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Mystery Machine
Oct 12, 2008
I'll get to represent my community college at a programming competition this upcoming weekend, and there will be IBM recruiters there. I'm hoping to drop off a resume with them, and potentially speak with some of them personally. If I could, I'd rather start working out of community college (I'll get my degree this spring) and finish my degree while working.

I feel like I have a relatively good shot at making an impression. I spent my entire summer taking over a contractor's work as an intern for a medical devices company. I took large amounts of outdated code and ported it to newer software. I did this mostly independently, probing my boss's brain every now and then when I got stuck. I'm currently working 10-20 hours a week from home for them, and I got an offer to extend my work into the Spring. I've had to deal with a large swathe of programming topics working for them. Our software has very old unmanaged code. My boss encourages me to report as many bad programming practices as I can find, and due to his mentoring, I feel as if I have a strong grasp on a ton of software engineering ideas that one might not learn in school.

With that being said, I guess I'm not feeling so confident about myself? Do you guys feel like my experience is valuable? I was feeling confident in my ability to sell my skills and my job experience, but I've recently had a discussion with a friend who worked in the industry for several years that said I'd have a very difficult time finding a decent job with an associates and my current job experience. I feel as if my job experience easily shows that I'm self-motivated, someone who can learn quickly and independently, that I'm trustworthy, that I'm capable of understanding and critiquing difficult/bad code, and that I'm generally useful for what I've learned about the development process.

Am I overrating what I did over the summer? I feel particularly proud of what I've done. I haven't had the chance to work on anything particularly interesting lately, so I feel my body of work is rather bare, except for some problems I've been practicing over at Euler Project to prepare for this competition? Is going back to school likely my only option? I live 30 minutes from NYC for reference.

Thanks for any and all advice, goons.

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Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.
Personally, I don't think it counts as very good experience, because dealing with bad code is not a very useful skill in real work environments. In the real world, all code is designed as part of a brilliantly elegant architecture, with sensible, consistently-followed style guidelines. Code cruft and technical debt are non-existent, and everyone in the office gets along spendidly and sings Kumbaya every morning at stand up.

Deus Rex
Mar 5, 2005

if you're ever stumped by FizzBuzz as an interview question, FizzBuzz as a Service (FBaaS™) is here to help! defer the nasty business of answering this tough question with a simple HTTP GET.

http://fbaas.herokuapp.com/fizzbuzz/1,100

README and draft spec here, code for the reference implementation here

No Safe Word
Feb 26, 2005

Cicero posted:

Personally, I don't think it counts as very good experience, because dealing with bad code is not a very useful skill in real work environments. In the real world, all code is designed as part of a brilliantly elegant architecture, with sensible, consistently-followed style guidelines. Code cruft and technical debt are non-existent, and everyone in the office gets along spendidly and sings Kumbaya every morning at stand up.

I almost kneejerk responded to this post after the first sentence. Thankfully I kept reading. :golfclap:

pigdog
Apr 23, 2004

by Smythe
He is wrong. In real life there is a lot of bad code and bad architecture.

I've never heard anyone sing Kumbaya at the office.

Tres Burritos
Sep 3, 2009

pigdog posted:

He is wrong. In real life there is a lot of bad code and bad architecture.

I've never heard anyone sing Kumbaya at the office.

Seriously?

:thejoke:

I guess we've all made that mistake at least once though.

Edit: Unless what you posted is :thejoke: and I'm all hosed up. "We have to go deeper".

Thern
Aug 12, 2006

Say Hello To My Little Friend
Anyone have any experience with a temp to perm position? I just got an offer for one, and it seems kinda shady. They are claiming they are doing this because they need someone now, but won't have the budget for a full time position until February. Just curious if anyone did something like this before.

gariig
Dec 31, 2004
Beaten into submission by my fiance
Pillbug

Thern posted:

Anyone have any experience with a temp to perm position? I just got an offer for one, and it seems kinda shady. They are claiming they are doing this because they need someone now, but won't have the budget for a full time position until February. Just curious if anyone did something like this before.

