What's the absolute best and fastest way to get a programming job while in college...

What's the absolute best and fastest way to get a programming job while in college? For the sake of argument I'm talking ANY job here. I'm still in my second year but I'm 25 and I'm tired of being poor. I'm constantly hearing folks here say that actual job experience is better than learning from books and school, but most jobs I see want you to have a degree. What's the bare minimum skills and knowledge I should have to land a job?

Other urls found in this thread:

reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol/banks-scramble-to-fix-old-systems-as-it-cowboys-ride-into-sunset-idUSKBN17C0D8
thenextweb.com/finance/2017/04/10/ancient-programming-language-cobol-can-make-you-bank-literally/
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Also how important is it to be able to look at code and find the errors/problems with it? I'm working on that now

i want to sniff gab chan

Talk to career services, not us you asshole.

You mean like a headhunter? And what's wrong with asking Sup Forums you autist

what country? if you get a CSCI degree without any internships before graduation enjoy flipping burgers

>in CS for money
Just drop out now you won't make it

Lurking this thread, in the same situation as OP.

USA
Sure thing bud, because everyone in CS is making poverty level wages right?

bump

How is this even a question?

For the brainlets - it's very important to be capable of finding bugs in code.

Just apply for internships m8
It's quite literally all you can do

I've yet to find someone who's capable and earning appropriate money in CS and only doing it for the money. Why would you do something that takes up 90% of your waking life?

Learn how to use decompilers and some basic assembly and do bug bounties.
You will learn some shit and will make you a better programmer.
>inb4 too hard or devs won't pay me
Nah you just gotta learn to smooth talk and nees to get good. If you don't do it now you will never learn.

My gpa is shit though and plus my track record school wise is not great
What full time job doesn't take up a huge chunk of your life?
As in assembly language? I'm taking a course on that now if that's what you're talking about. How useful is it because I find it to be boring as fuck

if you can't get unpaid internships, why would anyone pay you to work for them

Then how does everyone else that doesn't get internships find work? There are nowhere near enough to go around for everyone

Practice leetcode and hacker rank till you can do damn near any 'easy' one and like half the mediums.

You will find that they will fuck you if you dont have practice doing them, and thats totally normally.

If you practice them for 3 hours a week till you graduate you will be ready to beat ANY interview at ANY company you would normally care for. (besides like Jane street, citadel)

But you will be fine for FB, M$, GOOG, AMZN and they all pay 140k+ starting.

Do those sites actually make you a better programmer or strictly prepare you for an interview and get your foot in the door

They will improve your ability to make algorithms. I don't personally think it has benefited me other than just forcing me to write a little more code.

But if you dont do it you will make half as much as those that do. So keep that in mind.

What's the best approach besides this and going to school? Just knocking out every programming textbook your school offers?

>What's the absolute best and fastest way to get a programming job while in college?
As an intern for some smaller company, but I hope you're not from burgerland. Because lel, then you're out of luck.

No matter what you do the leetcode stuff.

Beyond that i would prlly recommend learning android or web stuff cuz it lends well to doing projects you can list on a resume.

Another cool thing is the best companies care less about if you have a degree. So its unlikely you would ever be able to nail the interviews while also being unable to get them.

burgerland is incomparably the best place in the world for CS. Im going to get 10k/mo total comp from my internship this summer.

If i was working for M$ in ireland i would literally get half the pay, and that beats most of the EU offices.

Ez. Find a long term internship. That's what I did and have been working as an intern for basically 3 years. 1.5 years at IBM and another 1.5 years so far at a fortune 500 tech company. I'm graduating this semester and am pretty much getting a job offer. I just need to give my manager my desired salary to begin things.

Also go on cscareerquestions on reddit. Its semi depressing because you will hear about all sorts of people doing way better, but its filled with useful info.

Expect to suck dick at leetcode at the start. I learned about this shit like 2 years ago and it literally took me like 1.5 years to be able to do them alright. But i was very slow and sporadic with it.

Thats why i think you should do a VERY small amount of time a week for like 2 years. You need to complete about 100 problems to be ready, and that will probably take you like 500 hours if you are starting fresh.

I could do 100 in 100 hours now that i kinda know how to do most of them. Its a big commitment but its a straightforward way to be incredibly wealthy.

