Internships are hella valuable in many ways. One, because they pay fucking awesome if you can get a paid internship, and two, because you get hands-on experience in the field you are interested in.
That's what I'm doing, and I guarantee from this point on my first few years in college will be dull because I'm already well past that point.
[QUOTE=AgentBoomstick;31219689]I'm majoring in Software Engineering, and I've been told/believe that the key alongside being an engineer is being able to market/manage finances/have general knowledge of how the business works to work well with a company.[/QUOTE]
I think that may be mostly true in a small company, like a startup, where people need to fulfill multiple roles. In a medium or large company, it helps to have some "business sense" — e.g. to recognize that an idea may not be feasible from a cost/benefit standpoint even if it makes good technical sense — but for an engineer to actually do finance work would be unusual.
However, you may "graduate" from being an engineer into being a manager of engineers, if you want to follow that path. Business/budgeting skills are much more important from a management standpoint.
[QUOTE=AgentBoomstick;31219689]I've been hearing that those trained in software engineering are called upon often to work on the design of x software and usually end up looking over and revising/optimizing code.[/QUOTE]
Absolutely. I'm simplifying and stereotyping here, but I see two basic approaches to software engineering:
[b]Ivory tower engineering,[/b] where an engineer (maybe with a title like "architect") or small group produces UML diagrams and other such artifacts, and hands them down to the developers with the directive that Thou Shalt Implement This. Appropriate if the developers don't have the skill or experience to be trusted with major design decisions.
[b]In-the-loop engineering,[/b] where the engineers [i]are[/i] the developers, and they can make significant design decisions (and revisions) during development as the need arises. You need a more skilled team, but this approach lends itself well to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development]agile development[/url].
The projects I've worked on have been of the latter sort, and "working on the design" of the software means actually doing the refactoring myself, guided by my own sense of how the program ought to be structured to meet its requirements. As Martin Fowler said: "When you find you have to add a feature to a program, and the program's code is not structured in a convenient way to add the feature, first refactor the program to make it easy to add the feature, then add the feature." Much of what I do is refactoring guided by features that I'm working on adding.
[QUOTE=Wyzard;31221666]
Absolutely. I'm simplifying and stereotyping here, but I see two basic approaches to software engineering:
[b]Ivory tower engineering,[/b] where an engineer (maybe with a title like "architect") or small group produces UML diagrams and other such artifacts, and hands them down to the developers with the directive that Thou Shalt Implement This. Appropriate if the developers don't have the skill or experience to be trusted with major design decisions.
[b]In-the-loop engineering,[/b] where the engineers [i]are[/i] the developers, and they can make significant design decisions (and revisions) during development as the need arises. You need a more skilled team, but this approach lends itself well to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development]agile development[/url].
The projects I've worked on have been of the latter sort, and "working on the design" of the software means actually doing the refactoring myself, guided by my own sense of how the program ought to be structured to meet its requirements. As Martin Fowler said: "When you find you have to add a feature to a program, and the program's code is not structured in a convenient way to add the feature, first refactor the program to make it easy to add the feature, then add the feature." Much of what I do is refactoring guided by features that I'm working on adding.[/QUOTE]
It seems like this would keep work at the very least interesting if not diverse. Opportunities to implement ideas into software or opportunities to create software. This is the attraction to software engineering over being a hardcoder.
If any of you are UK and looking for internship positions, see if IBM have any available in there software development departments. I can't exactly remember if there was a position in that department but I'll dig out the info they gave me when I went to Work Experience.
They are paid positions and working at IBM is pretty damn awesome. Hell even if you just want to intern doing something then IBM is a good bet.
[QUOTE=iPope;31224155]If any of you are UK and looking for internship positions, see if IBM have any available in there software development departments. I can't exactly remember if there was a position in that department but I'll dig out the info they gave me when I went to Work Experience.
They are paid positions and working at IBM is pretty damn awesome. Hell even if you just want to intern doing something then IBM is a good bet.[/QUOTE]
That sounds awesome, reckon you could dig the details out for me?