That seems really shady. Temp-to-hire isn't a bad thing per se because you can "fire" the employee without any repercussion. My job uses it as a probationary period and then hires with full benefits. However, saying there is a budget crisis doesn't give me the warm fuzzies. How do you know come February there won't be another budget shortfall and you'll have to stay on as a temp? I guess it depends on why are you looking for a new job and if this job is a good fit.

I have a question, how much stock do you put into glassdoor.com? A recruiter called me about a position and I looked the place up and it had a 34% would suggest this place rating. That seems really low to me, but it's for an insurance company so I'm sure there are tons of jobs and most of them aren't in development

Safe and Secure!
Jun 14, 2008

OFFICIAL SA THREAD RUINER
SPRING 2013
I was told that if I wanted one, there would be a full-time position for me here after I graduate as a result of my current internship. I like the company and the people are awesome, but I turned it down because I hate this area and want to move. Mistake?

With over six months of work experience, a couple of my own side projects, and a couple small OSS contributions, and a decent GPA (3.8) by the time I graduate, I don't see how I'll have trouble finding at least some kind of job, any job, if I'm willing to live literally anywhere else that isn't near this area. Thoughts? Reassurance?

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

You should have zero problem finding work, especially in this environment. There is no reason to put up with living in a place you do not like.

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

I can definitely tell you any time my I update my Dice / LinkedIn profile, I probably get about 10 recruiters calling me in a week with jobs in different states. And I too just graduated and had 2 brief internships.

Gazpacho
Jun 18, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
Slippery Tilde

Thern posted:

Anyone have any experience with a temp to perm position? I just got an offer for one, and it seems kinda shady. They are claiming they are doing this because they need someone now, but won't have the budget for a full time position until February.
There are two big reasons that companies do temp-to-permanent: to avoid entering a legally obligating relationship with people who turn out to be duds, and to cover immediate staff shortages or schedule crunches.

Your chances of going permanent depend on the company, whether their expectation of funding is credible, and whether you can make yourself valuable to them. Keep track of what you deliver, and be ready to pitch yourself for a permanent position in February. I've had a position where I did go permanent and a couple where I didn't, either because I didn't pitch myself or the payroll was cut.

Johnny Cache Hit
Oct 17, 2011

gariig posted:

I have a question, how much stock do you put into glassdoor.com? A recruiter called me about a position and I looked the place up and it had a 34% would suggest this place rating. That seems really low to me, but it's for an insurance company so I'm sure there are tons of jobs and most of them aren't in development

I wouldn't necessarily run screaming yet. Sites like that suffer from serious statistical biases - the people who really hate/really love the place are the ones who will be responding, the people with more moderate opinions probably won't.

Of course I'm a firm believer of "if the position sounds interesting, interview!", so...

Thern
Aug 12, 2006

Say Hello To My Little Friend

gariig posted:

That seems really shady. Temp-to-hire isn't a bad thing per se because you can "fire" the employee without any repercussion. My job uses it as a probationary period and then hires with full benefits. However, saying there is a budget crisis doesn't give me the warm fuzzies. How do you know come February there won't be another budget shortfall and you'll have to stay on as a temp? I guess it depends on why are you looking for a new job and if this job is a good fit.

Gazpacho posted:

There are two big reasons that companies do temp-to-permanent: to avoid entering a legally obligating relationship with people who turn out to be duds, and to cover immediate staff shortages or schedule crunches.

Your chances of going permanent depend on the company, whether their expectation of funding is credible, and whether you can make yourself valuable to them. Keep track of what you deliver, and be ready to pitch yourself for a permanent position in February. I've had a position where I did go permanent and a couple where I didn't, either because I didn't pitch myself or the payroll was cut.

Thanks guys. This probably wouldn't be such a problem for me, but the place does seem like a really good fit for me, and I got along well with the interviewer, who incidentally would become my boss. According to him, he was looking to expand his team by one or two guys every year, so the budget thing seemed like a little weak of an excuse. It's possible that it was standard practice from the firm, and it was just the recruiter feeding me excuses to try to get me to consider it.