>applied to ~25 summer internships since December last year
>only had one phone screening interview so far and got rejected days later

I know my shit resume isn’t giving me any favors, but I would have expected to hear back from more than a handful of companies at this point. Not even a quarter of them have sent any sort of follow up yet.

I'm going to look into leetcode, already set up the account
What exactly do you do at IBM? I'm taking an assembly language class this semester(computer systems), and we're going to get into the language itself soon. I'm guessing that's what your doing there? It's like I said before I find it to be pretty boring but I'm hoping the actual assembly programming itself at least somewhat sparks my interest
Do I try to complete them even if I have no idea what to do? I'm still working on arrays and I'm gonna do structures pretty soon, but this is self study we're talking about. I took the programming classes like two years ago and went back to school this semester.

>took programming classes two years ago
>learning arrays
Are all burgerland unis this shit? (Apart from Ivy league)

It's not where I left off, but that's a big gap man. Truthfully though I didn't actually learn shit in those two classes and did the absolute bare minimum, whereas now I'm actually making a real effort to learn it. I could be much further along if I wanted too.

>Learning arrays

any non-technical interview tips? I do well at programming puzzles but suck shit at pretending to be normal

And what's wrong with that you a fucking faggot or something?

There is nothing to /learn/ about them...you just need to practice programming

That's what I meant by "learn." How was that not implied?

>didn't learn arrays properly
>still passed

Should I switch from HackerRank to leetcode?

What are they possibly going to ask a CS student to do with arrays that they can't

1) Eventually figure out with the book

2) Get tutoring help

3) Google

I mean come on now. Not saying it's right but they can only ask so much

Then you should have said that you are training basic alghorithmic programming...you need to mask stupidness with fancy words

What did you think it meant, that I'm reading a textbook over and over again? What do you picture in your head when someone says "I'm learning math"? That they're just staring at the same problems over and over without trying any themselves? Use some common sense

Think of programming as something similar to Legos. At the beginning, you learn with easy Duplo blocks, then you play with real Legos while following the instructions, then you make things on your own. Once you can build stuff on your own, if someone else comes and asks you to build a small house with red pieces, you can do it easily.

With programming, the basic concepts are your starting point. Variables, assignment, logic, arrays, functions, etc. These are the basic Duplos of programming, and you must learn them, and try them, and practice them over and over, and master them till you can implement ANY basic concept as easily as you brush your teeth.

Once you have completely absolutely 100% mastered the basics (the Duplos), you can start making small programs by following tutorials. By following tutorials, the chances of you making a mistake are zero, and you will learn how to make (somewhat) complex programs using the building blocks. This is building Legos while following the manual. Do this about a 100 times, and then you will find it easy to modify an existing program to suite your taste, or to make your own program without a tutorial.

And then you are a programmer.

Build a network you anti social fuck. Ive had 8 jobs and only one of them ive gotten without using connections friends or family friends. If you're still in school apply via co op if you live in Ontario the feds offer phat subsides to the company but im sure their are other things you can access depending on where you are. Work hard and expand your network more, friends and connections are arguably more important then education. You wouldn't believe the shit heads that'll get employed just by knowing people (ex. Frat boys). It rough out their but keep your head up, be nice to pepole and dont get frustrated or sad.

>What's the absolute best and fastest way to get a programming job
offer boi pucci in return for job

Does your cover letter talk about your hobby shit?

>don't be white hetero male
>don't be azn hetero male
>get job at google

This is basically the kind of advice I was looking for, thanks user

I am trying to put together a list of the all common concepts that are found in the majority of languages. This is what I have so far.

Do not take this as gospel, as I am still to get feedback, but you can start here. Each and every single item in this image must be as easy as ABC to you.

...except for maybe exception handling. That can wait.

too bad you didn't read this dick's thread yesterday

You can still read it. Sup Forums keeps threads for 30 days, no?

Testing:

Your degree is CS or related, right?
Just apply for some internships (don't touch unpaid shit, though), you're almost sure to get one. After a year or so, getting a junior position should be easy (and you're very likely to be offered one from the internship), and then once you have 2 years of experience, you can go for mid level jobs.
t. got 3 years of experience during a 5 year degree (BSc + MSc).

Sweet! For anyone who wants to see some programming humour, some interviewing stories, and for those who asked to hear more of my 2-year hiring tale:

If you missed it yesterday, it might be worth a read.