[QUOTE=Jah Mason;31226014]That sounds awesome, reckon you could dig the details out for me?[/QUOTE]
Sure thing, here's the link to the placement year stuff on there site: [url]http://www-05.ibm.com/employment/uk/industrial-placements/index.html[/url]
I can't find the booklet but I remember from what I read that you can get a place for a whole year or just the summer doing p. much anything and you get a whole bunch of employee benefits and the salary is better than minimum wage. It's honestly a great place to work, it gets rated most friendly / best / best acceptance of others offices like every year. It was even the first company to win an award for being tolerant towards homosexuals and the best place for them to work.
[QUOTE=iPope;31226885]Sure thing, here's the link to the placement year stuff on there site: [url]http://www-05.ibm.com/employment/uk/industrial-placements/index.html[/url]
I can't find the booklet but I remember from what I read that you can get a place for a whole year or just the summer doing p. much anything and you get a whole bunch of employee benefits and the salary is better than minimum wage. It's honestly a great place to work, it gets rated most friendly / best / best acceptance of others offices like every year. It was even the first company to win an award for being tolerant towards homosexuals and the best place for them to work.[/QUOTE]
thanks alot man, is it fairly hard to get a position? I'm applying now.
EDIT:
Maybe not, they're full for the 2012 intake D:
[QUOTE=Jah Mason;31228066]thanks alot man, is it fairly hard to get a position? I'm applying now.
EDIT:
Maybe not, they're full for the 2012 intake D:[/QUOTE]
You do realise that these internships are usually for graduates
[QUOTE=Richy19;31228125]You do realise that these internships are usually for graduates[/QUOTE]
Well, that's gay.
If you want work experience just send them an email.
[QUOTE=iPope;31229035]If you want work experience just send them an email.[/QUOTE]
I'd do that, but I live in Bristol, and I don't think there's a close workplace near me.
[QUOTE=Richy19;31228125]You do realise that these internships are usually for graduates[/QUOTE]
There are a lot of internships for non graduates though. The description will usually say. Electrical engineers for example typically start doing internships in their second year. Not sure what year CS students usually start interning because that's not my degree.
[QUOTE=Pepin;31229265]There are a lot of internships for non graduates though. The description will usually say. Electrical engineers for example typically start doing internships in their second year. Not sure what year CS students usually start interning because that's not my degree.[/QUOTE]
Oh yea this is true, but he isnt in university yet (or as you USA call it college)
What he means by college is what you do before going to university ( I guess it would be the same as doing your SAT's in america)
[QUOTE=Richy19;31229535]but he isnt in university yet (or as you USA call it college)[/QUOTE]
The strange thing is, we do call the institution itself a university, and universities often [i]contain[/i] "colleges" as organizational units specializing in different fields of study (e.g. Foobar University might have a "College of Arts & Sciences" and a "College of Engineering"). But the term "going to college" is entrenched.
I wasn't aware that other countries use "college" to mean something before university, though. That's helpful to know.
Yup, in the UK after Secondary School you either go on to 6th form or College, I went to college and did a BTEC in Software Development. It was pretty fun, had to use VB in the first year although I taught myself the necessary Lua to use Love to create a game for one of my units.
Now I'm heading to uni in September, unfortunately I have no experiences in the languages they teach, so Im trying to learn a little before I start
Basically, I'm in for computing and business studies, but I need two other subjects which would compliment computing? Can anyone share their past experiences with A levels, or just point me in the right direction of what would go well?
maths is a definite
maybe physics but it depends what kind of career you would want to go into after
[editline]21st July 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=fylth;31247660]Yup, in the UK after Secondary School you either go on to 6th form or College, I went to college and did a BTEC in Software Development.[/QUOTE]
Same I do wish we had of done more maths stuff tho, the math stuff we did in my course diddnt go into to much depth
[QUOTE=Richy19;31249470]maths is a definite
maybe physics but it depends what kind of career you would want to go into after
[editline]21st July 2011[/editline]
Same I do wish we had of done more maths stuff tho, the math stuff we did in my course diddnt go into to much depth[/QUOTE]
We didn't do any maths modules, however there are some maths units in my Uni course and they stressed that you didn't need to have much prior maths knowledge cos they'll teach it all from scratch (except you need an A in maths at GCSE, which I have)
Maths [I]does[/I] help a lot though, so if I don't know what else to do I do recommend doing maths.
At the very least you should take Matrix Theory/Linear Algebra. And probably Differential Equations.
COBOL
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