Subject: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] to school or not to school
From: Paul Winkler (paul_AT_slinkp.com)
Date: Fri Feb 15 2002 - 00:48:26 EET
I apologize for the OT post, but I need some advice and I don't know
programmers that I can talk to face-to-face, so I thought of LAD. I'd
encourage you to email me privately if you care to comment on the
following.
I'm having no luck at all finding web development work here. Web
development per se doesn't excite me; I'm more broadly interested in
programming in general. But nearly every job I've looked at requires
some combination of C, C++, and Java, and some formal schooling. I
don't have any of that. I'm fully confident that it's all within my
abilities, but I'm tired of stumbling along being self-taught, and I'd
like to have some schooling on my resume. So to continue a grand old
tradition, in times of economic woe, I'm going back to school.
Mind you, I have no illusions that a couple months in school would
turn me into a C/Java guru with a six-figure salary, but I think it
might help me get my foot in the door and (what the heck) be able to
provide more concrete help with some of these l.a.d. projects, at
least with basic C debugging. I'm pretty sure that unless the program
turns out to completely suck, I'll be a better programmer for it.
That's what I started thinking about a couple weeks ago. Just last
week, I found out about this program at Pace University which starts
next week.
http://csis.pace.edu/pclc/certprog/unix/index.html
It's full-time in the computer lab, 40 hours a week for 11 weeks. A
bit expensive: it costs $7000. But that's less than 2/3 as much as
Pace's main competitor that I know of here in NY, Columbia, whose
comparable program takes 2 nights a week for 15 months. And it's a lot
less money (and time!) than going back to college for another
undergraduate degree, or graduate (if I could get in). I'd rather dive
in and work really hard for a short time period, especially since I
have no work right now and have the time.
I've also spoken to somebody who went to one of the local technical
institutes (Chubbs) and he says it's really not great, wouldn't save
me money, and it doesn't even have a comparable course of study. Maybe
Chubbs would be OK if I just wanted to learn javascript, ASP, DHTML,
and all that.
It looks like the first week or two at Pace will be pretty easy for
me, mostly repeating basic Unix commands I know quite well; then we'll
get into some networking issues I've never had to deal with, then dive
into C++ and Java.
I'm all set to start the program, and I've secured a student loan to
pay for it; but it's not too late to back out. If anyone thinks this
whole idea is dumb, or merely dubious, I'd greatly appreciate your
comments.
--paul winkler home: http://www.slinkp.com music: http://www.reacharms.com calendars: http://www.calendargalaxy.com
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