My other concern is what do you do about insurance in such a position. As far as I know, NY doesn't really offer any short term plans.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

edit: n/m

kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Oct 26, 2012

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

Another dumb question, but what exactly is classified as a 'unit test'? In my education we of course discuss how to debug an application, but never really testing it. We were encouraged to enter unexpected data where we could to try and break it, but that's it really.

It makes me feel dumb as hell when I see job postings with stuff like 'Write unit tests' or 'automated unit tests' and I have no idea how I'd do that.

Pweller
Jan 25, 2006

Whatever whateva.

Sab669 posted:

Another dumb question, but what exactly is classified as a 'unit test'? In my education we of course discuss how to debug an application, but never really testing it. We were encouraged to enter unexpected data where we could to try and break it, but that's it really.

It makes me feel dumb as hell when I see job postings with stuff like 'Write unit tests' or 'automated unit tests' and I have no idea how I'd do that.

A unit test doublechecks that an isolated piece of functionality works correctly.

An example that would test an object's getter method is to set it up with predictable values, then call the getter method to see if those values come back. If the returned value matches the expected value, the unit test passes, otherwise it fails.
Then you write more unit tests for different scenarios where different values might be returned by the getter. And so forth.

The end goal is to have lots and lots of these little, very simple tests, that should test all permutations of the possible states of a program when combined.

Pweller fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Oct 29, 2012

Pixelboy
Sep 13, 2005

Now, I know what you're thinking...

Safe and Secure! posted:

Do letters of recommendation actually mean anything to employers? I've never heard of them being used anywhere outside of school. What would I even do with one?

In my experience, no.

Ensign Expendable
Nov 11, 2008

Lager beer is proof that god loves us
Pillbug

Sab669 posted:

Another dumb question, but what exactly is classified as a 'unit test'? In my education we of course discuss how to debug an application, but never really testing it. We were encouraged to enter unexpected data where we could to try and break it, but that's it really.

It makes me feel dumb as hell when I see job postings with stuff like 'Write unit tests' or 'automated unit tests' and I have no idea how I'd do that.

Unit test test very specific parts of your program, effectively inputting data, and then checking if output matches what you calculated manually. Also things like submitting malformed input to ensure that an exception is thrown.

The tests aren't so much testing anything difficult as making sure you didn't make an obvious mistake while writing code, or didn't break anything that worked before (called a regression). Really hardcore folks do test driven development, which involves writing the unit tests first and only then writing code to fit those tests. This has the added effect of making you think about exactly how your program will work before you write it.

A very useful metric of unit tests is code coverage. Your tests obviously can't go through every possible combination of inputs, so the next best thing is to ensure that each line of code runs at least once. There are tools to do this for you as a part of running unit tests.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.
To add to the explanations above, unit tests are low-level tests (testing small sections of code you can think of as 'units'), and integration tests are high-level tests (testing how different sections and systems integrate). Ideally you should have automated tests of both varieties. Generally, the aim of these is less to make sure something works when you first create the test (although that's a benefit too), since presumably you've already been testing it manually, and more to make sure that something doesn't break later when you make a change (see: what Ensign Expendable said about regressions).

oRenj9
Aug 3, 2004

Who loves oRenj soda?!?
College Slice

Sab669 posted:

It makes me feel dumb as hell when I see job postings with stuff like 'Write unit tests' or 'automated unit tests' and I have no idea how I'd do that.

How about going ahead and writing an application and some associated unit tests? Many scripting languages come with a built in unit testing framework.

Unit testing is surprisingly difficult, since most applications have objects that interact with one-another and have side effects. How you handle these interactions in your software will strongly influence how it is designed and vice versa.

Take data testing as an example; some people prefer to have a unit test database that is setup before, then torn down after testing. While others prefer to use fake objects (called Mock Objects) that expect a call to a particular method and returns back known static data. Which of these methods you choose is heavily dependent on how your software is designed.

Mock objects can't be used for unit testing when DAOs aren't used to access your database. This is common with legacy systems where access to the database is global. Thus, it is always better to get unit testing involved in the development process as soon as possible. That way, any design flaws will become apparent earlier in the development process.

