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What Skills Should Undergrads Have?
kramed8 writes "As a student myself, after reading the recent 'Slam' article on Java I really began to be concerned with the path of my education. I am currently attending a small Canadian University as a 3rd year Computer Science and Business student set to graduate next year. What seems to have troubled me from reading the article and user comments is that I do not feel as confident as I want to be in C, ASM and other related low-level programming topics. I was taught C++ in my introductory courses, with subsequent classes using C# or Java. My education has not been particularly difficult or time consuming to get good grades, so I have spent my free time dabbling in topics and languages that interest me (ie Multiple GUI Toolkits, Python, Linux). How can I spend my free time in the next year to prepare to enter the work place with a proper toolbox of skills? From what I have been told, there are more jobs for Java and Data Warehouse development teams compared to lower-level programmers. As an undergrad, what skills should I be trying to attain now to further my employability in the future?"
Parties and Women right? Oh.. forgot this was /.
You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever.
People skills should not be overlooked. It is important you be able to get people to like you.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Other than that, the only skills you need are
The hard part: once you learn a thing or three, you need to go back and do #1 and 2 again. Forever.
Yeah, right.
Practice saying "Would you like fries with that"
I wish you the best of luck but unfortunately you're going to see a lot of really good answers and they're all going to be right. Personally I would do whatever I like to do but become more robust with it. Knowing six languages on a beginners level isn't as good as knowing one ot two in-depth.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
You will likely get both good and bad opinions in response to this question here on slashdot, but my best advice would be to ask this question of employers that you might be interested in working for.
First s learning personal finances will give you an edge on nearly every other student graduating. Know how to balance your finances, plan, budget, etc.
Second is confidence. Confidence in the skills you do have an ability to gain new ones. Have confidence in interviews especially. Confidence enough to demand more sometimes, too. Confidence directly addresses your questions of how to make yourself more employable.
The skills you need and success in life should follow those two. Actual skills programming have less to do with you getting employed than you may think.
Spelling, grammar, basic math, an understanding of economics, and a knowledge of the outside world.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Learn how the hardware works. The concept of code portability is limited. Compilers on diferent architectures do not always convert intergers, floats and strings the same way. Also memory structure can bite you real hard.
The more you know about what is under the hood, the more likely you are to craft code that is actually portable and that will be useful for more than just one generation of processors.
To increase your marketability, take as many business/mgmt classes as possible. Also, get a part time job or internship so you can network. Knowing things besides how to code (and building a good network) will likely be the most important factors in you getting a job.
Yes there are alot of those jobs, but many of them will take a skilled programmer of any kind even if they do not have the specific experience in the toolset. With that being said, i believe it is more important to focus on some aspect that you really enjoy more than what you think will make money, especially out of college the better programmers are the ones who did it because they enjoyed it not because they are tailoring their skill set to a particular part of the nerd market.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
For what it's worth my relevant advice to somebody planning to migrate from student to employee status would be: With great compensation comes great responsibility. (to paraphrase Spiderman, Pres. Kennedy & Pres. Lincoln) In my experience the biggest disconnect between an employer and a fresh out of school developer is that they expect high compensation but often aren't open to taking what an employer bundles with that (ownership, initiative, responsibility, etc). As far as specific topical areas? I think that depends on what kind of developer you want to be. Opportunities seem to exist no matter which environments you choose to familiarize your self with; as long as you have the theory down and aren't looking for a joy ride, you'll can make your way along a variety of paths.
C is definitely a starting point - you need not concentrate on ASM (since C is effectively macro assembler), but get used to memory management and handling basic structures. The functional flow and practices that you learn through requirement in C becomes hugely relevant in higher level languages.
Also, linux or some type of posix-based system. C and Linux go together nicely, and most things for linux are written in C. Get out of the IDE environments as well - they're good tools, but they're tools that should be used after you're comfortable elsewhere. I suggest learning and using vim.
Few people these days in an engineering organization have a good understanding of filesystems and underlying technologies. Someone capable of identifying and handling performance issues in applications are highly valued. Linux and C will force you to learn these things. Do GPL work, join some linux kernel lists - even watching these lists for purely curiosity reasons gives you an excellent method of peer review and gives you a good understanding of how development SHOULD work in an organization, even though it doesn't often happen that way.
