I'm not critiquing the reasons why Google is getting so much federal government attention. I'm just wondering why Google is going so much more attention from the FTC than Microsoft ever did.
Maybe my memory is too short, but I don't remember MSFT getting many fines. Anybody have a (real) answer?
After 15 years, I wouldn't remember any BASIC or C++ either, accident or no accident.;)
I think most of the advice here is mis-guided.
Learning on your own is great and gives you a sense of independence, but you can't generally put that stuff on a resume, making it almost worthless.
Volunteering for the Community Corps. and help a non-profit customize a Drupal site or something is nice, but then you have learn Drupal/Wordpress, and you still can't put C# on your resume. Most non-profits don't need development work.
What sucks about learning on your own is that it limits your employment opportunities. Most places, sadly, will turn away your resume if you have no education in the field and haven't worked in it already for 5+ years.
Startups hire people that don't necessarily have good educational credentials and lots of experience, but they expect rockstars--great coders with quick learning abilities, i.e., probably not you (at least until you get back close to 100%). Startups would expect a lot more from you than you can deliver, and they'll probably be disappointed given your short-term memory issues.
School doesn't have most of these issues.
Schools almost always give extra support to folks like you. You'll be given extra time to complete tests and quizzes (1.5x - 2x, usually), along with tutors, etc. In fact, having a free tutor is almost the top reason to go to school, as a good one will have the patience to repeat things day-after-day which you say will help you. Most tutors are students themselves, so they are there for 4+ years, so you might be able to stick with the same person year-after-year.
Go to a local 4-year school, or do a 2+2 program (where you spend the first two years at a community college and the next two at a regular 4-year school to get a Bachelor's). You sound like a smart guy/gay, so I think you'll do fine. The point is to get a Bachelor's in Computer Science or MIS or something.
Go to an public, in-state school! It's a lot cheaper. (Or, go to a school that has cheap out-of-state tuition, like North/South Dakota.)
School will also (hopefully) give you lots of extra time to learn the stuff you wanna learn (i.e., C#).
Alumni networks can give you a foot in the door, something that's probably gonna be hard for you.
This is obviously a long-term plan (most good things in life take time, I'm sure you can understand that), and the punchline of this plan is to get into a large corporation that does a lot of EO (Equal Opportunity) hiring.
Big corps (e.g., IBM, Microsoft, etc.) tend to have strong EO programs that would love people like you, even if you're not a coding rockstar, as long as you have some education credentials and some skills they like (e.g., Java, C#, respectively).
You'll make good money, as these corps don't want to make the headlines that they pay disabled Software Engineer I less money than non-disabled Software Engineer I for "the same work." Even if you're not productive as a non-disabled person, they probably won't wanna pay you any less.
Yes, this is a long-tem plan. It's not "Learn C# in 24 Hours!" type of stuff. But the payoff is amazing: you'll never have to worry about finding another job, you're not a burdon to society (hell, you'll be paying lots in taxes), and you'll have plenty of money to do whatever you want.
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I'm not critiquing the reasons why Google is getting so much federal government attention. I'm just wondering why Google is going so much more attention from the FTC than Microsoft ever did. Maybe my memory is too short, but I don't remember MSFT getting many fines. Anybody have a (real) answer?
School doesn't have most of these issues.
This is obviously a long-term plan (most good things in life take time, I'm sure you can understand that), and the punchline of this plan is to get into a large corporation that does a lot of EO (Equal Opportunity) hiring.
Yes, this is a long-tem plan. It's not "Learn C# in 24 Hours!" type of stuff. But the payoff is amazing: you'll never have to worry about finding another job, you're not a burdon to society (hell, you'll be paying lots in taxes), and you'll have plenty of money to do whatever you want.