The Computing and IT Curriculum, Why it's failed me and many others - Developers

I mean you listed specific grunt programmer work, the fact that it's in a startup environment that you readily influence doesn't change what it is. Strong programmers without a formal education are definitely the extreme minority. Check the top dozen or so at any [url=http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=AlgoRank]competitive programming site[/url]. You're not going to learn complex algorithms without intense study, something that generally only occurs in academia.

[QUOTE=high;41134134]I'm 21 making 65k/year with no degree(Software developer at stable 'startup'). I'm probably a bit underpaid but oh well.[/QUOTE] But this is exactly the problem. A degree, no matter how overpriced or useless your actual education was, automatically entitles you to a higher pay than someone who doesn't have a degree. I wish I could just drop out, learn things on my own and just get jobs on the basis of experience, but that just doesn't seem feasible in the present time.

[QUOTE=Eudoxia;41294807]But this is exactly the problem. A degree, no matter how overpriced or useless your actual education was, automatically entitles you to a higher pay than someone who doesn't have a degree. I wish I could just drop out, learn things on my own and just get jobs on the basis of experience, but that just doesn't seem feasible in the present time.[/QUOTE] 65k sounds pretty livable to me.

I absolutely hated GCSE IT, it was entirely composed of fucking around in MS-Office with a tiny of of Dreamweaver towards the end. I skipped IT at college level because I knew it would be more of the same and instead took a Creative media course which was mostly a time waster until I could decide what I actually wanted to do with my life. I landed a job as a junior developer at a local app & web development company which is pretty fun so far, although I am getting all the grunt work. I mean right now I've got to build a shim for another companies SOAP API... :suicide:

education does not equal intelligence, passing tests is also completely different.

[QUOTE=Eudoxia;41294807]But this is exactly the problem. A degree, no matter how overpriced or useless your actual education was, automatically entitles you to a higher pay than someone who doesn't have a degree. I wish I could just drop out, learn things on my own and just get jobs on the basis of experience, but that just doesn't seem feasible in the present time.[/QUOTE] Salary depends on the area. 65k in boston is decent for an entry level developer. Also I was being underpaid which I was okay with due to the nice job. I could easily get 80k+. Just I look for jobs based on if I am going to enjoy working there and not based on the salary. Anyways the no degree route is not for everyone. You need to be living in a decent tech area or willing to relocate to one. Also it helps to have a supportive family. I'm actually starting a new job July 15th. I did make the rookie mistake of disclosing my salary so their offer was kinda low. I accepted it though because they made it very clear that this is just a start salary and I'll get a decent bump after a month or 2. It doesn't help that I am not a man of money. I don't really care about money as long as I have enough to live comfortable. So I wasn't really pushy on the salary of my 1st and now 2nd job. Developers are really in demand in Boston too. Apparently [url=http://dev.hubspot.com/blog/30k-developer-referral-bonus]Hubspot is offering a 30k referral bonus[/url].

I did a Higher in Computing, equivalent to A Levels, anyway, we were only taught to create an interactive database in Visual Basic during this. No interesting or useful principals were taught to us the entire time, you honestly learn more from your research and experimentation.

At college (in the space between AS/A Level) We spent about 6 weeks learning how to use if statements. In fact, I was once told (by a uni lecturer paying a visit) that an if statement was a loop that only executed once. Had a full blown argument and eventually I was asked to shut up and stop disrupting the lesson... Anyway, some big news. I quit my job, although the company I was with have been saying that I've been fired... Pretty fucking dumb. I've got another one working at Bliss Manchester ([url]http://www.thisisbliss.com[/url]) and I'm super excited about starting. Just goes to show that Qualifications != Skill or employ-ability.

[QUOTE=Loli;41351122]I quit my job, although the company I was with have been saying that I've been fired... Pretty fucking dumb.[/QUOTE] That is probably not legal, unless you resigned with notice and they fired you before you left.

