may have to relocate as not all areas are the same

Job market is good/great, and it will probably always be that way. I wouldn't worry about overseas stealing your job unless you are an awful developer that refuses to try to improve.

As far as jumping from algebra to calc, thats probably fine. Just take a trigonometry crash course to learn some really basic/simple theorems. You'll probably be able to find a course online thats free.

Tips got getting a degree, write code. You'll learn a ton writing code on your own as well as going to class. I don't think you need a degree to succeed in CS, but if you have the opportunity to get one, then absolutely do it. You'll always learn something in CS classes.

20 hours a week is pretty bad. I doubt you would be hired to work on any interesting projects with that little hours, unless you were to do some small consulting gigs.

How many hours do you guys work? or should I plan on working? I'll work 40 if I have to but would prefer not to cause of my other goals.

Do you guys stay on call 24/7? Stuff like that i'm interested in knowing.

Also my iq is 110 is that too low?

http://slashdot.org/
While reading this, do you find yourself constantly nodding and laughing out loud because some mentioned "security" and "flash" in the same sentence?

http://www.addictinggames.com/theworldshardestgame.html
Were you occupied for at least 17 hours without any social interaction after clicking "begin game"?


But seriously, I don't know if maybe bigger companies have part time coders, they are the employers who care for certificates anyways, but programming and no overtime doesn't really go together so well imo.

As a general statement. Ask yourself why you'd like to study CS? Because you're really into that topic and have the urgent need to understand how these things work?
Or maybe just because it's the least worst option?

Most of the people I went to school with and who studied just to have an degree and please the parents find themselves either in a career they really don't like and are generally not happy with their work, or work in completely different areas today.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, they just find that it would have saved them time if they went with their guts at the first place.

If you're not looking for a profession, but for a job, I think there's easier topics to study and to help you lower the handicap.

Although it can be pretty easy money if the topic itself is really interesting to you.

Well I would like to code a text sim that is actually good. Start my own company etc. I can't imagine a better career to get into at this time. I've wanted to be a coder since i was in middle school. I'd prefer not to have some crazy work hours though.

Interested in what you guys think of this blog post:
http://www.halfsigma.com/2007/03/why_a_career_in.html

That blog post scared me but then saw this comment:

Computer programming is a job that’s heavily dependent on temporary knowledge capital.

Only if you're bad at it. The good ones understand computer science, which makes us good at programming regardless of language. If an ex-COBOL programmer can't compete with a younger person raised on C in C then he probably wasn't a good COBOL programmer to begin with.

Low prestige

This is true, but it only matters if you care what shallow people think of you. HS, I think this is your big problem in life. You're too smart to believe the shallow people are right but unable to stop caring what they think.

The foreignization of computer programming

Overblown, I think. If you're near a city of any size and are an above-average programmer, you should find a good job quickly.

Project management sucks too

Yeah, but in a good place, you can advance along the technical track.

Conclusion

I work for a researchy type place that has a great working environment, smart and interesting employees, varied and interesting work, no cubicles, etc. If you're dumb enough to go for the place offering the most salary without taking the working environment into account, you have no-one to blame but yourself. And ditto if you got into computers not because you liked it but for the relatively easy money.

HS, you constantly look to the wrong things for happiness. Money, prestige, etc., are for suckers. There are a couple of super wealthy people taking advantage of all you social climbers, probably laughing their asses of at how miserable you're willing to make yourselves in the quest for some utopian social status that you'll never get so they can get even wealthier off your backs.



Maybe you guys can clear up whos right in this.

Also is it true you can work at home while working for a company?

Awesome, only one last obstacle. Do you think either "RTFM" or "42" is the answer to everything? Plz respond.

Sorry, can't stay serious for too long of a timespan.

You have to understand that most projects usually always end up in crazy coding sessions in camping beds and under the influence of 2^n-1 cups of black coffee because there is usually much more work than any project manager would ever think of. At least for smaller software vendors.

On the other side, you don't necessarily need to work in an IT-company even with an CS degree. There is a lot of offices in need for computer solutions, sometimes just having someone who is competent with excel.
They usually tend to abuse the sysadmins for these tasks, but not every office has/needs one. Companies became more aware of the fact that "being able to receive and answer emails" doesn't exactly fulfill all their technical needs.
Apart from that, they don't need a full time specialized programmer who will refuse to leave his workplace until all the bits are in the correct order.

So, depending on the companies in your area, you might find a job that pays you for your degree, but isn't the classical code monkey type, more of a generalist.

As this is a important decision for you, keep in mind that I have basically no idea about working environments in the US.

I got through like 5 levels before hating it and quitting

I only got through the "temporary knowledge capital" part before skimming the rest, but that guy is def an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about. The response you quoted above is 100% spot on.

It's like the guy who wrote that article thinks that when you stop working in C and have to learn Java, it's like "well, ****, all that C knowledge I built up was cool but now I'm starting all over again!" No, dumbass, learning a new spoken language doesn't mean you've forgotten how to use words to express yourself, they're just different words (and there's a lot less of them in programming than in Spanish!).

Low prestige: lol, what?