Analytic Engine
May 18, 2009

not the analytical engine
Are testing jobs considered to be boring or undercomped compared to developer positions? What if you have zero industry experience?

tk
Dec 10, 2003

Nap Ghost

Analytic Engine posted:

Are testing jobs considered to be boring or undercomped compared to developer positions? What if you have zero industry experience?

Depends on the company. Some other places treat test as normal humans and involve them in the entire development process. Other places treat "heh, QA" a courtesy inspection that needs to get completed in the one day between development being "complete" and when deployment is scheduled.

I'm current an SDET (that's "Software Development Engineer in Test") at Microsoft and it's fantastic. I also make a poo poo-ton of money.

tk fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Oct 30, 2012

oRenj9
Aug 3, 2004

Who loves oRenj soda?!?
College Slice

Analytic Engine posted:

Are testing jobs considered to be boring or undercomped compared to developer positions? What if you have zero industry experience?

It depends on the company. An acquaintance of mine was upset when the company we worked for moved him laterally from senior developer to lead tester, since he thought that the move was due to a lack of faith in his development skills. But it was quite the opposite.

He was put into a role that gave him more authority than any person below the Director of Technology. Products could not be released without his approval and any disagreements between the product owners (the non-technical managers who write the specifications) and the development staff regarding whether the implementation meets the specification was arbitrated by him.

As for how interesting testing can be, I believe a lot of that is what you're working on. As I said, unit testing can be challenging. There is some unavoidable boiler-plate kind of stuff that needs to be done, but that's the case with regular development too. Many hours of entertainment can be had by thinking of creative ways to break software.

According to glassdoor.com, compensation at larger companies tend to be about even between SWEs and SDETs. While smaller companies appear to offer slightly less.

Crumpet
Apr 22, 2008

Analytic Engine posted:

Are testing jobs considered to be boring or undercomped compared to developer positions? What if you have zero industry experience?

I'm currently doing an internship as a tester, and it's some of the most fun I've had coding for a long while. It does help that the test team is a) treated well here, and b) well paid. The authority you get over every little thing is amazing, and basically thinking up every little way you could possibly break stuff is great.

I can't say it's for everyone though; we've had another intern join since me, and they have no loving clue what the hell is going on, even though their programming experience is technically more than mine.

Edit: and like what oRenj said, I suspect a lot of the enjoyment depends on what you're trying to test.

Bruegels Fuckbooks
Sep 14, 2004

Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

Ensign Expendable posted:

Unit test test very specific parts of your program, effectively inputting data, and then checking if output matches what you calculated manually. Also things like submitting malformed input to ensure that an exception is thrown.

The tests aren't so much testing anything difficult as making sure you didn't make an obvious mistake while writing code, or didn't break anything that worked before (called a regression). Really hardcore folks do test driven development, which involves writing the unit tests first and only then writing code to fit those tests. This has the added effect of making you think about exactly how your program will work before you write it.

A very useful metric of unit tests is code coverage. Your tests obviously can't go through every possible combination of inputs, so the next best thing is to ensure that each line of code runs at least once. There are tools to do this for you as a part of running unit tests.

One thing that screws everyone up when writing unit tests is that there are additional requirements for a program to be testable.

a) The program must have a API (application interface). This is what you write your unit tests against - the biggest problem people have with writing unit tests is testing private methods instead of the interface, as that will just lead to a lot of code that is a waste of time for everyone involved.
b) Code against interfaces instead of implementation when making calls to classes within classes - this makes it so it's easy to stub out classes.

Bruegels Fuckbooks
Sep 14, 2004

Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

Analytic Engine posted:

Are testing jobs considered to be boring or undercomped compared to developer positions? What if you have zero industry experience?

There are a lot of testing jobs.

1. Manual tester. This is what you're likely to get if you try to get a testing job off the street with no experience. Depending on the company, you might be doing "bang on it" style exploratory testing (which can be interesting) to writing/executing scripted manual tests (boring as gently caress.)