Giving it a read now, looks interesting at the least
It's like i said before, I seriously doubt I'll get able to get one. I went back to school on a dismissal and my track record as a whole is shit. I'd probably have to pull straight As from here out and even then they'd probably fuck me somehow. That said I should graduate with an AS next spring and I am planning to apply depending on where I transfer, but if I could walk into an interview ready to land a job right then and there while going to school for a BS part time that'd be far more ideal.

Do companies instantly disqualify PhD holders applying for an entry level position?

Generally yes, they are worried you'll find something better and fuck off.

Do what i did to find a job in china. Write a good motivational letter, create a decent CV and send thousands of e-mail to every single IT company in ur neighborhood /work agency/IT facebook groups. statistic syas that 10% of them will hire u ;)

Nothing about hobbies. Just coursework and projects.

bump

My approach in college was like so:

Near the end of freshman year I realized I couldn't move back in with my parents without losing my mind, so I applied to a small startup in another state with maybe 6-10 employees. I slightly exaggerated my abilities on my resume, wrote a cover letter about how much my dorm liked playing the game they produced, and they called me back and gave me a coding task to complete over the weekend. I stayed up for 72 hours learning and programming until it was done.

Sophomore year I realized my school had career fairs. If your school doesn't have them then find a school near you that does. I talked to a bunch of companies and a mid-sized research company took an interest in me. First all-day tech interview I ever had. At this point I was more honest about what I did and didn't know. Ended up getting that job.

Junior year I followed a similar path, ended up at a large tech company. The beginning of senior year a "top" company (Google/MS/Apple/Amazon) reached out to me in October (2010) and I had a job offer by November. Failed two classes that year cuz I basically checked out but still managed to graduate on time so it had no consequence.

So depending on where you are in college, start with internships wherever, build up from there.

again

My college had a career center and freshman year I had them review my resume every day for a week as I updated it before I applied to that internship. Make use of that because you don't want to exhaust your friends. I had them review my resume once a year for the next couple years but by senior year I no longer needed them.

Hobbies if you lack professional experience are important.

Shows you can do things bigger than the toys school gives you.

What about algorithm knowledge? I was told by Sup Forums that I have to work my way through Introduction to Algorithms to get even an entry level job and after a few failed interviews I'm starting to think it's true. It doesn't help that I have CS degree.

Ment for

Seems like the europoor memes were right, I get like 9k/year on my full time software engineer job.

Where the hell do you live? Everytime I hear how shitty the pay is in Europe the more I think you faggots need a literal revolt

Programming takes up a lot more of your life than other jobs, typically. It wasn't always that way, but competition has driven me and all of my coworkers to work nearly incessantly. It sucks because I basically have no time to relax after work. I just cook and sleep.

You know you could quit at any time you please right? No one's forcing you to work a job you hate

Yeah I like to program, but only by myself. I don't like working as a programmer so I quit because I have enough cash to live for a few years without working. I'm gonna try to do some indie work, but what other jobs are there besides programming?

Gay for pay

If I have a big cock and can cum multiple times easily, how much do you think could I make jerking off on camera? How would I even start doing that?

Do anything that helps you be able to do most of them easy and mediums. Its fine to cheat and look at the answer if you think really hard about why it works and understand it.

The reason its ok to cheat is because you can learn how to do it without being able to articulate it. Which is why math classes have people drill problems instead of understanding concepts.

25 apps is way too few. I applied to 200 this season. Got like 4 interviews, and got lucky and got 4 offers.

so like 1/50 response rate.

remember like everything else in life you can be slow and steady and eventually it will work out. Or you can be fast by being really smart or really hard working or getting really lucky.

Dont underestimate the effectiveness of being slow.

You dont need to know anything beyond arrays and linked lists for most jobs. But average jobs have retarded job requirements.

I literally cant get interviews at average places like johndeer and northrup or garmin(totally fine places to work at that pay like 75k)

But i can get them at places like M$, trading companies etc because they have smarter people doing the HR.

Please learn algorithms because it will make your life easier and your pay higher, but if you fucking hate it and it makes you want to die you absolutely do not need it.

What about government jobs? Anyone here know anything about getting your start there?

People who do CS for the money and treat it like a vocational degree are pure cancer to the field and society at large.

That's retarded plenty of people cultivate a love for something they are forced to do. I largely do it for money and I probably make you look like a stupid lazy bitch in comparison.

