I need some advice
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Hey guys I've got a bit of a problem and I can't seem to decide what I'm going to do I'm programming full time while finishing my degree(getting it from University of Greenwich) part time. I'm busy with my 3rd year at the moment which lasts 18 months cause I'm doing it part time. I've got class Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings aswell. And then I'm busy working on two other side projects aswell. So now I've got a database project due tomorrow which I've been working on the entire weekend, I realized I wont be able to finish it in time so I took today off work. I don't know where I'm going to find the time to study for the exams, i hardly have time to do a silly project. I've actually been thinking of quitting the studies completely! Its interfering with my day job and that's total BS Its making working on my side projects difficult because of lack of time There's not enough time to study and do projects, so if I continue like this I'll probably fail and waist the fortune I'm paying to study The crap their teaching us is useless if you ask me, because it's not going to influence the way i do my job so whats the point? On the other hand it would be nice to have a degree, but how much will it help me? I'm already earning a very good salary with just a diploma, and I'm getting the kind of experience that money cant buy. I'm lead dev at my company, I've been designing and coding a pretty big system from scratch for the past year and 4 months. So whats more important? This experience, or a degree that's probably not worth the paper its written on? I've worked with alot of programmers with qualifications, degrees, and more than triple my working experience coming out of their ears and quite frankly, most of them are morons. What would you do if you were in my situation?
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111Take Speed! Code twice as quick and don't waste time on sleep.
------------------------------------ "I am always serious about what I do, not necessarily about how I do it." Tom Baker
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Well a degree is only good for the paper. If your ever looking for a job (in the case you lose the one you have now) its a nice addition. As to experience and usefulness I'd have to conclude the same as you, I'v learned more in the first 6months I started working than in my 4 years of school. It would be a shame to stop the degree now that your (relatively) close to the end. Can't you put the side projects on hold a bit, or accept less of them? (that's what I'd try first)
Tom Deketelaere wrote:
Can't you put the side projects on hold a bit
Nope, they are going to generate ALOT of income for me, possibly enough to start up my own software house which is my mid - long term goal
Tom Deketelaere wrote:
or accept less of them?
I wont be accepting any more for the time being.
Tom Deketelaere wrote:
It would be a shame to stop the degree now
Yes it would, but I'm not sure if its worth all the effort :sigh:
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111 -
Take Speed! Code twice as quick and don't waste time on sleep.
------------------------------------ "I am always serious about what I do, not necessarily about how I do it." Tom Baker
:laugh:
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111 -
Tough one. I am in a similar boat (getting my degree through UNISA) and working full time. Fortunately where I work is happy for me to study, and will give me time off when necessary. Although I was originally skeptical about getting a degree as well, I have seen with some of my friends that for a lot of positions it will help you get your foot in the door, at least for the initial interview. Then it's up to you to prove you actually know what you are doing. The thing with a degree is that it shows prospective employers that you are willing to continue your learning, which in our industry counts as a major plus. I would say keep up with it, but thats just my 2c. Who knows what other oppurtunities might show up in future.
ZaoWuYa wrote:
The thing with a degree is that it shows prospective employers that you are willing to continue your learning, which in our industry counts as a major plus.
I totally agree with that, which is why this decimation is not an easy one to make
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111 -
Hey guys I've got a bit of a problem and I can't seem to decide what I'm going to do I'm programming full time while finishing my degree(getting it from University of Greenwich) part time. I'm busy with my 3rd year at the moment which lasts 18 months cause I'm doing it part time. I've got class Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings aswell. And then I'm busy working on two other side projects aswell. So now I've got a database project due tomorrow which I've been working on the entire weekend, I realized I wont be able to finish it in time so I took today off work. I don't know where I'm going to find the time to study for the exams, i hardly have time to do a silly project. I've actually been thinking of quitting the studies completely! Its interfering with my day job and that's total BS Its making working on my side projects difficult because of lack of time There's not enough time to study and do projects, so if I continue like this I'll probably fail and waist the fortune I'm paying to study The crap their teaching us is useless if you ask me, because it's not going to influence the way i do my job so whats the point? On the other hand it would be nice to have a degree, but how much will it help me? I'm already earning a very good salary with just a diploma, and I'm getting the kind of experience that money cant buy. I'm lead dev at my company, I've been designing and coding a pretty big system from scratch for the past year and 4 months. So whats more important? This experience, or a degree that's probably not worth the paper its written on? I've worked with alot of programmers with qualifications, degrees, and more than triple my working experience coming out of their ears and quite frankly, most of them are morons. What would you do if you were in my situation?