[QUOTE=Soda;41277211]uhhh if you don't have a degree and work with someone who does you're probably going to be looked down upon because you won't understand and be familiar with graph theory/common algorithms drilled into you by CS. I really doubt self-taught programmers are familiar with implementing dijkstra/kruskal, various optimization problems, max flow, etc. Real Programming positions require this knowledge because you're trying to solve new problems, not just pump out some web app. I mean for people like kmart: there is a difference between being a grunt programmer for a startup and actually doing scientific problem solving that you really need a formal education to understand.[/QUOTE] Why on earth is a path finding algorithm important, and why would anyone look down on anyone for not having a degree? Anybody can learn algorithms. What a pompous, elitist post..

[QUOTE=Soda;41277211]uhhh if you don't have a degree and work with someone who does you're probably going to be looked down upon because you won't understand and be familiar with graph theory/common algorithms drilled into you by CS.[/QUOTE] Graph theory is just a fancy name for the simplest thing ever.

[QUOTE=AngryChairR;41353748]Why on earth is a path finding algorithm important.[/QUOTE] I agree with you that anybody can learn algorithms if they put time into it. Path finding algorithms can be important for many things though.

[QUOTE=AngryChairR;41353748]why would anyone look down on anyone for not having a degree? [/QUOTE] I don't know if it's the same in the UK, but where I live you do get looked down upon when you don't have a degree and will have a much smaller chance of finding a job.

First day at Tafe getting a certificate 4 in Programming, we are learning Java, C# and ASP.net I'd rather learn C++ but idc. My class is full of aspie faggots that think they know computers when they really have no idea, one of the questions the teacher asked was "What are some ways we can protect information when a user submits a form online" the obvious answer being 'encryption'n one of the aspies said 'government' seemingly oblivious of what the actual question was, he said 'government' several times before the teacher said 'no' then he said 'the army' then after 2 minutes he went back to 'government' and finally 'should be using linux' . It is literally a class full of brony neck beard beta aspie faggots, so basically /g/. tbh I didn't expect much more than this but :/

IMO our biggest problem is lack of industry level people who are willing to teach kids. Up until A-Level (17/18) we were taught GCSE ICT out of a textbook by teachers whose technical knowledge went as far as using Office. At A-Level we had a teacher with some programming experience, but for the most part we were taught computing out of a textbook and did extremely basic Visual Basic. I left A-Levels after a year and decided that it was going nowhere, I got into a 2 year college course on Games Development under the guise that it would be at least half way technical. I was wrong. The course consisted of a rebranded media course with a module on flash animation and a module on game design (art, drawing etc) From that I went onto a 'games programming' degree, my lecturers were technical but they had obviously not done serious programming either for a long time or at all. The first year of the course was a bit of modelling in 3DS Max, with some programming modules, bearing in mind that basically two of us out of the entire class had done any programming at all, the extent of them actually teaching programming was telling us to copy and paste slides full of code into a VS XNA project and run it. This is where it gets interesting At the end of the first year someone I know in the class landed an apprenticeship for a global IT company, it sounded pretty amazing (3 months intense training with all of the other apprentices in your batch, all travel/food/accommodation expenses paid etc) I managed to land an interview for that apprenticeship, got on, quit my degree and went half way down the country to start training. The structure of the 3 months training was 4x2 week sprints on different subjects depending on which part of the business apprentices were going into (Mine was SQL, Java, data modelling, PL/SQL, project management), every single tutor was an industry expert and the course was custom made for us. Needless to say it was great, even though I had done SQL and programming in various languages before, I still really enjoyed the training and since the tutors knew I was a bit more advanced at it, they gave me extra more challenging tasks to do and I still learned a lot, and the people who had never touched programming also learned a lot after only two weeks. A great bonus too was being paid £800 a month for 3 months while also having all food, travel to/from the training on weekends, and accommodation paid for (Uni conference rooms, double bed and en suite bathroom) Been in the business 3 weeks now and I have been doing meaningful programming work on actual projects the whole time, learned absolutely tons from my mentor/reviewer who has been in the industry for 15-20 years as well. Starting salary is £16,000 but they expect it to increase a few thousand a year for the first 5 years, even more if you are a good worker. Oh and they pay for a software engineering degree which I start soon, also. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm not trying to brag, but basically if you want to get any kind of official qualification/experience in something technical then an apprenticeship with a large company is the best way forward. Taking apprenticeships with small business tend to be them using you for some cheap labour then kicking you off when they dont have a place for you at the end. That exact thing happened to my roommate in uni, he quit the degree for an apprenticeship and they dropped him after 4 months, leaving him with nothing. I managed to get him a place on this apprenticeship, though. Anyway, like I said the problem is that we just don't have the people willing to teach kids programming full time, even though we desperately need it. [B]This company does outreach programmes in schools and colleges but ultimately its down to the government and schools to at least try and get more technical stuff into our curriculum as early as possible...We still teach ICT like its 1990 and Office is some new revolutionary thing, not something that kids these days could learn to use in a day.[/B]