CS is hard but its not anything like a real science when it comes to 99% of applications. Its the carpentry of engineering.

I did CS for fun and I like to program. I program for money now because I need to survive and prefer to live more comfortably doing that than manual labor or something. If I no longer needed income, I would still program.

The fact you think that proves you have no idea what CS is and your university ripped you off.
See?

I hate this society
this modern world
It's ruined CS, people think cs and programming are equivalent

So many CS degrees adopt lax standards just to push people through
I hate that the CS degree is becoming the new communications or business degree and just seems to prepare you for a life of slave labor . It's so sad. Why has God forsaken my field ?

You think everyone should work for free? Move to a communist shithole then. Give me a fucking break here

My man, CS wouldn't even exist without the modern world. Eventually we'll be in a post-scarcity star-trek-like utopia, but we're not there yet so we still gotta work.

The study of English doesn't mean copywriting, but if I had an English degree I'd probably do whatever made money with that degree because I'd need to fucking eat. What should I do otherwise? Study a field and then not get any job at all? What do you suggest I do instead?

Well what do you make like 75/hr to program?

I'm hired to make shit work and solve some problems that are assigned to me "Make this thing that tests our USB device protocol" and some things that are more abstract "Make this make us more money, do whatever the fuck".

Most people are only hired for the:
"Make this thing that tests our USB device protocol"

But the thing is that sometimes that skill is more valuable to society than abstract ability is anyways.

Also you probably suck at CS theory anyways so why are you bitching. Want to write me a proof by induction that you can reverse a string by appending its characters to itself backwards? Maybe you can but its gonna wonderfully highlight how retarded CS theory is for most wordly ventures.

He is one of these group of autists in CS that think they are very smart (maybe he is) but cant actually do anything useful for the world.

They cry about how dumb webdevs make 200k and say its a sign that the world is awful.

I want to live in a world where there is so much wealth that mcdonalds employees are able to get 50k a year without the use of government force. I dont want to live in a world were only the smartest are able to contribute.

If you cant get paid for your skillset it means its not a skillset. Money is great fuck people who dont think so.

It's tough. I'm the same age and just got a programmer job last year, feel free to AMA but here is my advice: network as much as possible while in school. I know it's annoying but at the very least build a good Linkedin profile and a very robust resume, NOT just a copy/paste shit one off Google. When you're on Linkedin look for recruiters and connect with them. They advertise lots of jobs that may not be on a company website. Also upload your resume on the Linkedin in a PDF so that if and when people click on your profile they can quickly look at it if they want.

Here's another tip. Jobs you find searching are almost ALWAYS jobs that people don't actually want. That is why it's good to apply to every company no matter what because you may get picked up for a job that wasn't advertised. Tons of internal jobs at companies.

Final tip. Learn rare and uncommon skills, especially programming languages. If you start applying for Java Developer or Python Developer or some other popular meme language, you are competing with literally millions of Indians and others in college. Learn rare languages so that when you apply you'll be competing with way less people.

>Rare languages
Such as what?

They prepare you for the interview. Rarely will you need to actually solve algorithmic puzzles on a daily basis, maybe now and then, but not as often as hackerrank/leetcode/whatever lead you to believe.

COBOL is one. Tons of people retiring in it, and almost no one young studies it.

reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol/banks-scramble-to-fix-old-systems-as-it-cowboys-ride-into-sunset-idUSKBN17C0D8

It's the job I hold, programming on a mainframe. I also do Java as well though and various other tasks (some SQL, some C).

A lot of older tech is here to say but people want to chase bleeding edge shit only to compete with a billion Indians.

That's what I figured you were doing when you said IBM. My professor said the exact same thing you're saying now. I'm taking this class this semester btw. I'm guessing you've done master the mainframe? I haven't started it yet but I'm going to soon. I may do it on my own this coming week just to see if I'm into it. Any advice? He also said once you've done all of the master the mainframe challenges you're ready for a job, is that true?

ALGOL

Also what's your salary and how's the job itself? Is it actually fun/interesting?

I did do it yes. It doesn't really prepare you as it will entirely depend on the company/client and the code base you're working with. It's a good intro, but a job is much different.

It will definitely teach the basics but it takes weeks/months to learn as a new developer. At my company on the mainframe we have literally 1000s of programs all doing different shit.

