Practical Experience As a Beginning Programmer?

LuckyLefty01 writes "I'm 21, going to college, and working part time doing odd jobs like math tutoring. In the past nine months or so, I've discovered and taken to programming (so far mostly C/C++/Obj-C). I am now looking seriously at something in this area as an eventual full time job. Since I don't have much scheduled this coming summer, it would be great to try to get a job of some sort at a tech-related company in order to get some practical experience in the field. Even if I don't have the background to get a job involving actual programming, I think that the knowledge of how such a company works would be valuable. Fortunately, I live in the SF Bay Area, so there should be plenty of companies around. I'm flexible about what I'm going to be doing, and very willing to learn just about anything anybody cares to teach me. If there's some (or even quite a bit of) boring grunt work involved, I can do that too. What type of job would benefit an aspiring but inexperienced programmer the most? What methods might I use to find such a job?"

Comments

how to get a job 101

[sjs132]

1) post to slashdot
2) ????
3) ????
4) Profit.

Re:how to get a job 101

[Hognoxious]

So how else would expect those 99 out of 100 geek guys to feel who could not find that 1% of geek girls? It's not like women are a resource men can share with other men.

I've heard that there are some girls like that ... it'll cost you, though.

Re:how to get a job 101

[psychodelicacy]

Preeeee-cisely.

You wanna meet for coffee sometime? ;)

Re:how to get a job 101

[spazdor]

No way. You sound like a total player who will just use me for my superior programming skills and irresistible body. I'm not just some enormous slab of brains and meat, you know.

I have feelings.

Re:how to get a job 101

[psychodelicacy]

"I'm not just some enormous slab of brains and meat, you know."

Oh. You mean you're one of those small, weedy guys? Fine - don't wanna have coffee with you in that case.

**sulks**

Re:how to get a job 101

[beav007]

People obsessed over their own (and usually, others) appearance forgetting all about verbal communication or keeping up with news making it impossible to keep up smalltalk.

I find that, while conversing with females, that Smalltalk has its place, as long as Java is involved. That said, Ruby and Perl are very effective. You can try Python, but that will often do more bad than good.

I've got #3 figured out for you

[Anonymous Coward]

1) post to Slashdot
2) ????
3) Get a Job
4) Profit.

I suspect step 3 might be recursive, though.

Re:Volunteer

[Frankie70]

sit down with a print out of the linux kernel and read it until it all makes sense.

How do I do this? I can't seem to find the "print linux kernel" button?

Don't forget Mandarin.

[eskinner]

In addition to learning C/C++/Obj-C, don't forget Mandarin. You'll need it to communicate with your fellow employees.