Your Degrees
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Hello, fellow Projecteers. I've been lurking on here some time now and I think this is the best place to ask my question. I graduated last June and started working a couple of months later. I'm working 4-5 months now as a Dynamics NAV (a.k.a. Navision) developer. Got hired to work out a .NET project, but two weeks into the job my boss says to drop it because it's too expensive for me to work out. He gives me several NAV assignments and wants me to specialize in NAV. Personally, I hate NAV. It's old, it's clunky, it won't work without a dozen hacks, the development language (C/AL) is limited and frustrating (I'm used to C# from school and personal projects). Now I'm looking for another job, but every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree or experience as a programmer. My question to you: What is your degree? What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career? Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
KenBonny wrote:
What is your degree?
No degree - self-taught.
KenBonny wrote:
What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career?
To start with I basically learned everything I could about programming, Windows, and the internals of how computers work, and wrote a lot of code to do everything from text parsing to a simple HTTP server to hand-drawing ellipses and paths and gradients. Another important reason I got where I am today is the people who helped me get there. My parents taught me how to learn efficiently on my own, and Marc Clifton gave me a start in the software business and helped me learn about the myriad of things that differentiate a professional consultant from a hobbyist coder who just knows the technical aspects of his craft. I am very much indebted to them. And finally, I am where I am because I know how to learn fast, including learning new technologies on the job while still meeting deadlines, and because programming is enough of a passion for me that I am willing to work my butt off at odd hours if necessary, and because I've learned the importance of managing clients' expectations, cutting through the fluff to find out what will really make a difference for them and meet their needs, and insisting on terms that are workable for me. What I do most right now is ASP.NET/C#/SQL Server, with PHP/MySQL on the side. I'd actually like to get into desktop dev again like I used to do, but it seems like web is where the money is at for now. I keep myself up to speed on the desktop dev technologies as much as I can.
KenBonny wrote:
Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
In the software business, probably not - unless you want to enter a part of the industry where it counts more than usual, or you truly feel that that is the best way for you to obtain more knowledge. For the rest of the industry, a good bachelor's degree will get you going while giving you a chance to get out into the industry and get real-life experience which IMO counts more than anything else.
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Hello, fellow Projecteers. I've been lurking on here some time now and I think this is the best place to ask my question. I graduated last June and started working a couple of months later. I'm working 4-5 months now as a Dynamics NAV (a.k.a. Navision) developer. Got hired to work out a .NET project, but two weeks into the job my boss says to drop it because it's too expensive for me to work out. He gives me several NAV assignments and wants me to specialize in NAV. Personally, I hate NAV. It's old, it's clunky, it won't work without a dozen hacks, the development language (C/AL) is limited and frustrating (I'm used to C# from school and personal projects). Now I'm looking for another job, but every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree or experience as a programmer. My question to you: What is your degree? What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career? Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
KenBonny wrote:
Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
Definitely, it could affect your salary in the first 5 years of your career. If you ask if the master degree gonna make you a better professional, the answer is no.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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JazzJackRabbit wrote:
How many of you would start looking for a new job if your were suddenly made to support old VB and classic ASP projects?
Would you believe a .NET/SQL database position and I now program VBA for Access 2002.
You poor, poor soul... On a more serious note, there is always "maintenance" work to be done, whether it's VB/ASP or Access. It's only a problem if it becomes full time job, because then your skills become outdated and should anything happen you'll have big problems looking for a new job. If you are in the latter position, I would consider looking for a change if I were you (unless you're happy with the COBOL job type security).
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John C wrote:
No, it's justification for going to the powers that be and saying "I was hired for .net work and I'm not doing it, I want to do the work I was promised or I'll have to look elsewhere". Only after that is it justification for looking elsewhere.
There is a good chance he is going to be fired if he does that.
JazzJackRabbit wrote:
There is a good chance he is going to be fired if he does that.
Well perhaps he can word it better, i.e. not threaten to leave but bring it up and ask when he will be doing the work he agreed to. That being said my response to you is "who cares?" - anyone not willing to stand up for their rights deserves everything they get in life and worse because accepting injustice harms all of us.
Yesterday they said today was tomorrow but today they know better. - Poul Anderson
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You poor, poor soul... On a more serious note, there is always "maintenance" work to be done, whether it's VB/ASP or Access. It's only a problem if it becomes full time job, because then your skills become outdated and should anything happen you'll have big problems looking for a new job. If you are in the latter position, I would consider looking for a change if I were you (unless you're happy with the COBOL job type security).