2. Automation engineer. Generally, your job is to write automated tests at the GUI level using a tool like Selenium or QTP. The more advanced automation engineers tend to start working on "framework" support, because invariably the tool being used to test the product isn't good enough and a decision gets made to put together a framework to help simplify the work - this will lead to a whole parallel software effort where you have one team writing the scripts, one team maintaining the framework, and one team QAing the framework! Enjoy not being able to change the GUI because moving something a pixel or renaming a control breaks the whole thing (if you have bad automation engineers.)

GUI/Web level automated testing is a money pit for what you'll get out of it in terms of bugs found. As a job it is pretty much like development, pays about the same, but has zero job satisfaction.

3. Software Developer in Test. Job description varies significantly based on where you work - a lot of the times a SDET is just a dressed up automation engineer because people look at what Google/Microsoft are doing and adopted those titles. Other times it could be 'test software development' - making tools to aid the testing effort. It could be aiding/extending the unit test coverage, helping with code reviews, API level testing, adding automation framework support to a product, and a lot of other para-development level tasks.

QA is a job that pays almost as well as development but is a lot less work and a lot less stress. The trade-off is that testing is a very tedious, detail-oriented task and there is a lot less job satisfaction because your contribution is less measurable. Good testers are invaluable to a software engineering effort, as they act as fact-finders/information gatherers about the product, and without good testers, decision makers in the company are operating entirely on wishful thinking about the product.

Sab669
Sep 24, 2009

Lots of information, thanks goons- I feel slightly less dumb for being so unfamiliar with it :buddy:
Figured it was something fairly simple like just writing a bunch of automated scripts to go and input various types of data.


Edit; So, also. Today is the 1-month I've been working full time since graduation. 10/1 - 10/31. About a week ago I told my boss I'd be staying on my parents' health insurance plan, and he said he'd 're-evaluate my compensation' to factor in not needing health insurance. We get paid semi-monthly so payday was today for me, but sadly there was no more than my previous paycheck. Should I bring it up, or wait and see during the next paycheck? How do I even say, 'Hey I was sort-of short changed?'

Sab669 fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Oct 31, 2012

Bruegels Fuckbooks
Sep 14, 2004

Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

Sab669 posted:

Lots of information, thanks goons- I feel slightly less dumb for being so unfamiliar with it :buddy:
Figured it was something fairly simple like just writing a bunch of automated scripts to go and input various types of data.


Edit; So, also. Today is the 1-month I've been working full time since graduation. 10/1 - 10/31. About a week ago I told my boss I'd be staying on my parents' health insurance plan, and he said he'd 're-evaluate my compensation' to factor in not needing health insurance. We get paid semi-monthly so payday was today for me, but sadly there was no more than my previous paycheck. Should I bring it up, or wait and see during the next paycheck? How do I even say, 'Hey I was sort-of short changed?'

Honestly there are probably more QA jobs. My big project was doing performance testing, which is a lot more than just "run script, give results, send feedback to development" - it's more akin to "here's six million lines of code, figure out the module that's slow, understand how it works, and give feedback on how to make it better."

Zhentar
Sep 28, 2003

Brilliant Master Genius

hieronymus posted:

My big project was doing performance testing, which is a lot more than just "run script, give results, send feedback to development"

The real fun is when you're doing scalability testing - trying to figure out how to simulate 10,000+ users realistically, on top of trying to determine when the user experience is degrading for those simulated users, and why.

Janitor Prime
Jan 22, 2004

PC LOAD LETTER

What da fuck does that mean

Fun Shoe

Zhentar posted:

The real fun is when you're doing scalability testing - trying to figure out how to simulate 10,000+ users realistically, on top of trying to determine when the user experience is degrading for those simulated users, and why.

I'm doing this right now on Amazon, it's actually kind of fun :)

Safe and Secure!
Jun 14, 2008

OFFICIAL SA THREAD RUINER
SPRING 2013
Since we're on the topic of QA, as an intern in the QA group at my current company, I:

- Fixed their suite of existing, broken and brittle UI-testing scripts that were based on a relatively out-dated tool.
- Examined several options for new tools that could be used to write new, more maintainable tests against a new product, taking into account factors such as ease-of-use, quality/availability of documentation, ease of integration with our existing tools, flexibility if we wish to change some of our tools later, etc., which directly influenced the decision of which to use and how to proceed with our testing / use of extremely limited QA resources.
- Am now using the above tools to write a suite of (hopefully) maintainable tests covering the main functionality of their new product.