Foreignization/project management: I don't have enough experience yet to know if any of that is true or not

The working conditions suck: My working conditions are awesome. A local restaurant brings in lunches to our office every day so I can just run downstairs to buy lunch if I want, we get free coffee/soda/tea, I work whatever hours I want (usually 11am-7pm), I play basketball with coworkers twice a week during lunch, there's like 4 cubicles in our entire office of 100+ people, most every programmer has dual monitors on their computers. One or two months a year we get dialed up to 60 hour weeks when we have to get **** done, but I honestly like it.

Pretty sure the author of that article is some young dude that doesn't understand programming all that well and has had some bad experiences in the industry and is extrapolating that to the entire profession.

# of hours depends on the job. crunch time can get pretty hectic but it really depends on your field.

if you're a software engineer then no, good chances are that you won't be on call 25/7 but if you're a system administrator then yeah.

i have no idea why you told us your iq. don't tell me you got your iq from some online test. comp sci isn't a pure knowledge area. yes, lots of people are smart but experience is what's key in the world of cs.

and for the part time thing...yeah that's not going to happen for a college grad.

if you're passionate and want to get ahead of your peers, start coding now. work on small projects and stuff because that will give you an edge when you graduate.

i can see you're very cautious about going into a field you aren't sure about but cs isn't really something you can do if you aren't passionate about it.

I stopped reading that blog post as soon as he got into his what advantage does a 60 year old .NET programmer have over a 27 year old .NET programmer.

Building large quality software takes a lot of experience to do well. I've been doing this for 5 years and I'm still in awe of the more senior guys who can quickly see the right way to do something in new situations.

Not to mention that anybody that thinks knowing programming languages (in the technical sense) is one of the most important skills in a programmer - doesn't have much experience in the industry.

Anyway, my guess is that its hard to have a part-time career from the start. I know a bunch of guys that have gone part-time but each of them already had a solid reputation established.

If you have trouble finding a cool environment to work in, you're not looking very hard. Most good companies know that they get the most out of their programmers when they're comfortable and happy. Considering many devs don't interact with clients in person, there's really no reason to have a dress code or any of that corporate bs.

I work in a fairly small company in Chicago, and even though I'm getting really tired of the work because it's so monotonous, the work environment itself is fantastic. We all have 3 monitors, herman miller chairs, our own offices, can wear whatever we want, can work from home up to 3 days/week, can work whatever hours we want as long as we're available from 10 to 2, free food and drinks, etc.

Just look around the office when you're interviewing and make sure you ask the right questions. Pay attention to the average employee age, their computers, their monitors, their mice, their chairs, etc. If everyone has 1 crappy crt monitor, that should be a clue that this place probably sucks. Just try to really pay attention to the environment while you're there. If you don't get a chance, ask if you can have a quick tour of the place and really pay attention to the people and their computers.

It's great. You do have to be willing to work very hard, but if you're really into it, it doesn't feel like hard work.

The only way to gain credibility and eventually make money is to build things. Don't settle for courses and online tutorials. Come up with ideas and try to build them. That's how you really learn. It's also how you get people to give you money: you show them you've done it before.

No one's going to hold your hand on becoming competent, but once you do, you pretty much have your pick of jobs, projects, places to live. Basically ever sector of the economy either relies on technology and computers in some way or stands to benefit greatly by doing so more.

Technology is a jungle. If you do good work for people, they WILL keep coming back and they'll give your number to everyone they know who asks them about technology. People will pay for solid work; it's not terribly difficult to reach $100 an hour in the current landscape and it goes up from there. The main barriers are getting your foot in the door with that first client and doing a really good job on the project. After that, you're in.

Don't go after some mindless corporate job. Find small businesses who need "all-around" coders so that you can learn about as much of the stack as possible and have an impact. Keep an eye out for short-term gigs. A part-time day job with small freelance projects on the side is a great way to have a steady income, security, and stay sharp. Even if you're only on the clock 20 hours a week, it's worth putting another 20 on top of that to keep learning and advancing. The more you learn and gain experience, the higher your rate goes.

+1, this is very good advice. I initially learned C in a book, messing around with examples and stuff, and then the best thing that ever happened to my programming skills was this super nerdy text-based game I used to play online in HS going open-source. I downloaded the codebase and started messing around with it and trying to fix bugs/make changes in it, which is when I discovered that I didn't know half as much about pointers as I thought I did, among other things. Learning the ins and outs of that game and eventually becoming a coder on the team working on implementing new features and stuff advanced my knowledge light-years beyond where it had been.

Just posting in here to say this is a solid thread and I think if we get some more posts it's worthy of a sticky.

I'm a CS student just trying to get all my core classes finished (Calculus, Physics, BS oddball classes) and haven't dived into anything crazy yet. But it's definitely helped me understand what I'm getting into.

This actually cannot be emphasized enough.

Building things and publishing your code as open source is the best way to be told you are an idiot. It is also the best way to become a competent developer.

Register a blog for yourself (firstnamelastname.com is best IMO, but others may disagree), install WordPress, and keep a portfolio/resume online with all your stuff and some blog posts about development. This is what I've done and it's generated a ton of offers. I get at least 3-4 job offers per month with pretty good salary/benefits but turn them all down because I have a nice situation now.

I'm not the world's best developer (I don't even like being called one), but putting out publicly-accessible web apps that people can use is crucial to attracting the attention and exposure you need to land a good job.