anyway.
I am a self taught programmer. I slowly moved up over many years progressing through the likes of basic and such to the point I'm at now.
I entered university last year. Hence I'm about a month into my second year.
I thought I was a pretty good programmer back then.
I've come to realise I wasn't. I was pretty aweful actually. Sure, I could hack up some code to make spectacular renders or whatever, but you know what I've found? No one cares. It doesn't matter, and I was fooling myself thinking I was any good.
Yes, I grasped the logic of programming, but I had no clue about the methods.
My code was god aweful unreadable mess (and compared to some of the stuff I have seen submitted to nehe it was a work of art). I would have died in the commercial world. There is no question about that. I had no idea what is REALLY important when you get out there.
University has taught me, so far, that coding is a very small part of software development.
Sure, I could have gone through with the attitude of "I'm so much better than this" or whatever, but then I'd just be another one of the arrogant bastards that no one wants to hire.
Yes, the lectures were not exciting, but I still did learn a lot of subtle things from them. Sure, I already knew what a stack is, etc, but more importantly, I re-learnt style, exercution and maintainability. I got the chance to rethink my entire coding style into something I'm much happier with today. That is worth every moment of last year.
But by far the most important thing has been making connections with those around you. It absolutly blows me away when I think that I have been offered references from guys who are absolutly WAY up there just because I talked to them as another person, leaving my former attitude of "I'm an expert, be impressed" behind. Had I not come to uni that would have never happened. I know that these single things alone would absolutly change my life, let alone as a whole.
So basically in answer to what is being said, I say this.
If your self taught you are an unknown quantity. You are a risk. And no one in their right mind will ever want to take a risk. If you have a bare bones university qualification then you are a known quantity. Sure, it may be a lesser quantity than a self taught person, but there is far less risk. And don't forget the real reason of university. Honours, masters, Phd's. Those seperate the content to those with drive. And companies know it.
One of these is a ticket to the world, and then some.
| - Project-X - my mega project.. getting warmer
- | - adDeath - an ad blocker I made - | - email me - | [edited by - RipTorn on March 17, 2003 6:18:56 AM]