Luckily the Access programming is a small portion of my job as DBA is the biggest, however I agree with you 100% that you need to keep up as my .NET skills have shrunk to almost nil. However, with SQL 2008 SSIS using VS as the backbone there is hope.
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Hello, fellow Projecteers. I've been lurking on here some time now and I think this is the best place to ask my question. I graduated last June and started working a couple of months later. I'm working 4-5 months now as a Dynamics NAV (a.k.a. Navision) developer. Got hired to work out a .NET project, but two weeks into the job my boss says to drop it because it's too expensive for me to work out. He gives me several NAV assignments and wants me to specialize in NAV. Personally, I hate NAV. It's old, it's clunky, it won't work without a dozen hacks, the development language (C/AL) is limited and frustrating (I'm used to C# from school and personal projects). Now I'm looking for another job, but every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree or experience as a programmer. My question to you: What is your degree? What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career? Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
KenBonny wrote:
What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career?
Study, hard work, experience and putting up with a lot of crap
KenBonny wrote:
Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
In your case I would think not. What will help more is experience. As you start to move up the ladder then yes a Masters (depending type) may help to obtain a higher level position.
KenBonny wrote:
every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree
Most positions I've seen only ask for BS. Perhaps you are search too high. You have to start somewhere, just not at the top.
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
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Hello, fellow Projecteers. I've been lurking on here some time now and I think this is the best place to ask my question. I graduated last June and started working a couple of months later. I'm working 4-5 months now as a Dynamics NAV (a.k.a. Navision) developer. Got hired to work out a .NET project, but two weeks into the job my boss says to drop it because it's too expensive for me to work out. He gives me several NAV assignments and wants me to specialize in NAV. Personally, I hate NAV. It's old, it's clunky, it won't work without a dozen hacks, the development language (C/AL) is limited and frustrating (I'm used to C# from school and personal projects). Now I'm looking for another job, but every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree or experience as a programmer. My question to you: What is your degree? What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career? Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
I have no degree, my articles give you an idea of what I do, but more specifically, I do contract work and currently have two clients, one in the space industry and the other in the, ahem, adult entertainment industry. Pretty much every contract job that I've had has involved working on re-architecting legacy systems. I got to where I am now by getting really frustrated with the mundane aspects of programming. I'm much more interested in doing the interesting work--architecture, UI design, figuring out difficult problems, working with the client to get them what they really want, etc. It's an ongoing process, but I have to admit I feel like I'm falling behind with things like WPF because none of my clients has any need for it, and I certainly can't justify it in their eyes (yeah, yeah, that was my little rant.) I'm quite interested in F# though, and I hope one day, sigh, to finish the poker game I'm writing in F#. As to obtaining a masters degree, I have the following thoughts: no, unless the degree helps for the field of work you're in. That said, I've solved problems in videometric and network topology analysis that have stumped PhD folks for years. I guess it just takes a fresh pair of eyes, or at least ones that aren't myopic in their "try to shove the problem into the solution domain that I'm an expert in" approach. Marc
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Hello, fellow Projecteers. I've been lurking on here some time now and I think this is the best place to ask my question. I graduated last June and started working a couple of months later. I'm working 4-5 months now as a Dynamics NAV (a.k.a. Navision) developer. Got hired to work out a .NET project, but two weeks into the job my boss says to drop it because it's too expensive for me to work out. He gives me several NAV assignments and wants me to specialize in NAV. Personally, I hate NAV. It's old, it's clunky, it won't work without a dozen hacks, the development language (C/AL) is limited and frustrating (I'm used to C# from school and personal projects). Now I'm looking for another job, but every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree or experience as a programmer. My question to you: What is your degree? What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career? Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
KenBonny wrote:
What is your degree?
BSCS
KenBonny wrote:
What do you do as a programmer?
Database, backend, services, automation, integration, framework...
KenBonny wrote:
How did you get to this point in your career?
By not doing that new-fangled Web crap. Started out doing C and Oracle (Pro*C) on OpenVMS; I was real good at it -- but there are no jobs in that anymore. :sigh:
KenBonny wrote:
Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
Only if you want to teach. My wife has a masters... she still doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up.
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KenBonny wrote:
What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career?
