Re: programming DaveAuld 16:25 27 Sep '10 I take it you are also NightHawk5380 then? Dave If you noticed this post, you may have realized that this guy is using the name of a Honda motorcycle in his handle. Maybe it means something else, but I thought my experience might help him.... Sorry if reading hurts your brain.

I completely agree with offering your programming skills to a small company you already work for. In my case, I was already the office manager in a large Honda & Yamaha motorcycle dealership. Out of necessity (and just being the one who understood it the easiest) I wound up dealing with the outside computer support when things went wrong. This led to me being summoned when just about anything went wrong with any of our 23 computers... At this point, I have 13 years of business management experience and 8+ years dealing with hardware and program support for our computers... This has also given me the opportunity to be the one who was in charge of getting our website up and running 4 years ago... I've learned a lot through my experiences.... ASP.NET/MySQL/ODBC vs .NET connectors/CSS/SEO.... and so much more, but it was while I was writing a program for my cashiers to be able to create, print, and keep track of gift certificates, as well as validate that they hadn't been used before, that I found myself stuck. I wrote for help on the boards and no one seemed to be able to help... It was that frustration which caused me to decide to go back to school (I finally got my Assoc. in Bus. Mgmt last year at 34 years old). Finding a degree program that actually was oriented specifically towards programming wasn't easy. Many colleges tell you that they offer some degree in computers, but most are about computers in general, not programming specifically. In the state of Georgia, USA, only Georgia State University and DeVry University offered a bachelors in computer programming. Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia have computer degrees, but not what I was looking for. Even though I feel like I'm buying a car with what I'm paying, the choice of going to DeVry that I made back in May has made me very happy. I'm in my fourth class and am so happy to be finally going to school for what I love. The teachers I have had are all wonderful and caring as well as extremely well experienced in the industry. I also found that the programming logic class I took got me straightened out on all most of the bad habits I had picked up. As far as the classes I took before DeVry, and my business experience, they are invaluable. I approach my programming with an outlook towards the future because I am already aware of what problems could arise in the real world environment. My calculus class has also proven valuable in easily understanding how to program complicated math problems. DeVry a