Thinking about heading back to School and starting a new Career

[Dan Roscoe]

Hello All

Just want to put out full disclosure here I currently work as a Recruiter for Aerotek.  I have been doing this job for around 9 months and lets just say it I don't always enjoy what I do.  I was looking to get into more of a technical field and I was wondering if anyone had any advice on; 1. where is a good place for school in the twin cities area 2. What fields you feel are fun and interesting to work with 3. Any advice at all how to find more information different types of positions.   I would appreciate your help and I promise I am not fishing for people who are looking for work I just really enjoy learning about what you guys do.

[Jason Hsu, Mr. Swift Linux]

My suggestions:
1.  Read about the essence of good software development at http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ and http://www.paulgraham.com/index.html .
2.  Start working on your own projects.  In my opinion, it takes good projects to be fully engaged in the process of learning.  Learning for the sake of learning just doesn't work for me.  Do NOT be one of those people who float through classes, lack passion, and are disengaged.  As a recruiter, you've probably encountered people who look good on paper but can't code their way out of a paper bag, and you MUST AVOID being one of them.  That said, there is a reason people turn out that way.  People have flunked out for not making the grade, but NOBODY in history has EVER flunked out because of poor technical skills.
3.  Be loyal to making things work rather than any one language.  The one-language-only people are boxed in a corner.
4.  Go to tech.mn and look for user group events to attend (this group, ruby.mn, rails.mn, PyMNtos, Clojure.mn, etc.).
5.  If you want a suggestion on which language to learn first, learn Python.  While there aren't that many jobs in Python, it is a great gateway language that can pave the way for learning other languages, like Ruby.  Python is easy to set up, learn, read, and debug.
6.  Learn object-oriented programming, which is a part of Python.  Learning object-oriented programming will pave the way for learning Android/iOS, Django, Ruby on Rails, and other technologies.
7.  STAY AWAY from the job transition groups.  There is never any dialog about getting up to speed on development in Android, iOS, Ruby on Rails, Python, Django, Drupal, etc.  On the other hand, there is plenty of dialog about idiotic soul-searching exercises, winning at resume keyword bingo, and regurgitating stale talking points that sound impressive but prove nothing.  You don't want to work where the people in the job transition groups have worked, because they often complain about the pointy-haired people they've had to work with.  In contrast, I never hear people complain about the job market, their managers, or their colleagues in this group, Mobile Twin Cities, ruby.mn, PyMNtos, etc.

[Bryan Logan]

Take a look at Jon Acuff's book 'Quitter'. He also has another one coming out soon called 'Start.'. They actually give some realistic advice if you're looking to switch jobs.

[Timothy J. Salo]

> 1. where is a good place for school in the twin cities area

I would consider:

o The M.S. in Software Engineering program at St. Thomas. This program
is a fair amount of work and a lot of money. But, it seems to be a
good program for those without programming experience, (although it
is probably a better program if you do have prior programming
experience). Plus, you graduate with an M.S. St. Thomas has a
regional reputation, so maybe an M.S. from St. Thomas might not
translate as well to, say, Silicon Valley.

o The M.S. in Software Engineering at the University of Minnesota is
probably a good program, and probably more rigorous (and probably more
work) than the St. Thomas program. I understand that the U's program
expects you to have software development experience prior to
admission. I also hear that it is pretty face-paced.

o Some of the state colleges do a good job of teaching systems
administration, web development, and programming languages. These
programs are more focused on the practical aspects of programming,
rather than, for example, the broader topics of software development,
software engineering, or computer science. At least at one point,
St. Paul College did a nice job. Compare the course descriptions
from the various state colleges. This might be a good fit for your
needs, but I wouldn't exclude St. Thomas.

o I am a big fan of a compute science degree. But, a B.S. in computer
science is a big commitment, and might be unrealistic for someone
who wants to transition into programming. Plus, in my opinion, you
won't necessarily learn a lot about programming in a computer science
program.

o A M.S. is computer science (as opposed to software engineering) is
worth considering, after you have programming experience. Again,
this is a lot of work, and in my opinion doesn't necessarily make
sense for someone who is just getting into programming.

I recommend learning Java. It's a nice, clean object-oriented language,
and at least at one time it was of finite size. There appears to be a
good market for Java programmers, although others can probably assess
this better than I.