[QUOTE=Soda;41287219]I mean you listed specific grunt programmer work, the fact that it's in a startup environment that you readily influence doesn't change what it is.[/QUOTE] To be fair, you said I was doing grunt work before I even said anything about what I was working on or where I am working, so that comment was clearly made out of a mental bias.

[QUOTE=Cushie;41359835]IMO our biggest problem is lack of industry level people who are willing to teach kids. Up until A-Level (17/18) we were taught GCSE ICT out of a textbook by teachers whose technical knowledge went as far as using Office. At A-Level we had a teacher with some programming experience, but for the most part we were taught computing out of a textbook and did extremely basic Visual Basic. I left A-Levels after a year and decided that it was going nowhere, I got into a 2 year college course on Games Development under the guise that it would be at least half way technical. I was wrong. The course consisted of a rebranded media course with a module on flash animation and a module on game design (art, drawing etc) From that I went onto a 'games programming' degree, my lecturers were technical but they had obviously not done serious programming either for a long time or at all. The first year of the course was a bit of modelling in 3DS Max, with some programming modules, bearing in mind that basically two of us out of the entire class had done any programming at all, the extent of them actually teaching programming was telling us to copy and paste slides full of code into a VS XNA project and run it. This is where it gets interesting At the end of the first year someone I know in the class landed an apprenticeship for a global IT company, it sounded pretty amazing (3 months intense training with all of the other apprentices in your batch, all travel/food/accommodation expenses paid etc) I managed to land an interview for that apprenticeship, got on, quit my degree and went half way down the country to start training. The structure of the 3 months training was 4x2 week sprints on different subjects depending on which part of the business apprentices were going into (Mine was SQL, Java, data modelling, PL/SQL, project management), every single tutor was an industry expert and the course was custom made for us. Needless to say it was great, even though I had done SQL and programming in various languages before, I still really enjoyed the training and since the tutors knew I was a bit more advanced at it, they gave me extra more challenging tasks to do and I still learned a lot, and the people who had never touched programming also learned a lot after only two weeks. A great bonus too was being paid £800 a month for 3 months while also having all food, travel to/from the training on weekends, and accommodation paid for (Uni conference rooms, double bed and en suite bathroom) Been in the business 3 weeks now and I have been doing meaningful programming work on actual projects the whole time, learned absolutely tons from my mentor/reviewer who has been in the industry for 15-20 years as well. Starting salary is £16,000 but they expect it to increase a few thousand a year for the first 5 years, even more if you are a good worker. Oh and they pay for a software engineering degree which I start soon, also. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm not trying to brag, but basically if you want to get any kind of official qualification/experience in something technical then an apprenticeship with a large company is the best way forward. Taking apprenticeships with small business tend to be them using you for some cheap labour then kicking you off when they dont have a place for you at the end. That exact thing happened to my roommate in uni, he quit the degree for an apprenticeship and they dropped him after 4 months, leaving him with nothing. I managed to get him a place on this apprenticeship, though. Anyway, like I said the problem is that we just don't have the people willing to teach kids programming full time, even though we desperately need it. [B]This company does outreach programmes in schools and colleges but ultimately its down to the government and schools to at least try and get more technical stuff into our curriculum as early as possible...We still teach ICT like its 1990 and Office is some new revolutionary thing, not something that kids these days could learn to use in a day.[/B][/QUOTE] More details on the apprenticeship?

[QUOTE=hogofwar;41364766]More details on the apprenticeship?[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.uk.capgemini.com/careers/your-career-path/apprentices[/url] Best apprenticeship in the country, and now is the best time to get on it. They get massive amounts of applications but they are much much more likely to accept anyone who has even a bit of programming or technical experience under their belt. They do interview days for the roles which are essentially just friendly chats, and talking about programming is an instant win. Extremely good company to work for, treats their employees very well, but nobody has heard of em.