Is any of that good experience? Is any of that worth talking about in an interview or on a resume?

melon cat
Jan 21, 2010

Nap Ghost
I hope I'm in the right thread. I work in the financial services sector, but I've really been wanting to get into web development for a very long time. I grew up making websites for myself and friends, but I really want to get into the different coding languages that I've seen sprout of over the years and make a living out of it.

Here's the catch- I have a full-time job and a mortgage, which makes returning to school for a related degree very difficult. I'm hoping to learn the ropes the self-taught way using online resources, books, and side projects. Is this doable, or am I completely hosed?

melon cat fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Feb 4, 2024

Analytic Engine
May 18, 2009

not the analytical engine

melon cat posted:

I hope I'm in the right thread. I work in the financial services sector, but I've really been wanting to get into web development for a very long time. I grew up making websites for myself and friends, but I really want to get into the different coding languages that I've seen sprout of over the years and make a living out of it.

Note: I'm not a professional web developer, but I've spent a few weeks researching how to get a start in the field.

'Sup fello web dev newbie! The best free resource I've found is this Udacity class taught by Steve Huffman (one of the founders of Reddit):
http://www.udacity.com/view#Course/cs253/CourseRev/apr2012/Unit/4001/Nugget/5002

He teaches you how to make a website/web application using Python 2.x as the base language, and Google App Engine as the web framework/hosting service. Apparently GAA is similar in structure to Django (which is used all over the place in web development), and Python is widely suggested as a first-time programming langauge, so you'd probably be hard pressed for a more efficient learning experience.

I haven't completed it yet but it's great so far, and It comes well recommended:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4718416
http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2012/10/teaching-thousands-of-students-to.html

If you want to learn more Python before or after CS253 then check out "Learn Python the Hard Way" and "Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist":
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/
http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/html/index.html

You can also visualize the flow of Python code at this guy's site:
http://pythontutor.com

melon cat
Jan 21, 2010

Nap Ghost

Analytic Engine posted:

Note: I'm not a professional web developer, but I've spent a few weeks researching how to get a start in the field.

'Sup fello web dev newbie! The best free resource I've found is this Udacity class taught by Steve Huffman (one of the founders of Reddit):
http://www.udacity.com/view#Course/cs253/CourseRev/apr2012/Unit/4001/Nugget/5002

He teaches you how to make a website/web application using Python 2.x as the base language, and Google App Engine as the web framework/hosting service. Apparently GAA is similar in structure to Django (which is used all over the place in web development), and Python is widely suggested as a first-time programming langauge, so you'd probably be hard pressed for a more efficient learning experience.

I haven't completed it yet but it's great so far, and It comes well recommended:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4718416
http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2012/10/teaching-thousands-of-students-to.html

If you want to learn more Python before or after CS253 then check out "Learn Python the Hard Way" and "Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist":
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/
http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/html/index.html

You can also visualize the flow of Python code at this guy's site:
http://pythontutor.com
Thanks a lot for these resources! :hfive:

\/Good to know!

melon cat fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Nov 1, 2012

Pweller
Jan 25, 2006

Whatever whateva.

melon cat posted:

I hope I'm in the right thread. I work in the financial services sector, but I've really been wanting to get into web development for a very long time. I grew up making websites for myself and friends, but I really want to get into the different coding languages that I've seen sprout of over the years and make a living out of it.

Here's the catch- I have a full-time job (Portfolio Manager at a bank. It's as fun as it sounds) and a mortgage, which makes returning to school for a related degree very difficult. I'm hoping to learn the ropes the self-taught way using online resources, books, and side projects. Is this doable, or am I completely hosed?

Depending on your age and family situation (kids? spouse who also works?), I would make sure you've researched your new potential career in terms of local opportunities and entry-level salary. Web development has plenty of aspects that are also "as fun as it sounds", be careful.