Consider installing Java on your machine and buying two or three Java
books that get good reviews from beginning programmers. Not everyone
can learn Java this way, but if you can, I would recommend this. And,
learning Java on your own probably doesn't replace classes.

Learn what an object is, in an abstract sense. Of course, you should
learn object-oriented programming. But, in my opinion, your
understanding of object-oriented programming ought to be built
upon a solid understanding of what an object is and how it behaves;
it's more than simply learning the elements of an object-oriented
language. This topic will probably make sense only after you
start to understand what an object is, so be alert for that transition.

Buy hardware and play at home. In my opinion, software developers of
all sorts ought to be able to do their own systems administration. At
some point, you might need to decide whether you are going to focus
on Linux or Windows (a.k.a. the Evil Empire). Having said that, I
suspect that there are a lot of software developers that can't do their
own systems administration, don't play with their own systems at home,
and in general aren't geeks. (Normal people can be programmers too,
I guess...)

Having said all that, these are just my opinions. And, there are
probably lots of people who have different opinions. Ask around
and collect opinions from lots of folks.

-tjs

[Dan Roscoe]

Thank you very much Jason

[Dan Roscoe]

thank you so much this helps a lot 

[Jason Hsu, Mr. Swift Linux]

At the moment, Ruby on Rails has the best career prospects by far.  You regularly see job postings on the ruby.mn Google group, and several job openings are announced during each ruby.mn meeting.  I'm boning up on Ruby on Rails right now, and creating even a basic web site in Ruby on Rails requires mastering a number of things, such as Ruby, object-oriented programming, deployment, and PostgreSQL.  It takes FAR more work to get up to speed in Ruby on Rails than it does to get up to speed in Drupal.

For server technology, I recommend Linux over Windows.  (More specifically, I recommend Debian Linux on the server.)  Linux delivers better performance and MUCH more reliability at a much lower cost.  I strongly dislike Windows on the desktop, and I switched to Linux 6 years ago when bad reviews of Vista made me determined to NEVER buy Windows again.

Windows administrators are well-represented in job transition groups.  Either the career prospects don't measure up, or the types of employers that choose Windows over Linux on the server don't measure up.  Why spend time learning the Windows way when Linux is so much better AND cheaper, and there are so many other things to learn?

[Aaron Korver]

Dan,

Just to add another resource, have you looked into any of the newer online course sites?  I'm talking about ones like www.coursera.org and www.khanacademy.org

There are Comp Sci courses taught by the professors for free that are the same they teach on their campus.  Great information, but you won't get that magical piece of paper from the university.  You will however get the knowledge, and you will have low risk if you decide that an actual Comp Sci degree isn't what you want to do.

My personal opinion is a BS in Comp Sci prepares you for a Masters, it doesn't prepare you for a professional career in programming.  A technical college would probably do a better job in career prep, but employers put more weight on BS's than Assoc.  So it is quite a conundrum.  Of course, after you have a couple years of experience, the degree gets less and less important.  And since this is the Android group, as soon as you publish something to the store, and get a user base, the degree really goes out the window for companies looking to hire Android devs.

Just my thoughts on things.  Good luck on your adventure, and don't feel shy about asking questions.

Thanks,

Aaron Korver 

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[Shruti Desai]

Before you enroll in a 2 or 4 year program at some school, try free online resources. Some good resources where you can learn about various topics in CS for free or a nominal fee - 

1) https://www.coursera.org/ - free

2) https://www.edx.org/courses - free

3) lynda.com - $25 a month (this is my fav! It has some really good courses on basics of programming)

Before taking a deep dive in any language like ruby or java, take some online courses and see what peeks your interest. Try to take some basic courses in object oriented programming. You'll start learning a lot more about yourself and your interests within CS. 

Good luck ! 

On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Dan Roscoe <dros...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello All

Just want to put out full disclosure here I currently work as a Recruiter for Aerotek.  I have been doing this job for around 9 months and lets just say it I don't always enjoy what I do.  I was looking to get into more of a technical field and I was wondering if anyone had any advice on; 1. where is a good place for school in the twin cities area 2. What fields you feel are fun and interesting to work with 3. Any advice at all how to find more information different types of positions.   I would appreciate your help and I promise I am not fishing for people who are looking for work I just really enjoy learning about what you guys do.

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