.
is experience. Look for a job doing something in the field, do your job well, and get a letter of recommendation.
The article yesterday I think was more aimed at people who don't understand that basics of whats going on behind the scenes. For example, its expensive to convert between formats of numbers (int->double etc), or how to use bitmasks/shift bits.
If you can afford the 'free time' see if you can apply for any internships at different large companies. Or see if a smaller one would take the chance with you interning with them. The price is right for them, and you get to tail someone who's more experienced in the field.
You can also look up some open source projects that need assistance (there are many of them that do) and see where you can help on them. Open source projects are a great way to get experience and critiquing your own skills.
You can also learn these three words:
"Hello. Geek Squad."
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
If you want to be a software developer, and don't particularly care in which language, it would be a good idea to do a project in your spare time, in one of the main languages (C++/java/C#) used. Java seems to have the most jobs available, of couurse, that may vary in your area. The thing you need to be getting out of your education is understanding the basics, that transcend all languages. Rhe difference between C++, java, and C# are made to be a bigger deal than they really are. You should be able to program in any of these without to much effort. I think the best advice is to be smart, and take what you read here on /. with a grain of salt, as people here tend to overreact to almost everything.
You're really going to have to teach yourself. Remember the college only prepares you with the basics. If you want to really impress your potential future employers you really need to know the stuff cold. You can't expect some over-paid college prof regurgitating text from a book to properly teach you anything. Join a group, network and get ideas from other people.
While I think you have a brighter future than "Want fries with that" option, the above poster did get one thing right.
What do you *like* to do?
I could not stand to write program code all day long, as it would drive me insane, BUT - for whatever reason, I don't mind writing in php and working with web-based programs. I know there are others that feel just the opposite. So, while you will see plenty of good answers on 'you have to know ' and they will be right, cull it down to what leads you into a career you can enjoy.
I earn pretty decent coin now, but have earned better in past. I just loathed the job. And since this is personal view - As long as you can learn quickly, and don't mind doing good quality work, there will be a job for you somewhere.
One of the biggest things I see when hiring college grads is that while they understand how a computer works, why languages behave the way they do, and what a certain language syntax is, they have very little knowledge of how to actually build applications from initial concept to full delivery. This type of knowledge generally falls into the "Software Engineering" category. Learn how to write and read requirements. Learn how to do formal estimates from requirements. Learn about different software development life cycles. Learn about requirements traceability and testing. Learn about software patterns. A lot of these topics are covered in Masters degrees in Software Engineering, so those are good places to look at for books on it. Here is an example, you can look at the classes to find the books used http://www.cti.depaul.edu/academics/Pages/MSinSoftwareEngineering.aspx
It depends on what type of job you want, and how good you want to be. Really, it does, and the answer is not simple.
I really feel it is best to concentrate in core subjects during college. It is trite, but nobody cares if you know high level language X, be it Java, Python, Ruby, etc. This will change. Knowing how to program, that is a skill that will never go out of date.
I do most of my programming in a very scientific environment, which requires MATLAB for "quick and dirty" computations, but I have also written elaborate C programs when needed for speed (up to 15 times as fast as interpreted MATLAB code despite the claims of optimizations.)
If I were you, I would learn C in and out, through and through. It will guarantee you skills that you will use for the rest of your life, and you will never be an idiot. The way to best do this is to write moderate sized programs in C. I would take as many high level courses in the college environment as possible, preferably one on Operating Systems, which are some of the most complex programming environments and concepts that you will be exposed to. If you are truly into CS theory, then high level mathematics courses are favorable.
What to program, you ask? Why, the standard lot. Here are some of the coding projects we were given in college.
Hello, World (just kidding.)
The game of life.
The game of animals (teaching navigation of link lists, etc.)
Make a program that plays Connect 4 against you. (basic algorithmic concepts, basic "AI")
Make the above program graphical, for fun (GUI / display concepts).
Write a program that implements the Zip algorithm (Huffman encoding -- not as hard as you'd think.)
If these are too basic for you in C, then I'd try to understand a bit of the linux kernel, or get involved in an open source project. Good luck!