Having said this though, it does get easier. Lots of programs are "clones" of each other all doing slightly different shit (mainly automation). So really, it's all design patterns. After like 6 months I got way better at it all.

But it's a lot to learn regardless. COBOL is a really easy language anyway, takes like a month to learn. The hardest part is learning all the commands and learning all the applications on the front end side and how it all relates to the backend COBOL code, that's the real learning curve.

I'm fairly underpaid only 50K/year right now but I don't even have a year in. My cost of living in my city is really low (Canada). To put into perspective, the average combined household income is like 60-70K in my city.. so I'm making well over 50% the average income owner on my salary. I'm pretty sure I'm underpaid as far the industry, but it's more than enough for my living conditions basically. My old jobs I made only 15K/year and worked WAY harder (service sector, retail, etc.. absolute hell).

It doesn't bother me much though. Is it fun/interesting? It's very tolerable. I really don't work that much. Most of my work consists of making small code changes, testing the changes and filling out a lot of software documentation. Other work is maintenance coding. I think it's fun to learn and see your results as you go. If you like programming at all, it's relatively enjoyable. I don't dread going to work, it's borderline NEET in most ways. I spend a good 60% of my day reading manga or browsing on my computer, it's very laid back.

It's also night that the company is cross-training me on front end development so I actually get some Java experience along with all the mainframe shit. It's a very good mix and the job security is extremely high which I value a lot.

Also on a final note my old jobs I made only 15K/year and worked WAY harder (service sector, retail, etc.. absolute hell). I did this for like 7 years before getting my programming job and was able to pay all my college off this way but it was absolutely suffering.

>It's also night

I meant to say "it's also nice" that my company is cross training me on other applications/languages.

I appreciate the perspective. I do have a book I downloaded for COBOL just in case I like the mainframe shit and want to pursue it. I like the idea of having a fall back plan if I can't land a job I want or might interest me, and it does sound pretty comfy. How did the process work out for you? Did you complete master the mainframe and get the job, or did you get it before that?

>I applied to 200 this season. Got like 4 interviews, and got lucky and got 4 offers.
Jesus fucking christ. I'll try to follow your advice user, but how did you manage to churn that many cover letters?

whats a good source to learn COBOL?

I completed it in my last year of school and threw COBOL on my resume. The company picked me out of like 75 resumes who didn't have COBOL but had similar competences (Java, Python, C++ and "Projects" of varying degrees). But the COBOL and having Master the Mainframe really interested them because all of their devs are retiring in the next few years and they literally couldn't find anyone. They also didn't want to hire an Indian because they got tired of dealing with odd business hours (they only hire Indians who are willing to work evenings because of the fucked up hours).. and it doesn't play in well with mainframe stuff that is very timing specific for when programs run and what not.

Most of the COBOL books are shit unfortunately, since it's a "dead language" despite making up like 40% of existing computer code in the world. It's still very common and will most likely make a rebound in 10-15 years because it's too damn expensive to just start replacing 30-40 year old programs that are working fine. (Fuck tons of testing to start changing shit around, companies DO NOT want to spend the money doing it trust me).

If you can find it, Murach's Mainframe COBOL is a good one (I bought a copy for $15 or so).

The next best and most recent is
Beginning COBOL for Programmers which is like 2014. I believe a PDF exists for it out there somewhere (I found mine on another imageboard, not Sup Forums).

Sadly, not much is out there. Check out the books in my post here: The book from 2014 that I mentioned is probably the best most up to date one if you can find the PDF out there for it, very good intro. Otherwise you can just read IBM documentation and try learning the basics that way, or if you can take a course on COBOL through a school somehow that carries a decent amount of weight.

Also heres another good article talking about COBOL job demand in the next decade or so:

thenextweb.com/finance/2017/04/10/ancient-programming-language-cobol-can-make-you-bank-literally/

The book you mention is the exact same one I have(the 2014 one) and I'm gonna look for the Mainframe one later tonight. I have a free online book that was given out for my class. It's from 2015 and I'm going to take a crack at the first two chaps. Thanks user

are you willing to share any of these pdfs

I could never find one for the Murach's mainframe book but the 2014 one is out there, just do a search for it with PDF and you should find a copy uploaded on some site or a download link. It's pretty common compared to the rest it seems.