Study, hard work, experience and putting up with a lot of crap
KenBonny wrote:
Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
In your case I would think not. What will help more is experience. As you start to move up the ladder then yes a Masters (depending type) may help to obtain a higher level position.
KenBonny wrote:
every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree
Most positions I've seen only ask for BS. Perhaps you are search too high. You have to start somewhere, just not at the top.
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
Mark Nischalke wrote:
Most positions I've seen only ask for BS
You must have worked in the Middle East in that case Mark, because the majority of work has BS as a requirement! ;)
If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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JazzJackRabbit wrote:
There is a good chance he is going to be fired if he does that.
Well perhaps he can word it better, i.e. not threaten to leave but bring it up and ask when he will be doing the work he agreed to. That being said my response to you is "who cares?" - anyone not willing to stand up for their rights deserves everything they get in life and worse because accepting injustice harms all of us.
Yesterday they said today was tomorrow but today they know better. - Poul Anderson
Very good arguement. I thought about this a lot and I kinda agree with both of you. I'm afraid that if I leave now I'll come over as "rough patch = goodbye employer". On the other hand, on this path, my career is taking a turn to a place I've been trying to avoid: consultancy in a financial area. (I wanna get more technical, not towards selling and modding an existing application.) The thing is, I'm working for a small company. 9 people, counting programmers, technicians, the boss and the secretary. The work is pretty nicely spread, with me catching up more and more. But the boss wants to expand the NAV market. So I can't change to another position. Unless the guy across from me is willing to switch jobs. But I quote him (litterly, this is grafted into my memory because I thought it was pretty rude of him, considering I'm very envious of his job) "I'm glad you took over that crappy job". Crappy job meaning NAV programming.
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KenBonny wrote:
Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
Depends on what you want to do. Define "worth"?
KenBonny wrote:
What is your degree?
Classical Music, BM & MM.
KenBonny wrote:
Personally, I hate NAV. It's old, it's clunky, it won't work without a dozen hacks, the development language (C/AL) is limited and frustrating (I'm used to C# from school and personal projects). Now I'm looking for another job, but every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree or experience as a programmer.
Of course it sucks. You just graduated. Everyone starts on the bottom. Welcome to Reality 101. Not to sound overly harsh or nasty, but that's the norm. My first programming job sucked, it was at an insurance company maintaining a 20+ year old compiled IBM BASIC system. It takes time to get good. Time, effort and patience.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
Jim Crafton wrote:
Of course it sucks. You just graduated. Everyone starts on the bottom. Welcome to Reality 101. Not to sound overly harsh or nasty, but that's the norm.
I don't want to come over as a know it all, but I knew that. :) That's also the reason I don't just quit and go back to living it up at home and look for another job full time.
Jim Crafton wrote:
It takes time to get good. Time, effort and patience.
This raises another question: How do you know you're good? You've been coding stuff that works for 10 years now, ok. But who tells you your code is good? I was thinking that more education would give me better skills (cause my code would literally be reviewed and my flaws would be pointed out to me, thus learning from my mistakes).
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Very good arguement. I thought about this a lot and I kinda agree with both of you. I'm afraid that if I leave now I'll come over as "rough patch = goodbye employer". On the other hand, on this path, my career is taking a turn to a place I've been trying to avoid: consultancy in a financial area. (I wanna get more technical, not towards selling and modding an existing application.) The thing is, I'm working for a small company. 9 people, counting programmers, technicians, the boss and the secretary. The work is pretty nicely spread, with me catching up more and more. But the boss wants to expand the NAV market. So I can't change to another position. Unless the guy across from me is willing to switch jobs. But I quote him (litterly, this is grafted into my memory because I thought it was pretty rude of him, considering I'm very envious of his job) "I'm glad you took over that crappy job". Crappy job meaning NAV programming.
Well I have no idea what "nav" programming is however if your shop only has 9 people most of whom are not programmers that actually makes it a much more desirable place to work as a newbie because you will get a chance to learn a *lot* more than you ever would at a bigger shop. Employers in general love to get people that are more well rounded and know more aspects of the business and it's a priceless education for you. I firmly believe a developer that knows absolutely nothing about all aspects of the software business including sales, marketing, management, accounting, customer service etc will go through their career being utterly defenseless like a puppy in traffic. Sounds actually like an ideal first place to work to me. As for crappy job, you're a beginner, if you think you're going to get anything less than a crappy job that no one else wants to do for the foreseeable future you're dreaming. :) Consider that it takes at least a decade to get halfway useful at anything. This rule applies to any human endeavor as equally as it does to becoming a useful programmer.