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
If you really want to be a good developer, you have to be able to learn how real people work and how to run a project. That's tough - I'm not sure if anyplace has classes on this. But - everything you write fits into a workflow of some sort, and if you can understand the context in which your stuff runs your software will be better for it.
Project Management is almost a must, esp. since you're in the business program too. Projects that come in on time are better than ones where you have to do a "death march" to the end. They make everyone happier, and makes everyone look good. A good PM is usually the difference between 4 80 hour weeks at the end of a project that fails and a nice, 9-6 project that cruises to delivery.
I live in a place where the computer industry is doing well, and programmers seem to be in high demand, admittedly. But I'm also a Jr. in CS right now, and here's what I've observed so far between my own job experience and those of my other friends in school: Find something you enjoy and do it well. One of my friends got into ASP and C# real heavy, and is now the lead dev of a team working on his university's intranet. I'm very detail oriented, and got a job documenting an undocumented system, for which now I'm pretty much the sole dev type person around here, and I don't think they would dare to fire me, even though my school schedule's a pain in the butt. The point is, there is such a plethora of work available, you won't know ahead of time what you need. You just need to get all the experience in _something_ that you can. You'll find a way to use it, somewhere, sometime. If you learn it, they [jobs] will come? Good luck!
You will, throughout your CS courses and professional/hobby work find out what you really like and you should gravitate towards that. If you are really skilled, then you should be able to pick up what you need to succeed.
That being said, here are the skills I think you should pick up. My only qualifications is that 2.5 years outside of undergrad I am earning $70k+ a year AFTER taxes and have had professional experience on 3 continents(Europe, NA and Asia). Here is the list in no particular order:
1. Pick up a 2nd major. Now of course there are "useful" majors such as science or business, and if that stuff interests you, great, but pick something outside of CS/IT that you REALLY enjoy and go for that. Even if it is film studies. For one, how many chances will you have after college to sit around a bar/coffee shop and discuss whether or not the feds in E.T. represent America's increasing xenophobia after being rattled by Japan in the first real post-war challenge to the US economy?
Secondly, having a 2nd major will catch the attention of recruiters who have to sift through piles of resumes that look the same and can really give you something to talk about at the start of your interview and allow you a pretty good segue into your tech qualifications.
Finally, a second major will allow you to look at problems from a different perspective and help your critical thinking skills, which are in much shorter supply in the IT industry than Java or Python coding experience IMO.
2. Learn another language. Again, there are "useful" languages such as Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Portugese etc., but if you are only learning a language for the money and not because you are interested in the people and culture, you are almost guaranteed to never become fluent. Even languages such as German can help you on the job. If you are working for a company and you and a rival company submit similar proposals for a German contract, and your documentation is in German and theirs English, who do you think is going to win? Plus, from my experience abroad, there is no better way to break the ice with someone in another country than to speak their language. I got a Software Engineering job offer in Connecticut with a small company totally based in Connecticut partially because of my Japanese language skills. The company has to go through a 3rd party to sell their software products in Japan, and they could have really used someone with both a knowledge of the technical side as well as the linguistic side to aid the translators and to double check their work.
3. Study/work abroad. (Shameless plug alert):I found an internship working at an R&D Lab in Japan by working with a group called IAESTE that finds and exchanges internships all around the world. I had to do a lot of work too, for instance I hosted our first intern from Argentina. But after work, there is a lot of drinking! Nothing more fun than a room full of drunk college students from the world over! The internship itself was an amazing experience in terms of both the technical and cultural aspects inside and outside the office. Not to mention I instantly stood out among my peers when it came time for job interviews. It also helped me land the job I have today, working as a software engineer in Germany. Oh yeah, and tons of fun and drinking, cannot stress that enough!
4. Related to the above: work an internship, at home and/or abroad. I also worked in a steel mill writing software, which was a unique experience in itself.
Above all, don't worry about individual technologies. Stay abreast of the news and don't be afraid to dive into something new every few years at the minimum. Oh, and its college, have fun! You have the rest of your life to work your ass off, and you should still work your ass off in college, but the nice thing about college is that for most students, they are young enough to work their asses off AND still have enough energy to go out and party.
