My degree was not in Computer Science, but in my work as an Mechanical Engineer I was using a lot of coding. After demonstrating enough competence, I was allowed to switch job classifications to become a software engineer.
As a Mechanical Engineer I realized how important the basic science classes like Statics, Dynamics, & Thermodynamics were to me. As part of my transition I went back and picked-up several of the undergrad and grad level "science" classes in Computer Science. The science classes lay a very strong foundation and stretch your brain (in sometimes painful ways that is hard to make yourself do on your own). Make sure you work hard at the classes that teach core concepts like recursion, proofs and computability, etc. because this is the stuff that is hard for many people to really master on there own. Also realize that your past experience can be a great strength, even if it seems to be unrelated. The young guys don't have that past experience. Realize that different programming language communities have different strengths. The Java (and other JVM languages) community is my favorite by far. I love it for the freedom of idea exchange and the sense of pulling together to create something larger. However, there are other views that may be valuable to your career. While I personally avoid Microsoft tools and platforms as much as possible due to my past experience, the .Net community has resources and a culture that are much more focused on making money. If you have any entrepreneurial tendencies in you I Highly recommend listening to the StartupsForTheRestOfUs podcast to learn more about small startups. If you want to learn more about the top end of the business I recommend listening to the Stanford ECorner series of podcasts. The way I look at it, is to try to find the best of each culture and bring them together. It is very important to also learn who you are, how you like to work, what kinds of people do you like to work with. Are you a pioneer, or settler? Do you like to take huge risks that are very likely to fail, or do you feel better working on incremental improvement or application of industry standards. Are you an Artist or Practitioner? Artists will do their job just for the "Beauty" of the solution, but can easily get distracted from the greater purpose, which can cause business problems. Or do you tend to be a practitioner that finds satisfaction in doing what you have done before, but doing it very well and efficiently. Or......... There are lots of ways to look at it, but just figure out who you are and what kind of job you want. If you get the personal fit right and you like the people that you work with your are going to put more energy into your job and do better in the long run. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