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111Would it be possible to take a year out from the studies to finish off some of the projects you are working on. Then do some studying(unofficially of course) whilst on the year off to prepare for the return to studies.
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Would it be possible to take a year out from the studies to finish off some of the projects you are working on. Then do some studying(unofficially of course) whilst on the year off to prepare for the return to studies.
I thought of that, but knowing myself I'd put off going back to the studies and eventually put it off completely
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111 -
Hey guys I've got a bit of a problem and I can't seem to decide what I'm going to do I'm programming full time while finishing my degree(getting it from University of Greenwich) part time. I'm busy with my 3rd year at the moment which lasts 18 months cause I'm doing it part time. I've got class Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings aswell. And then I'm busy working on two other side projects aswell. So now I've got a database project due tomorrow which I've been working on the entire weekend, I realized I wont be able to finish it in time so I took today off work. I don't know where I'm going to find the time to study for the exams, i hardly have time to do a silly project. I've actually been thinking of quitting the studies completely! Its interfering with my day job and that's total BS Its making working on my side projects difficult because of lack of time There's not enough time to study and do projects, so if I continue like this I'll probably fail and waist the fortune I'm paying to study The crap their teaching us is useless if you ask me, because it's not going to influence the way i do my job so whats the point? On the other hand it would be nice to have a degree, but how much will it help me? I'm already earning a very good salary with just a diploma, and I'm getting the kind of experience that money cant buy. I'm lead dev at my company, I've been designing and coding a pretty big system from scratch for the past year and 4 months. So whats more important? This experience, or a degree that's probably not worth the paper its written on? I've worked with alot of programmers with qualifications, degrees, and more than triple my working experience coming out of their ears and quite frankly, most of them are morons. What would you do if you were in my situation?
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111You need a simple trick. - Get the Darwin out of you . I had been in similar situation. I'd have promised someone to keep up the deadline, even when I could hear the sound of the inevitable - Exams. I sit for 30 minutes,take a deep breathe and a deep thought.And come out without any specific conclusion.I go back and carry on with what I was doing. I keep going like a moronic blind walking towards the well. I actually intend to parallelize things. To code some more lines in the project and to read some more pages from text book, but I end up doing what I like more. I just keep coding. And when the day before the exam arrives, I realize I need to do something super human. I just rip my shirt off and show the BIG "D" on the chest! and decide to propose my Oowwwnnn theories on the paper. Hehe.. yep I mean the same old trick. Just write down the Darwin's or your own theories on the paper no matter what the question is all about. At times, it clicks if the guy who's correcting your paper is a total blind or if he's just against the Church! :rolleyes: Good luck man :cool:. Darwin Rocks!:)
He never answers anyone who replies to him. I've taken to calling him a retard, which is not fair to retards everywhere.-Christian Graus
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Hey guys I've got a bit of a problem and I can't seem to decide what I'm going to do I'm programming full time while finishing my degree(getting it from University of Greenwich) part time. I'm busy with my 3rd year at the moment which lasts 18 months cause I'm doing it part time. I've got class Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings aswell. And then I'm busy working on two other side projects aswell. So now I've got a database project due tomorrow which I've been working on the entire weekend, I realized I wont be able to finish it in time so I took today off work. I don't know where I'm going to find the time to study for the exams, i hardly have time to do a silly project. I've actually been thinking of quitting the studies completely! Its interfering with my day job and that's total BS Its making working on my side projects difficult because of lack of time There's not enough time to study and do projects, so if I continue like this I'll probably fail and waist the fortune I'm paying to study The crap their teaching us is useless if you ask me, because it's not going to influence the way i do my job so whats the point? On the other hand it would be nice to have a degree, but how much will it help me? I'm already earning a very good salary with just a diploma, and I'm getting the kind of experience that money cant buy. I'm lead dev at my company, I've been designing and coding a pretty big system from scratch for the past year and 4 months. So whats more important? This experience, or a degree that's probably not worth the paper its written on? I've worked with alot of programmers with qualifications, degrees, and more than triple my working experience coming out of their ears and quite frankly, most of them are morons. What would you do if you were in my situation?