Monstar L
I work with Indians all the time in my line of work, and the one thing they are all in agreement about is that their universities are not as good as ours. They simply don't have the education to compete with us, and if they are American-educated, they typically stay in America. The jobs they are getting are basically the equivalent of junior programmer positions, where they're told which module to write and they write it; or lousy maintenance jobs. There will always be a demand for developers who understand other lines of business (e.g., finance, health care, etc.), can work well with people, and have good analytical skills (for analysis, design, etc.).
Which brings me to my suggestion: learn about other lines of business, because most likely you'll be writing software with actual business users. If you limit yourself to only jobs writing software libraries, you might not have as many options.
Many real world applications need databases. Almost all web applications do.
Learn some SQL. I've never seen a programmer job where Databases skills were a negative.
"Sometimes it's hard to tell the dancer from the dance." --Corwin Of Amber in CoC
The number 1 most important skill if you want to have a decent career in IT that won't disappear to South America or India is to be able to speak to business people about IT concepts in their own language. The standard of communication in IT is woeful with the US (IMO) being towards the bottom of the league in terms of the number of IT people who can speak to business people in a way that makes sense to their audience.
The number 2 thing is the theory. Most new technology trends boil down to new applications of well understood theories. If you understand about distributed computing then you know the problem domain and just have to learn the detail of Web Services/REST/CORBA/.NET etc, if you don't know the theory you are stuffed.
Communication and Theory matter. The programming languages don't. After graduating from a good university that gave me that base I went to one interview and said "yes I know C", one week later I had to do a programming test... I had to learn C in that week and still came top out of the interviewees. That was the theory helping. Today however I find more and more that its the communication part that is important both in communicating with the business and explaining the theory to those who don't understanding it within IT.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
They dig knowing how to carry a conversation and how to make eye contact (i.e., not staring at their breasts) a whole lot more.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Take as many development internships as possible. It doesn't matter how little the pay you. Take them. It's job experience that you can start out with that a hiring manager will look at your resume and go "ah, this guy isn't just a worthless, theory-ladden undergrad."
You'll learn a lot of skills that way, and you might get paid to do it. Chances are, you'll learn a lot of basic skills that are applicable to your job market.
This is the advice that I always give to people who are going to be graduating. Look at the skills that employers want where you plan to live. It doesn't matter whether you can code the best embedded systems in C and ASM on Earth, if there are no jobs for that where you want to live. If you want to get skills that aren't purely work-related, then study just what interests you.
Where I live, Northern Virginia, the job market is primarily for Java developers. I don't waste my time learning languages like C++ on the grounds that someday I might need to learn them, when I can quickly pick up the basics when I need to use them at work. I keep up to date on Java for work, and learn Perl and stuff like that for my own enjoyment.
A developer that can sit down and talk to a prospective client about their business needs is going to provide a lot more value to their employer in most cases than one who needs someone else to build up the requirements set. I know some very gifted developers who have learned how to really talk to clients, and the pay difference is amazing. We're talking like they're getting paid salaries that'd make you think the dotcom bubble never burst. Why? They're one employee who can do the work of a developer and a business analyst. They can discover the needs, write them up in a way their team can understand, and then work with their team to execute them. Much cheaper than having two employees for the company, who is more than happy to pay bigger bucks to the developer.
He's right that most graduating students don't know how to budget, plan, save for their toys or balance their checkbook. Learn these BEFORE graduating and practice every month. Keep in mind that budgeting doesn't mean denying yourself. It means making sure that you CAN have the toys/fun you want while staying warm, dry and well fed.
Second is confidence. Be confident that you know what you know. But also keep the willingness to acknowledge what you don't know and then learn it. The phrase "I don't know" is rarely spoken by computer professionals. The phrase "show me how" is even rarer. Keep both handy and you'll be regarded as someone who knows a lot but doesn't seem arrogant. Try not to feel threatened by someone who seems to know more. If they do know more, learn from them. If they really don't know more, others will figure it out around the same time you do.
The only other thing I can suggest in general is to take ownership of your own career. Don't expect your employer to train you or keep your skills fresh and new. That's your job. Also, keep asking yourself "what are you doing this year that warrants a raise from your employer?". If you don't want to pay your cable company more this year for the same service you got last year, your employer feels the same about their developers and administrators. Upgrade the services you provide, then ask for a raise knowing you deserve it.
