Regardless of what formal education you get, our field changes so fast that every five years you will have to retrain yourself for whatever is new.
That being said, I think if you are going to get a degree, you should focus on the basics - things like theory that won't change in five years. Teaching languages (Java is still the current favorite I think) change at regular intervals, but the basics of designing good programs are more enduring. Understanding the difference between procedural, object and functional programming is of fundamental importance. -- Walt On 11/03/2015 12:00 PM, Kevin Jensen wrote: > I don't want to oversell myself, so to clarify, I've worked for 10 years as > a pharmacy technician and did freelance on the side for 7 years. Businesses > in Price are a hard sell on a website (they stick with more traditional > marketing). So I've worked with a handful of clients, but with coal on the > decline lots of people are leaving the area and businesses are closing. > > My main goals are to do front- and/or back-end development with the option > to move into management. I guess I should have included all that in my > initial email. :) > > On Tue, Nov 3, 2015, 11:10 AM Chuck Crandall <[email protected]> wrote: > >> My 2 cents... After 7 years of freelance much of what a university has to >> offer will be old news to you. Consider creating your own educational path >> that builds on what you already know, rather than starting from scratch. I >> would recommend specializing your training to make you more marketable in >> the global workforce. I can tell you that experienced Drupal developers >> are currently finding work regardless of where they live. And I imagine >> the same goes for other specialized skills, like WordPress development, >> Symphony, Mongo, etc. >> >> Not that "classical training" is a bad thing. I have a BS in computer >> engineering from BYU, and that was the right choice for me. But I was >> starting from ground zero, had never written a line of code in my life. >> With so many options for online learning now, I wouldn't feel obligated to >> drop everything and dedicate yourself to getting a degree full time. >> >> >> >> Chuck Crandall >> Unicon, Inc. >> >> >> On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:44 AM, Steve Meyers <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> On 11/03/2015 09:53 AM, Derek Caswell wrote: >>>> I do agree with Andrew on a lot his points about "classically trained" >>>> developers but I still think there is a lot of value in the education >>>> process and the skills that it gives you in critical thinking. My >>>> recommendation to most people is to get the degree but don't think that >>> the >>>> degree is going to get you a great high-paying job. You need to figure >>> out >>>> ASAP what you want to do like programming, administration, etc. and >> then >>>> get as much real world experience in that as you can get while getting >>> the >>>> degree. That experience is what is going to shape you into a valuable >>> >>> It's definitely best to have a "real job" while going to school. When >>> hiring kids fresh out of college, I always favored the ones who had >>> decent programming jobs already. There's benefit to both real world >>> experience and "classical training". >>> >>> Steve >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> >>> UPHPU mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu >>> IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> UPHPU mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu >> IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net >> > > _______________________________________________ > > UPHPU mailing list > [email protected] > http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu > IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net > _______________________________________________ UPHPU mailing list [email protected] http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net
