How many of you work as software engineers, system administrators, network engineers, electrical engineers or computer scientists and actually enjoy working or programming?
I took an Associate's degree in computing and then joined the army and completely forgot how to code after coming out. I never enjoyed programming because I always felt like I didn't know how to do things and had to keep referring to other people's work, examples or my past assignments.
How did you know that programming was the one? How do I for fall the computer science meme and be smart so I can make money in the future?
>How did you know that programming was the one? Healthy dose of autism + patience for debugging and going through other people's code + ability to self learn and teach and improve knowledge.
Daniel Torres
I'm a software engineer and I enjoy working and programming. Mobile apps, many, for a quickly growing company in the USA Midwest. Easy life, lots of beer, very cheap cost of living, fucking great here.
Aaron White
>How many of you work as.. No idea. But I think a lot of people here study CS. >and actually enjoy working This one is even harder to estimate, don't know how many there are, but I am one of those cunts that enjoy my work (as an engineer). I develop medical robots and do research with a local hospital and a university. >how did you know 10 years ago, I didn't. Our education system is different to the US, but lets say I quit school after highschool to become an electrician. I was 17, was told I needed to pick a career and I chose electrician because everyone from my family was a craftsman of sorts and it seems like the least cancer of them all. I spend 4 years training with small school visits in between to learn about the theory. I enjoyed the work, but I loved the theory. I really loved building circuits, both when it was programmed or when it was with relays and timers. But the contrast was too large for me when I went back to work. All the cool shit we learned about was not something you would ever be asked to setup as an electrician, at least not where I was training. I was complete with my training in 2011 and the job market was terrible back then, so I decided to study some more. I took a master in computer engineering because I liked the hardware aspect but didn't mind getting into programming as well. Turned out I loved it, the study was incredible and I grew to love programming. When I was training to be an electrician, I only used linux part time, I always kept a windows partition for when I was going to school as a lot of the software they used didn't work on linux. But as a student in CE, you could use linux all the time, it was actually a huge benefit. I haven't played much with bsd, but I am sure that you can do close to all the things you can on linux except with worse support for some of the proprietary software people push on you.
>so I can make money in the future Don't do it for the money. I could make the same as an electrician if I wanted.
Nathaniel Clark
>How do I for fall the computer science meme and be smart so I can make money in the future?
If you don't enjoy programming, then it's not for you.
Fall for the math degree meme instead. You have an associates in computing anyways, so it's not like you can't fall back on programming later.
Nathaniel Gomez
I don't enjoy math at all, my associates is useless because I've forgotten everything I learned while I was in the army. I'm thinking of just taking a finance degree and pathetically climb the corporate ladder instead...
Jason Morales
It really doesn't matter if you've forgotten everything. You can easily study a little bit and remember the important bits:
>How many of you work as software engineers, system administrators, network engineers, electrical engineers or computer scientists and actually enjoy working or programming?
I'm a developer at a large bank. I have the word senior in my job title because i'm an oldfag who has worked full time in development since 2001. I enjoy my job very much. Of course I have days where I wish I could somehow come into enough money to retire but it wouldn't be a job otherwise.
>I took an Associate's degree in computing and then joined the army and completely forgot how to code after coming out. I never enjoyed programming because I always felt like I didn't know how to do things and had to keep referring to other people's work, examples or my past assignments.
I left my country's air force after 7 months because they treated me like absolute dog shit, and not just the usual ball busting way that the military does to those at the bottom of the ranks, but they actively denied me opportunities and worked against me when I tried to improve myself. I left and went to study general IT work, then worked helpdesk for a couple of years so I could save money to go back to school to learn programming and development. Best decision i've ever made, everything good in my life has come from busting my own ass learning and pushing myself to improve. I own my house and hopefully will have paid off the mortgage in a few years. IT work has been really good to me :)
Robert Butler
>>With a finance degree + associates in computing, you could probably find a fairly comfy job as a low latency C++ trader But I DETEST programming and coding... I only took computing because I fell for Sup Forums memes (I have a mechanical keyboard, headphone, fractal r4 case, logitech g400)
Daniel Ortiz
>How did you know that programming was the one?
I know that this is the job for me because when i'm at home working on things for myself or learning something new I lose track of time and often find myself awake at 2am on a work night. There's a phrase that I heard long ago that goes something like this: "The thing you should be doing for a living is the thing that you find yourself doing when you know you should be working". For me it's programming, using a command line, linux, and continual learning and pushing myself to acquire new skills.
>How do I for fall the computer science meme and be smart so I can make money in the future?
You have to want to work in this field. It's not something for people who just want to make money. I work with a lot of these types and they hate their jobs and they hate their lives because when you spend 40 hours a week doing something you hate then you become a miserable person.
If you want to work in this field then you will find a way. You'll do anything to be paid to do something with computers. Maybe you start at helpdesk, move up from taking calls to some kind of level 3 support. Maybe you study at night to learn programming skills. Then you start spamming agents and employers for work. You do whatever you can to show that you have the skills necessary as well as an ability to learn fast.
Once you get your foot in the door then you can start clocking up "experience". Pilots track experience in flight hours, developers track experience in years worked. Once you have enough experience you start being trusted with important/sensitive work. Once you've made it this far all you have to do is not fuck up and cost your employer money.
Blake Brooks
then DONT do programming I was under the assumption that you at least enjoyed programming minimally to want to get the degree, my apologize
I'd recommend taking the briggs-meyer test and just seeing what you like. While briggs isn't an end-all-be-all way to decide what you want to do, it is a suprisingly good indicator for what it's worth.
Try seeing if anything on that list interests you.
Jayden Roberts
like said, I mean networking as in networks. If you want to work in tech and don't want to code, you have to learn networking/infrastructure/administration. you will still write scripts eventually, but that's far from programming.
for sec, you still need to learn the above, though to a lesser extent at first
Samuel Gray
I did some networking modules and very briefly touched a introduction to hacking course but I didn't really enjoy them.
Juan Adams
what did you like when you were learning?
Ryan Sanders
Ah, well, all I can advise at this point is finance since that's really the only thing you've shown any interest in thus far.
Wish you luck m8
Gavin Lewis
nothing, I did some accounting modules and it was fun but I don't see myself being an auditor or staring at spreadsheets all day. math is more fun than memorizing qualitative material but I'm not good at it. I'm thinking civil engineering but I don't actually know what the day in the life of a civil engineer is like, maybe it's construction that I'm more interested in.
if you don't like technology enough to be working on or learning things in your downtime, it might not be for you as a career. It's weird that you went through the degree without liking it. I kinda don't know what to tell you.
Jason Lopez
Sup Forums told me that technology was the future so I jumped on the train but couldn't get into it? I thought I liked computers because I built my own PC!
Justin Cooper
i like my work, i likemy job, i like bsd and linux.... i just wont pretend to be a fanboi anymore
than and my boss is a clueless douche
Hunter Lewis
maybe just something in IT then, if you like hardware that would be a good place to start. just keep learning things on the job and move up if you care enough
Luke Carter
but then when you get into microcontrollers and circuits I lose interest... some of us weren't meant for higher education but this capitalist world forces you to have one just for namesake!
Jayden Jenkins
microcontrollers and circuits are more in the electrical engineering wheelhouse. desu you might benefit from looking into job descriptions of different positions in technology and networking, ranging from technicians to admins to analysts etc
as for higher education, tech is one of the rare fields where it isn't totally necessary. I only have some college and do pretty well in security.