And lastly, HAVE SOME FUN! LIFE IS TOO SHORT NOT TO.
Hope this helps...
Ididn'tdoitnobodysawmedoityoucan'tproveanything!
Often the biggest skill lacking in technical people is they cannot write very well.
I've seen some really bad reports written by fairly good technical people.
Spending several semesters taking writing courses is a much better investment than learning a new language (which you should be able to do on your own and which will happen during your career).
Being able to explain things clearly on paper will put you in an important position in any development group and will lead to the most career growth.
Computer Science is a very general field with many specific applications of that knowledge. The skills needed to excel in one instance might be completely wrong for another instance. You should really evaluate what area you want to work in and learn the skills needed in that area.
Games programming? C/C++, understanding of 3D space, understanding of low level hardware (consoles), etc.
Embedded programming? Tuning, tuning, tuning, and some C/C++
Business Apps? Database skills (Oracle or SQL Server would be my first stops, DB2 a close 3rd), Java or
etc.
The other skills you need you can't learn from a book. You need to learn to integrate with a team. You need to learn how to write a good design spec (and not for a semester long "project", but for a real application that takes upwards of a year to work on). You need to learn to accurately estimate. etc. To learn these, I recommend that you find a very good mentor at your first place of employment and absorb from them.
Layne
Learning skills that apply all over, and get expressed as 'targetted' skills, is worth much more over time. The ability to read, write, speak, manage time, and finally, learn and adapt...
The important thing is that you have learned programming initially or at the very least, been taught the fundamentals of some language like C or C++ which will let you understand how things like memory allocation works and how pointers work. If you understand those concepts you will be good. You don't need to be proficient in ASM, but understanding the concepts is important, you should learn that type of thing in an Operating Systems structure class though. Once you have learned the fundamentals of C or C++, I would say to do everything else in an easier language like java or C#, because you shouldn't spend your time focusing on your memory allocation and such when you are just trying to understand the structure of a redblack tree.
How to find folks to interview? Networking. Work your contacts. Good sources include friends of your parents, your friends' parents or their friends, people your professors might know, etc. Or, find local events or societies or clubs that attract folks from your target industry. Or just call up companies you admire. This aspect of the information interview is great training for later in life, when you really want to get a job.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Its amazing what sort of monstrosities can develop when a programmer at my company attempts to set something up and then calls me for help when it "just won't work". I'm not saying you need to know how to completely configure a cisco router with advanced features, but understanding general concepts like ip addresses, host and network portions of an address and how that relates to the subnet mask as well as the basic principal behind how a packet gets from point A to point B would do wonders.
ISBN-10: 1590593898
Could recommend this book more highly to an up and coming programmer.
This is the first book that we ask our interns to read.
The second book (for those pursuing management positions) is
"Leadership and Self-Deception"
ISBN-10: 1576751740
Let's see:
1. You recognise that there are serious gaps in your experience and understanding.
2. You are clearly motivated to do something about it.
3. But you also recognise that your inexperience means that you're not entirely sure which gaps you should be plugging first.
This puts you way ahead of a lot of computer "scientists" who are still in university.
Please, please, please do the entire industry a favour and work to maintain that passion. People who've lost their passion,who don't really care as long as the next paycheque comes in seldom make top class IT professionals, and frankly are ten a penny.
As someone who graduated college only a few years ago (2004) and as someone who has a career in the software industry and as someone who is responsible for hiring delevopers, let me offer you the following:
1) I don't believe in CS programs. I feel that they fail to prepare students for the real world. Engineering is one of the few educations which should provide students with pratical experience that prepares the student for 'the real world'. You have learned a lot of therory. In my experience good grades has no corrilation to good developers.
2) College, in general, is important for 'nerds, geeks, engineers, etc'. Sterotypically this group has poor social skills. This can hinder your professional development, as these skills are required in almost any business. Focusing on developing social skills, time management, and group collaboration will pay off.
3) Therory isn't a complete lost cause. Focus on learning how to think, regardless of course of study, college should train you on how use your brain.
4) Be passionet. College can be a great demotivator. I wouldn't be suprised if you loved computers a lot less today than the first day you stepped onto campus. Find time to utilize computers in a way that inspires you. Google Mircosoft's "Coding For Fun". Not only should you find something there that intrests you, it will help guide you into some self study of programming that is applicable to today's business world, which brings me to my next point.