[QUOTE=Loli;41351122]At college (in the space between AS/A Level) We spent about 6 weeks learning how to use if statements. In fact, I was once told (by a uni lecturer paying a visit) that [B]an if statement was a loop that only executed once.[/B] Had a full blown argument and eventually I was asked to shut up and stop disrupting the lesson... Anyway, some big news. I quit my job, although the company I was with have been saying that I've been fired... Pretty fucking dumb. I've got another one working at Bliss Manchester ([URL]http://www.thisisbliss.com[/URL]) and I'm super excited about starting. Just goes to show that Qualifications != Skill or employ-ability.[/QUOTE] Well, one could argue that is [B]technically[/B] true, though a more correct statement is that "loops are if statements that execute multiple times". Assembly uses goto statements for conditional and looping statements, and all loops are converted to do-while loops in the Assembler. Basically a statement like this (psuedocode) [code]if (x > 5) then y = 3 else y = 7 end z = 5[/code] Would be translated to this goto equivalent: [code][1]if (x>5) then goto [4] [2]y = 7 [3]goto [5] [4]y = 3 [5]z = 8[/code] Likewise, a loop like this: [code]do x ++ while (x < 5) y = 5[/code] Would be translated to the Assembly equivalent of something like so: [code][1] if x >= 5 goto [4] [2]x++ [3]goto [1] [4]y = 5[/code] So, one could argue that all loops and if statements are the same in the end, since they all become goto statements. Not trying to defend your side or his side; just making a point, for the sake of information.

[QUOTE=Loli;41351122]In fact, I was once told (by a uni lecturer paying a visit) that an if statement was a loop that only executed once.[/QUOTE] How exactly is this wrong?

[QUOTE=Cushie;41365266][url]http://www.uk.capgemini.com/careers/your-career-path/apprentices[/url] Best apprenticeship in the country, and now is the best time to get on it. They get massive amounts of applications but they are much much more likely to accept anyone who has even a bit of programming or technical experience under their belt. They do interview days for the roles which are essentially just friendly chats, and talking about programming is an instant win. Extremely good company to work for, treats their employees very well, but nobody has heard of em.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]e.g. National BTEC with at least 1 distinction[/QUOTE] Goddammit. I feel like I have doomed myself.

[QUOTE=thf;41365909]How exactly is this wrong?[/QUOTE] Just the whole way you think about it. I would never think of an if statement as being a loop... It's kind of like saying a Try-Catch statement is a loop.

[QUOTE=Loli;41368256]Just the whole way you think about it. I would never think of an if statement as being a loop... It's kind of like saying a Try-Catch statement is a loop.[/QUOTE] Well, both if statements and loops are just conditional jumps. You could also say that loops are just if statements that are executed multiple times.

It sucks because you need a college degree to prove you know it (not really good source of proof) for a job. I remember failing a typing class because I typed faster than the teacher. Schools need to up their technology-revolved classes IMO.

[QUOTE=hogofwar;41366254]Goddammit. I feel like I have doomed myself.[/QUOTE] I only had a BTEC National Diploma with PPM, to be honest its on your CV is what counts. If you can talk about any technical home projects involving programming or anything (Even just small things) then they will be 10x more likely to accept.

[QUOTE=Cushie;41373103]I only had a BTEC National Diploma with PPM, to be honest its on your CV is what counts. If you can talk about any technical home projects involving programming or anything (Even just small things) then they will be 10x more likely to accept.[/QUOTE] Also, I've been to two different places and taken a copy of my portfolio (including code samples)... Both places have gone: "Oh cool, I never get to see these any more!" I think it helps you stand out from the rest as well as show off some code that you've written. If you've made use of a cool algorithm it's worth doing as well.