That being said, I think web dev is definitely something you could pick up on your own. I'd recommend focusing on javascript, and picking a target language to end up focusing on, depending what types of shops are in your area (C# .NET, PHP, Ruby). That's not to say you need to start with any of those by any means, Python or anything would be fine to learn the ropes. You probably also want to spend at least a little bit of time going over basic SQl statements and handling JSON and XML.

Pweller fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Nov 1, 2012

astr0man
Feb 21, 2007

hollyeo deuroga

Safe and Secure! posted:

Is any of that good experience? Is any of that worth talking about in an interview or on a resume?

I'm not a QA person, but that sounds like pretty standard intern work, and yes you should talk about it in interviews or whatever.

Mecca-Benghazi
Mar 31, 2012


I'm double-majoring in CS and linguistics. I'm currently taking linear algebra because I was planning to go for a math minor to complement the two, but thanks to some poo poo that was completely my fault, I'm not doing as well as I'd like in the class right now. If I work my rear end off, I could get a B+, maybe an A-, in the class, but I'm thinking of just withdrawing, getting the 'W' on my transcript, making up some lost ground in some of my other classes, and then re-enrolling next semester or the semester after that and getting an A in linear algebra. Current GPA is 3.75 or thereabouts (3.8 and 4.0 respectively, in major), at a university that's 30 or so on the USNWR rankings.

I don't know if getting 'not an A' in what's a university level intro math class would gently caress me over for internships, but I'd rather not risk it. On the other hand, the W might just be worse. :ohdear: Do goons have an opinion?

Bruegels Fuckbooks
Sep 14, 2004

Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

Autumncomet posted:

I'm double-majoring in CS and linguistics. I'm currently taking linear algebra because I was planning to go for a math minor to complement the two, but thanks to some poo poo that was completely my fault, I'm not doing as well as I'd like in the class right now. If I work my rear end off, I could get a B+, maybe an A-, in the class, but I'm thinking of just withdrawing, getting the 'W' on my transcript, making up some lost ground in some of my other classes, and then re-enrolling next semester or the semester after that and getting an A in linear algebra. Current GPA is 3.75 or thereabouts (3.8 and 4.0 respectively, in major), at a university that's 30 or so on the USNWR rankings.

I don't know if getting 'not an A' in what's a university level intro math class would gently caress me over for internships, but I'd rather not risk it. On the other hand, the W might just be worse. :ohdear: Do goons have an opinion?

Just for perspective, I had a 3.17 undergrad... as a philosophy major. Still got interviewed by Apple/Amazon/Siemens/you name it, still working for a fortune 500 company doing medical software development.

Internships aren't hard to get. Your average matters less than applying - your interview will matter more.

In the case of jobs/resume:
a) GPA will only ever help you on your first job.
b) 3.0+ is a necessary (I am being a little sarcastic here, you can go lower but it's not a good idea) but not sufficient condition to get a job. Your in-person interview will matter more.

In the case of grad school
a) For a master's degree, your undergrad record will determine the likelihood of getting funded (assuming the school funds master's degrees for CS programs, which is unlikely.)
b) For a pHd, the likelihood of getting funded is mostly going to be predicated on your undergraduate research record and how well you can connect with a professor who can get you funding.

Now, let's consider the possibility where you want to get a pHd in computer science. Pretty much every reputable program will publish the statistics of their accepted applicants and what their average GPAs are and GRE scores are, etc. You would do very well to make sure your numbers are consistent with their already accepted applicants. But that's a pretty narrow use case, and having a 3.7 GPA at a top 30 school alone isn't sufficient - you need to satisfy the other conditions, and a high GPA won't replace those.

So I woud say that you are better off not withdrawing from linear algebra, and getting that B+, because it ultimately won't matter in ANY of the possible after-graduation use cases.

Bruegels Fuckbooks fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Nov 5, 2012

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Uziel
Jun 28, 2004

Ask me about losing 200lbs, and becoming the Viking God of W&W.
I would add with the caveat that some companies and government organizations DO care about GPA. I've had my eye on a job for a government agency/contractor as a developer and they do care about GPA regardless of experience.

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