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111I was in this position about 25 years ago and chose to persue work instead of a degree. Having been in the job market recently, I'm still surprised that I encounter requirements for a degree regardless of job experience. Some positions do say "or equivalent experience" but others (the majority of them) require a degree. So, I'm still not sure that I think I made the right decision. I feel as you do though, that many of the programmers I've worked with, that have degrees and all that, are morons. :) I'm also quite disappointed how many of these technical interviews expect walking encyclopedias and don't at all look at things like an MVP, the articles I've written, etc--what I mean is, the ability to learn new things, intelligence (oh so humble am I), basically things that can't be "measured". So, that's not an answer. :) Marc
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I was in this position about 25 years ago and chose to persue work instead of a degree. Having been in the job market recently, I'm still surprised that I encounter requirements for a degree regardless of job experience. Some positions do say "or equivalent experience" but others (the majority of them) require a degree. So, I'm still not sure that I think I made the right decision. I feel as you do though, that many of the programmers I've worked with, that have degrees and all that, are morons. :) I'm also quite disappointed how many of these technical interviews expect walking encyclopedias and don't at all look at things like an MVP, the articles I've written, etc--what I mean is, the ability to learn new things, intelligence (oh so humble am I), basically things that can't be "measured". So, that's not an answer. :) Marc
I'm not surprised. The purpose of HR is to identify resume's that they can throw away. Not having a white collar union card is an excuse to toss yours.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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Hey guys I've got a bit of a problem and I can't seem to decide what I'm going to do I'm programming full time while finishing my degree(getting it from University of Greenwich) part time. I'm busy with my 3rd year at the moment which lasts 18 months cause I'm doing it part time. I've got class Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings aswell. And then I'm busy working on two other side projects aswell. So now I've got a database project due tomorrow which I've been working on the entire weekend, I realized I wont be able to finish it in time so I took today off work. I don't know where I'm going to find the time to study for the exams, i hardly have time to do a silly project. I've actually been thinking of quitting the studies completely! Its interfering with my day job and that's total BS Its making working on my side projects difficult because of lack of time There's not enough time to study and do projects, so if I continue like this I'll probably fail and waist the fortune I'm paying to study The crap their teaching us is useless if you ask me, because it's not going to influence the way i do my job so whats the point? On the other hand it would be nice to have a degree, but how much will it help me? I'm already earning a very good salary with just a diploma, and I'm getting the kind of experience that money cant buy. I'm lead dev at my company, I've been designing and coding a pretty big system from scratch for the past year and 4 months. So whats more important? This experience, or a degree that's probably not worth the paper its written on? I've worked with alot of programmers with qualifications, degrees, and more than triple my working experience coming out of their ears and quite frankly, most of them are morons. What would you do if you were in my situation?
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111If I were you I would finish my studies... I've not done this, I've left the studies as I work in my own company. But... it always helps to have a degree. I would try to get time to do both... Try to speak with your boss, who knows if I were him/her I would understand that you would need some hours a day for you. Anyway, it will benefit the company as you will get more prepared to solve things. I have several patents (not in the software side) in my company, and I've been inside big companies selling my products and always we have made nice machines that is something that I love, but even I have the idea on what I want to achieve, when is time to go through maths or to go through specific algorithms, then I miss the knowledge, it would be great to have it... At the end you can reach the same result, but you will suffer a little bit more to get it. My two cents... well, leave it in one cent that the economical situation is not good...