[QUOTE=Loli;41373812]Also, I've been to two different places and taken a copy of my portfolio (including code samples)... Both places have gone: "Oh cool, I never get to see these any more!" I think it helps you stand out from the rest as well as show off some code that you've written. If you've made use of a cool algorithm it's worth doing as well.[/QUOTE] Well as an example for me, I have done some hobbyist programming over the years, dabbling over a few different languages enough that I have an extremely good understanding of the essentials, and I have a grasp on polymorphism, encapsulation, delegates and other stuff that they love to hear about. The guy that interviewed me hadn't been technical for 10 or so years, but I just gave him an overview of what sort of stuff I had done, little bits and pieces that were useful to me. Since they are interested in teamwork and leadership etc I also talked a bit about how I used lua for our game server (Was TTT), made a whole bunch of stuff as a team and some of it was quite complex. In their words, they are mainly looking for people who demonstrate a real interest in technical stuff, having past experience is just a big bonus. [B]My friend had never done any programming before besides the stuff we did on the uni course, he went onto [url]https://www.udacity.com/[/url], spent a month or two running through all of their Python lessons and eventually doing one or two of the more advanced courses. They were really impressed since he had a huge CV with all of that stuff on.[/B] They said my CV was kind of weak at first, but I bolstered it up and basically put headings such as 'C#/.Net', 'Java', 'Lua', 'Web Development', and gave a few lines on each of the extent of my use of the language and some examples of what personal projects I have worked on under them. I had three internal interviews for my first role when I started and all three of them wanted me over the other candidates of the role, mainly because they were impressed by my CV and I made sure I didn't bullshit on it, so I was able to realistically answer all of their questions about it and also expand loads on what I had done. It's definitely worth broadening your horizons by dabbling in a lot of different technologies like I did. You may not become an expert in any one of them but if you become proficient enough to talk about...Its way more impressive to go into an apprenticeship interview being able to talk about how you can use 3-5 different technologies or languages than you are an expert in one thing, because it shows that you are very interested and you have no issue learning and adapting to new technologies.

I recently learned about "coding bootcamps" and have signed up for one. The one I'm doing guarentees a 60k+ job within 9 months of the camp or your money back. I suggest you try to find something like this, they seem to be popping up everywhere lately.