5) Focus on increasing your marketable skills. The utopian academia [and dare I say slashdot?] breeds a lot of technical fringe support. While being a hotshot ruby developer might be cool in this circle, it's not as marketable as being a profficient VB.net/C# web developer. Polish your skills in using technology that is common place, you'll need it being entry level in the job market.
6) Experience is golden. Work for minimum wage, work for food rations if you have to! Finding internships in related industries will give you pressious contacts, and valible work experience to put on your resume.
Your mammas flamebait.
There is a difference between acquiring knowledge and acting on it.
Closing off hints and tricks to new graduates only hurts your company, the industry, the economy and ultimately yourself. Knowledge is power, yes, but a person has to want to act on that knowledge. As anyone who has taken Computer Science knows, the concepts may be easy, but 80% of people can't apply them to pass a simple course.
Absolutely. I interview/hire a lot of software developers, and if you show up with a poorly-written resume, you're toast. If you can't be careful with the most important language in your arsenal (the one you use to communicate with other humans), how can I expect you to be careful with programming? other advice: whatever you do, do it well...even if it's something you're not interested in. The worst thing is to give someone some grunt work, have them to a lousy job, and then have them ask for more interesting work. Kiss of death. Don't sweat about the particular languages you're studying. Many of the best developers I've worked with didn't even have degrees in computer science or software engineering. I majored in Russian, and I've done ok... Do study something besides computers. I work in finance, and if a person comes in with programming experience AND an understanding of finance, they immediately go to the head of the class. It sets that person apart from the pack. Make yourself unique, and chances are your job won't get outsourced.
You're talking about Software Engineering, "the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software".
Knowing languages is good. Theory is good also. But to make a working product you need much much more. From the inital vision, to project planning, choosing the appropriate tools (language, platform, etc.), and matching features to business process requirements, you have a lot of work ahead of you. Of course, actually writing the code is a challenge in itself, but in a lot of small- to mid-sized businesses, the "developer" is also the project manager, the analyst, the senior developer and the IT manager all at once. Careerwise you CANNOT go wrong having at least rudmentary (such as Quick Kill) and probably at least a familiarity with development methodolgies. There is no one leader, agile was big for a while but it was too cult-like.. There's a million of them, you have to match the right one to the job. People who do this are software engineers.
Wow, you know a language. Most working coders know 10. It's applying that knowledge to make or maintain software that gets you a job.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
1. Learn the art of bullshit. Become an expert at appearing you know what's going on even when your completely clueless. Keep in mind that this isn't just about bluffing or attempting to do something you aren't qualified for. It's all about appearance. If you look and act like you know what you're doing, 99% of the time most people will believe you. Instant credibility. Speaking of appearance, bathing at least daily and dressing like a real business person will make the bosses swoon and your peers hate your guts. You get real good at it, you will be able to spot another, less adept bullshitter a mile away.
1a. Communicate well. If you're sounding like an illiterate teenager (in person, e-mail, it doesn't matter) that's what people will think you are. Maybe it won't be kewl and l337 to your peers, but the old people that write the paychecks seem to like it. If you're working internationally at least be functional in the language. Being in a meeting while natives are jabbering away right in front of your clueless face is not fun. The look on their faces once they discover you understood all the foolish American remarks and offer to buy them a beer is priceless.
2. Always be able to articulate the value you add to whatever you're working on. Currency value is best since even the dumbest managers are keen on money. Understanding the business need behind the technology will help.
3. Choose a technology that's interesting to you and that you like to work with. It doesn't matter if it isn't in the top 5 in last week's Network World. Even if it pays less than the skill-o-the-day. Nothing sucks the joy out of life more than a job that you hate. You'll also find that your natural enthusiasm for whatever it is you decide to be good at adds to the credibility you get from 1 and 1a.
Oh please. I've worked in the business for a decade. My advice for an emerging undergrad? Remember that you don't know crap.
School is about a foundation. You're worried about what you know about C? You may never in your life program in C. Or you may program in it every day. Either way, you're not going to get your first job based on your college programming experience, not unless you did something so wildly off the charts that you could have programmed it in RPG and people'd still be lining up to hire you.