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If I were you I would finish my studies... I've not done this, I've left the studies as I work in my own company. But... it always helps to have a degree. I would try to get time to do both... Try to speak with your boss, who knows if I were him/her I would understand that you would need some hours a day for you. Anyway, it will benefit the company as you will get more prepared to solve things. I have several patents (not in the software side) in my company, and I've been inside big companies selling my products and always we have made nice machines that is something that I love, but even I have the idea on what I want to achieve, when is time to go through maths or to go through specific algorithms, then I miss the knowledge, it would be great to have it... At the end you can reach the same result, but you will suffer a little bit more to get it. My two cents... well, leave it in one cent that the economical situation is not good...
Joan Murt wrote:
My two cents... well, leave it in one cent that the economical situation is not good...
I guess that explains where the shortfall goes when someone only asks a penny for your thoughts. :laugh:
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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Hey guys I've got a bit of a problem and I can't seem to decide what I'm going to do I'm programming full time while finishing my degree(getting it from University of Greenwich) part time. I'm busy with my 3rd year at the moment which lasts 18 months cause I'm doing it part time. I've got class Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings aswell. And then I'm busy working on two other side projects aswell. So now I've got a database project due tomorrow which I've been working on the entire weekend, I realized I wont be able to finish it in time so I took today off work. I don't know where I'm going to find the time to study for the exams, i hardly have time to do a silly project. I've actually been thinking of quitting the studies completely! Its interfering with my day job and that's total BS Its making working on my side projects difficult because of lack of time There's not enough time to study and do projects, so if I continue like this I'll probably fail and waist the fortune I'm paying to study The crap their teaching us is useless if you ask me, because it's not going to influence the way i do my job so whats the point? On the other hand it would be nice to have a degree, but how much will it help me? I'm already earning a very good salary with just a diploma, and I'm getting the kind of experience that money cant buy. I'm lead dev at my company, I've been designing and coding a pretty big system from scratch for the past year and 4 months. So whats more important? This experience, or a degree that's probably not worth the paper its written on? I've worked with alot of programmers with qualifications, degrees, and more than triple my working experience coming out of their ears and quite frankly, most of them are morons. What would you do if you were in my situation?
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111I'll tell you what I did in your position. I stuck it out and got the degree. As it turned out, I wasn't destined to work in the same job for the rest of my career, and eventually the degree made a difference in salary for me. But then, my C.S. degree is a M.S. not a B.S., which means quite a bit more in certain areas and to certain hiring managers.
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:laugh:
Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL
you.suck = (you.Passion != Programming & you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer)1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111Forget amphetamines....Colombian coffee (the most caffeinated kind) and ginseng and multivitamins...plus a little chocolate....you'll sleep like Michelangelo (who is said to have existed for decades on no more than four hours of sleep per night) or maybe like Thomas Edison (who substituted multiple ten-minute catnaps for sustained sleep). :laugh: you're young, you'll recover. Even though I offer that advice tongue-in-cheek, I feel I have to tell you that's partly cold, clear advice. What you're suffering from is time management issues. You like to code (I note your signature) and thus you want to do what you like. Instead, nail down time when you will NOT code, do your school work then, make sure that it is in fact a reasonable amount of time to get it done, then get it done in the time allowed. Yes, I said get it done in the time allowed. No excuses. I'll tell you the main reason hiring managers and HR look for the degree: it proves you can set aside stuff that you enjoy long enough to do onerous intellectual work that you don't like with enough quality to get a domain expert to pass you on it. That means that your usefullness may not be restricted to just what you like to do. For instance, you'll have acquired skills in time management :) Get it done. Just get it done.