Yesterday they said today was tomorrow but today they know better. - Poul Anderson
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KenBonny wrote:
What is your degree?
BA in Film
KenBonny wrote:
How did you get to this point in your career?
Self taught, learned Windows inside and out. Perseverance. I maintain that nobody can truly be a senior developer with less than seven years solid experience. I also accepted low paying jobs at first. Really low paying. Too many graduates are spoiled into thinking they can start right out with a bang. Some do; we have a guy working for us right now who's still going to school. To be fair, he worked all sorts of crummy jobs at this company before moving onto the team I'm on.
KenBonny wrote:
Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
(For a CS masters degree in US definition) If you want to go into management, it may pay off. Otherwise, no. The time spent on the degree would be better spent teaching yourself and/or taking specific classes in technologies. As a developer, it will take years to recoup your costs of a post-graduate degree. On the other hand, if you really want to go into management, get an MBA. Not because it's worth anything by itself (it's one of the most useless degrees ever invented) but it impresses higher ups, especially ones with MBAs. One more thing: be very careful about bailing now. The single biggest method to eliminate candidates without a ton of experience is how long they've stayed at a job. If you end up with a few jobs of a few months each, you WILL be unemployable. I've had the misfortune of working for several companies that went under. This has hurt me in getting jobs and in negotiating salaries. (Note to any college students here: My advice is simple--upon graduation find a job at the biggest damn company you find, no matter how loathsome. Forget salary completely and stick with them at least three years and get at least ONE good management reference. While there, take advantage of every continuing education benefit the company offers. Do remember, though, that what this will do is get you in the door for an interview, that's it. You better have actually learned how to do engineering, designing, programming, testing or whatever it is you want to do.)
Joe Woodbury wrote:
(For a CS masters degree in US definition)
For a CS masters degree of EU definition, I'm from Europe. I've been looking up information about the courses and I see a whole lot of technical classes ("Modeling and Transformation in Software Development" and "Software Testing", to name two). Yes, you can learn these on the job, but how thorough are you getting them?
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KenBonny wrote:
What do you do / did you do as a programmer? How did you get to this point in your career?
Study, hard work, experience and putting up with a lot of crap
KenBonny wrote:
Do you think it's worth to obtain a masters degree?
In your case I would think not. What will help more is experience. As you start to move up the ladder then yes a Masters (depending type) may help to obtain a higher level position.
KenBonny wrote:
every interesting job I encounter asks for a masters degree
Most positions I've seen only ask for BS. Perhaps you are search too high. You have to start somewhere, just not at the top.
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
Mark Nischalke wrote:
Most positions I've seen only ask for BS. Perhaps you are search too high. You have to start somewhere, just not at the top.
I'm not looking for the top of the heap, I only apply for junior positions of minimum experience of 2 years. So all pretty standard and basic. But a lot of them say "bachelor or master" degree preferred. This reads to me as "if we can't find a master, we'll settle on bachelor".
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Mark Nischalke wrote:
Most positions I've seen only ask for BS. Perhaps you are search too high. You have to start somewhere, just not at the top.
I'm not looking for the top of the heap, I only apply for junior positions of minimum experience of 2 years. So all pretty standard and basic. But a lot of them say "bachelor or master" degree preferred. This reads to me as "if we can't find a master, we'll settle on bachelor".
You should read it as, we'll take a masters but only pay as a bachelors
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
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Joe Woodbury wrote:
(For a CS masters degree in US definition)
For a CS masters degree of EU definition, I'm from Europe. I've been looking up information about the courses and I see a whole lot of technical classes ("Modeling and Transformation in Software Development" and "Software Testing", to name two). Yes, you can learn these on the job, but how thorough are you getting them?
If I understand the systems correctly, in continental Europe a masters certificate is generally a two year academic program. In the US a masters program is typically a three to five year program with a combination of classes and a thesis or dissertation. The UK has a system somewhere between the two, depending on the subject. The first title you listed sounds like silliness masquerading as a class. The second could be useful, but I've yet to see or hear of any university properly teaching testing. (Most universities don't teach how to do team development or things like debugging either.) Moreover, classroom learning is just that and no where near as thorough as real world experience. That aside, you could probably learn both on your own in less time and for less money; factor in the opportunity cost of not making a full salary AND in not getting years of experience and I seriously question whether it would pay for itself. As others have pointed out college degrees in the US may help slightly in getting your resume to be seen by the hiring manager, but that's about it. I have yet to work for anyone who cares and when I hire, I don't care either.