What you need most to remember is that it's your work once you're out in the world that will define your career. It's a hell of a lot more important to buckle down and learn in the real world, than it is to leave college thinking that you "know" how it's supposed to be.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
absolutely right. Communication skills are the crux of any job. Take more than one speech class and writing class. Excellent communication skills can land you a job even if you dont have a lot of experience. When I was in school I took a business oriented writing class, that one class alone has really helped me to communicate with the business dweebs in my life over the years. Think about it, sure your boss and fellow workers will most likely be techies, but everyone else in the business is probably not a techie. It is only to your advantage to learn to communicate technical issues with non-technical people. In fact I have seen people with less than stellar technical skills who are absolutely loved within a corporation just because they are able to explain what is going on in non-technical terms, of course these people usually become managers/executives. If you have excellent tech skills and excellent communication skills you will go very far in this industry.
Get some SQL under your belt, and maybe take a databases class. Its everywhere in the job market, but schools don't usually promote it.
Also, learn the LAMP stack if you want to be a developer. Statistics knowledge is very marketable. Take some classes.
Most important: make sure you enjoy what you're studying / doing. It doesn't have to be your ultimate passion of the moment, but have long-term goals that fulfill your passions, dreams, ideals, etc.
Try going from C++ to Ruby or JavaScript. Possible, but there's a lot of things that it will take a long time to wrap your head around. (Closures being a simple example...)
But for a real challenge, try going to Erlang, Haskell, or Lisp. Of those, Haskell is probably going to be the weirdest, but I don't have a truly thorough understanding of Lisp yet.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
you get paid like crap, it's really hard, schedules are very tiresome/stressful.
you do it because of all the really cool shit you learn, and the opportunity to hang with artists.
since there's artists, you can snag a really cool wife, before you burn out and quit the industry.
that said, i'm still there, and like it. it is really interesting.
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
1) Learn how to manage conflicts. They are guaranteed to come up. 2) Communicate technical ideas well to non-technical people. Will your manager understand the technical details of your job? What about his manager? 3) Lean to present well. What better way to impress many people at once? 4) General Problem Solving Skills. A competent technical interviewer is likely to test you on this and be more interested in your performance than he is in you remembering the exact syntax in some language or some details of some library (although you should know those things to some degree). 5) Be generally eloquent and friendly The social aspects of work are often ignored
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
I'm a developer in silicon valley working on semantic web applications here at moffet field. I did an MS in CS and engineering from a top school and a math/cs double from a normal state uni. I've been promoted up through my jobs over my few years in industry, moving from the midwest out to here with significant pay jumps each time. First, you need to decide what you want to do: do you want to be a developer or something else? If you want to be a developer, forget about all this low level nonsense about assembly code and C. It's totally useless in today's market. Computer programming is all about adding abstraction layers so that you don't have to worry about low level details. You need to build a coding portfolio so that you can prove that you know your stuff. Write a basic web2 app in ruby or java or whatever you are most familiar with, and try to make it as scalable as possible. Deploy it somewhere and let people poke at it. Check out dice.com and craigslist for silicon valley, and if you aren't in a major city get there as fast as possible - you want to be doing development, not maintenance on old legacy code. That means you need to go where the money is at. Of course, you could always be a sell out and just go work for google... If you are worried about knowing what to do? Study mathematics and algorithms extensively, particularly the Cormen textbook. Udi Manber's book is also very good. This will teach you the computational aspects of CS. Then, read up on RDF and the semantic web to get a background in data management. Then practice, practice, practice.
Give up on learning anything technical in school. The technology changes too fast for most schools to come up with working curricula in time, and when they do get that figured out, it's not enough knowledge to help with a job. Learn business, management, maybe some financial or accounting stuff in school. In your personal time, try to learn as much as possible. Learn a few things *really* in depth, but also remember that variety is good. If you're mostly a Java person, learn a bit of Python or PHP, and get some Unix knowledge. Take a look at: http://www.inter-sections.net/2007/11/13/how-to-recognise-a-good-programmer/ Also remember that job experience is good, but personal experience is good too. Make some contributions to F/OSS projects or start your own.