I see that countless people go through the same experience as well. After a terrible IT course at secondary school, I continually was looking for ways to do things in IT that you wasn't taught at school, be it in the form of making bat programs, or VBS (at the time seeing something reacting on the screen just by entering text into notepad felt amazing at the time) I then started learning about the innards of computers and picked up a junk p3 PC from a second hand store, and quickly learnt how to build one, along with what each of the components did. Software wise I was playing with XP and linux, (thus reading a million error messages and fixing them pretty much pointed me to wanting to learn more and go down the IT engineer route, I have vista to thank on this part as well in later years). I would often quiz the teachers on more advanced technology in hope of them going "Wow a student that knows something!" and having a big indepth chat and learning all kinds of IT but all I was greeted with was "Linux..?". As you can tell my thirst for knowledge wasn't going to be found here. Programming had interested me for a while and after hearing about a computing course at the local college I jumped at the chance and signed up. Though by the time the term was starting they had dropped the course and a brand new "Level 3 BTEC Games Development" course had started, after speaking with the tutor and hearing that I'd be exposed to programming as well as 3D design it sounded too good to be true. However unlike other horror stories we have read here my experience at college was pretty damn good, probably the best time I have had was at college, the teachers was brilliant at what they taught and they seemed a lot more "matey" so it was very relaxed. But as I had decided that I didnt want to go to Uni (The horror stories of people leaving uni with 50k+ debts and no jobs didn't seem it for me) the teachers didn't push as much for the higher grades and I left with average results. But I had learned a whole load of skills that would later benefit me later on. IT Apprenticeship Companies - A money making scheme with no attention for apprentices learning clouded by the idea of "Wow your going to be a IT apprentice and do all these amazing things!!" I joined a company called DB Training (No longer active as it collapsed) Which was a collection of unit work + poor course structure + no actual real hands on IT and no real qualifications to put it bluntly. After I was there for 4 weeks (2 weeks of that was solid health and safety) I got fed up of the bad attitude the tutors had and hadn't touched a piece of hardware or software other than word. I was given a call from the angels as I was successful in applying for a role as a external apprentice at a school (this meant I didnt have to go back to DB as everything was in a working environment) I did the entire 6months course in a space of 2 weeks and was done with this Level 2 Apprenticeship. Now, I had joined the school as the junior out of the two IT techs, the other having started the same time as me so we worked together brilliantly. I only dealt with the apprenticeship company a handful of times as they had managed to forget who I was and didnt realise I had left DB, to make matters worse I didn't ever receive my Level 3 qualifications or refunded for the separate course I had been training on whilst I was there they had cancelled. Working at the school in a real IT environment was the best job. I had complete reign over the systems and nearly everything I know now. During this time I had also got a job as a Mobile Developer on iOS and Android, making apps for schools and such (if you are interested, look up west leigh school on the app store) The apps aren't incredibly complex machine but they work for what is intended and meant easy integration into wordpress (I also delved into web design and use wordpress as my platform, so merging the two was key.) But back on topic about the IT curriculum. Working in the school made me see that these young minds (Primary School, ages up to 11) was being force fed boring office tasks in their IT lessons. IT lessons should be full of creativity, spanning across the curriculum delving into every subject, not just Word Excel Powerpoint. I jumped on a quick teaching course so I had a rough idea and put forward to the Headteacher that I could offer the school a better approach to IT in the classroom. I started with a Games Development class, which started with a handful of year 4-6 students and we used the software "Games Factory 2" to make simple 2d games which the kids absolutely loved, we then moved onto Kodu game lab (this program is brilliant) which introduced the idea of programming and what actually makes things happen in the game world. It then spilled out where I started doing teachers lessons for them a couple times a month, with lessons that involved designing websites, blogs, games and using ipads to discover the universe (space exploration apps + ipad per student + whiteboard/projector/apple tv wirelessly streaming my ipads display is just a example of a classroom setup I had going) As soon as you could walk infront of the class and show them this whole entire world of IT that isnt office tasks, you have them at your command and couple let them open their minds up like never before. I would then give training to the teachers with these new IT technologies so that they could use them with their own lessons. I don't want to sound big headed about it but I felt I had a impact on the school in that way whilst I was working there, giving hope to the young minds of tomorrow that IT is more than text entry and word art. I'm now 20 and work in a west london company as a support engineer which is good as an IT career but one day I will return back into education and continue what I had done before on a bigger scale to stop what was discussed from happening to countless people again. Damn, I was planning on writing a summary paragraph but there you go :v:

Yeah its easy to get carried away. Speaking of Koda, I actually have an 8 year old half brother and they did a bit on Koda as well and he loved it. Its a neat way to learn basic logic structures without actually doing any coding. The thing is there are no proper technical or programming courses that cater to higher education, or if there are then they are only in certain places. The most you can find near me is rebranded media courses, which was 2 years of boring for someone like me who wanted to be doing really technical and challenging stuff and actually learning things, rather than writing about the history of animation or thinking of an idea for a game and drawing some objects for it or something. The fact that it was so unstimulating meant I really didnt have the will to go half the time since I just sat and did nothing, my attendance was piss poor and I could only bring myself to half heartedly rush the work a day or two before it was due in. I got awful grades (PPM), I know I could have pushed myself through it and done better but I have really bad problems with my attention span when I dont feel like I'm being properly challenged. As a result of that I got onto a bad degree. I guess landing an apprenticeship with Capgemini as a software engineer as the outcome made up for all of it, though. If anyone is looking for a long term apprenticeship where you start getting paid the equivalent of £7-8 an hour from the get go, get 3 months technical training in Telford with all accomodation, food, travel paid for(Programming, SQL etc), and get a full time job [B]and a degree[/B] at the end of it then you should definitely go for this. The only catch is that the whole thing lasts 5 years, and unless you have extenuating circumstances you are not allowed to leave without paying them back for the costs incurred on you (After all, the training alone must cost loads per person) If anyone has any questions or wants a full run down of the apprenticeship, the company and the work PM me. If you do want to apply for the apprenticeship and have a good demonstrable technical knowledge and have done programming before, then I can put a good word in with the apprenticeship manager and you will likely be marked down as a 'high priority candidate', meaning unless you wildly screw up the interview day (Which trust me, is extremely hard, its a very laid back environment), you get it. Obviously I can only do that for people who I know will definitely be able to do it and not screw up or fail, because in the end it reflects back onto me.