Everybody's story is different, I was still in school for my associate's degree when I got my first coding job. I had taken a couple classes in C# and just decided one day that," Yeah, this is fun, I can do this." I interviewed for an entry-level position shortly after that and managed to get it. I think a lot of people will agree that professional experience outweighs the importance of having degrees or certifications, so the one piece of advice that I can say is consistently correct is to keep trying to get an entry-level job no matter your level of training. You can always keep training on your own time, but just lucking out and getting that first job is the springboard that will get your career going. Not only will you start getting that magical entity of "experience" you will learn exponentially quicker what skills are and are not useful in the real-world. I also recommend joining local developer groups and trying to pick up a mentor, whether it be at one of these or at work. Having someone on your side can save you so much time. There's some warm and fuzzy feeling to be gained by grinding out problems on your own, but sometimes good, old-fashioned wisdom will get you really far really quickly (and hopefully in the right direction). Have fun!
J
josh clay
@josh clay
Posts
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A Career in Programming which way to go! -
Which keyboard key do you hit the most while using Visual Studio?Tab, for sure.
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Bloody Yanks hate being second at anything!If it were released on the same date, you future people would have a head start.
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Multiple browser-window-tab configurations?I made a browser while I was still in college that allowed you to save all open tabs to a "tab list". Then you had a drop down of your "tab lists", and once you selected one, it automatically opened all of those tabs. This was before tabbed browsing had gotten very big, my teacher's jaw was on the floor. Cool story, huh? I guess I should make a plugin to do this junk, it was pretty neat. It would be even cooler if your "tab list" only took up one spot in the tab row, and allowed you to go through its child tabs like a drop-down menu when you hovered over it. I haven't made any browser plugins yet, though. I guess it's time to learn, haha.