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I have no degree, my articles give you an idea of what I do, but more specifically, I do contract work and currently have two clients, one in the space industry and the other in the, ahem, adult entertainment industry. Pretty much every contract job that I've had has involved working on re-architecting legacy systems. I got to where I am now by getting really frustrated with the mundane aspects of programming. I'm much more interested in doing the interesting work--architecture, UI design, figuring out difficult problems, working with the client to get them what they really want, etc. It's an ongoing process, but I have to admit I feel like I'm falling behind with things like WPF because none of my clients has any need for it, and I certainly can't justify it in their eyes (yeah, yeah, that was my little rant.) I'm quite interested in F# though, and I hope one day, sigh, to finish the poker game I'm writing in F#. As to obtaining a masters degree, I have the following thoughts: no, unless the degree helps for the field of work you're in. That said, I've solved problems in videometric and network topology analysis that have stumped PhD folks for years. I guess it just takes a fresh pair of eyes, or at least ones that aren't myopic in their "try to shove the problem into the solution domain that I'm an expert in" approach. Marc
Marc Clifton wrote:
adult entertainment industry ... re-architecting legacy systems
You wouldn't be un-doing all my beautiful DEC C / RDB work would you? :suss:
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Very good arguement. I thought about this a lot and I kinda agree with both of you. I'm afraid that if I leave now I'll come over as "rough patch = goodbye employer". On the other hand, on this path, my career is taking a turn to a place I've been trying to avoid: consultancy in a financial area. (I wanna get more technical, not towards selling and modding an existing application.) The thing is, I'm working for a small company. 9 people, counting programmers, technicians, the boss and the secretary. The work is pretty nicely spread, with me catching up more and more. But the boss wants to expand the NAV market. So I can't change to another position. Unless the guy across from me is willing to switch jobs. But I quote him (litterly, this is grafted into my memory because I thought it was pretty rude of him, considering I'm very envious of his job) "I'm glad you took over that crappy job". Crappy job meaning NAV programming.
KenBonny wrote:
I thought it was pretty rude of him
Oh boy a sensitive newbie, EVERY junior employee in EVERY industry gets the crappy job. This guys is actually acknowledging that you have the crappy job (that he probably had before you) and is thankful to move on. I'd agitate to get into the .net space but would be surprised if you succeed initially, your current value to your employer is minimal so losing your skills and knowledge would not hurt, wait another year and you will get a different reaction.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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DavidCrow wrote:
What this would say to me as an employer is that when things get rough or don't go your way, you leave.
There is a different way to look at it. He signed on to do .net work. If his employer wishes to change development process/environment, the OP should be free to leave and I would never hold it against him. Of course if the OP will leave or suck it up is up to him, it's an issue of how soon he can find another .net job vs being unemployed vs staying at a job that he is not happy at. How many of you would start looking for a new job if your were suddenly made to support old VB and classic ASP projects?
Whoosh, that was me out the door but then I'm an old fart who has the experience and skill to be in fairly high demand. A newbie with 6 months practical experience is a completely different kettle of fish. I have refused contract when they are not the tech mix I am looking for or the company has no clear plan to move forward. I once refused a VB6 contract with JP Morgan because the had no plans to move to .net, go figure...
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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KenBonny wrote:
I thought it was pretty rude of him
Oh boy a sensitive newbie, EVERY junior employee in EVERY industry gets the crappy job. This guys is actually acknowledging that you have the crappy job (that he probably had before you) and is thankful to move on. I'd agitate to get into the .net space but would be surprised if you succeed initially, your current value to your employer is minimal so losing your skills and knowledge would not hurt, wait another year and you will get a different reaction.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
Mycroft Holmes wrote:
wait another year and you will get a different reaction
Then he'll have me trained in 2 or 3 different NAV courses, all with the jolly sounding names of "Financials Beginner" (800ish pages on how to do accountancy) and "NAV Setup" (400 pages on what booking post go where in NAV). So no programming stuff whatsoever, only more accountancy and financial stuff. The problem is that my boss is not looking for any new .NET programming stuff, but for more and more NAV work. The .NET projects are enough to keep one man occupied, not two.