Can you do anything with an associates degree in Computer Science

[Regular Developer]

Hmmm, a question for the developers here. What can I do in the mean time while pursuing the master's? Aside from getting acquainted the career center on campus, networking and actually writing apps for practice, is there anything else I should be doing? Especially since I won't be taking any master's classes until (hopefully, I can take some of the prerequisites this fall) and it'll probably be at least two years before I actually finish all of the classes.

What type of masters ar you doing?

Anyway, as far as stuff on the side, I think you should try and work on open source projects. While, I've never done it, it looks better on your resume vs just doing a bunch of practice projects,(unless your 'practicing' building apps and solving algorithmic issues to cut down execution time).

Read alot about certain programming languages or software tools that you would be interested in working in. If you want to be a .net web developer, you would want to learn ASP, C#/VB, web services. Reading is partially for staying current with technologies, but its mainly for interviews. Cause even though your knowledge on new features for C# 4.0 won't help for the job they are interviewing you for, they will ask you.

The main thing you'll want to is know your shyt, and be able to prove you can program on the spot. Many people will interview for programming positions, but only a few of them will be able to get past the technical and actual coding part. DOn't worry though, when you hear the questions in the interviews, they'll be easy enough for you to think "Is this a trick question".

sidenote: Also, read up on those stupid microsoft interview 2.0 questions. Some ppl will ask those (example: how do you cross the river with a wolf, a duck, and duck food yadda yadda yadda...)

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Hmmm, a question for the developers here. What can I do in the mean time while pursuing the master's? Aside from getting acquainted the career center on campus, networking and actually writing apps for practice, is there anything else I should be doing? Especially since I won't be taking any master's classes until (hopefully, I can take some of the prerequisites this fall) and it'll probably be at least two years before I actually finish all of the classes.

What I did when I was learning something new was I gave myself a real world project to do at home. I started learning Oracle by creating a movie database and going through each step of the development lifecycle from there I started writing code to do basic stuff like inserts, updates and selects. Then I wrote front end that talked to a service layer which talked to the DB. By the time all of this was said and done I was confident to embellish years of experience since I had actual hands on on felt confident enough talking about it.

I learned Spring, jsp, starting to learn Hibernate and a few other things just by giving myself a real world example and keeping it up to date.

 

[Spatial Paradox]

What type of masters ar you doing?

Anyway, as far as stuff on the side, I think you should try and work on open source projects. While, I've never done it, it looks better on your resume vs just doing a bunch of practice projects,(unless your 'practicing' building apps and solving algorithmic issues to cut down execution time).

Read alot about certain programming languages or software tools that you would be interested in working in. If you want to be a .net web developer, you would want to learn ASP, C#/VB, web services. Reading is partially for staying current with technologies, but its mainly for interviews. Cause even though your knowledge on new features for C# 4.0 won't help for the job they are interviewing you for, they will ask you.

The main thing you'll want to is know your shyt, and be able to prove you can program on the spot. Many people will interview for programming positions, but only a few of them will be able to get past the technical and actual coding part. DOn't worry though, when you hear the questions in the interviews, they'll be easy enough for you to think "Is this a trick question".

sidenote: Also, read up on those stupid microsoft interview 2.0 questions. Some ppl will ask those (example: how do you cross the river with a wolf, a duck, and duck food yadda yadda yadda...)

It would be for the MA in computer science. There's some courses a student can take if they want to have a graphics/multimedia concentration. Since I'd like to get into game development someday, I figure I'll probably take those courses as a part of fulfilling the degree requirements.

I've been reading up on interviews about programming jobs so I can know what to expect. I'm shocked at the number of stories there are about people with bachelor's (and even masters) degrees who can't even describe a queue or a stack

I am a little embarrassed to admit that while I'd like to work on open source projects, I wouldn't know the first thing about jumping in on one. What should the aspiring developer know about this in terms of the basics?

What I did when I was learning something new was I gave myself a real world project to do at home. I started learning Oracle by creating a movie database and going through each step of the development lifecycle from there I started writing code to do basic stuff like inserts, updates and selects. Then I wrote front end that talked to a service layer which talked to the DB. By the time all of this was said and done I was confident to embellish years of experience since I had actual hands on on felt confident enough talking about it.

I learned Spring, jsp, starting to learn Hibernate and a few other things just by giving myself a real world example and keeping it up to date.

Good to know. I should probably look into learning more about databases now that you mention it.

 

[Regular Developer]

It would be for the MA in computer science. There's some courses a student can take if they want to have a graphics/multimedia concentration. Since I'd like to get into game development someday, I figure I'll probably take those courses as a part of fulfilling the degree requirements.

I've been reading up on interviews about programming jobs so I can know what to expect. I'm shocked at the number of stories there are about people with bachelor's (and even masters) degrees who can't even describe a queue or a stack

I am a little embarrassed to admit that while I'd like to work on open source projects, I wouldn't know the first thing about jumping in on one. What should the aspiring developer know about this in terms of the basics?



Good to know. I should probably look into learning more about databases now that you mention it.

O cool, game dev. Im hoping to get in it to. You might wanna find out what your getting into though. I "hear" that you can wind up doing crazy hrs and not get properly compensated, whereas if you do consulting, you're more likely to be compensated.

I had an interview where they asked me how to reverse a string, and ppl be doing crazy shyt, lol. doing 5 nested loops for that in C#?

But since you're into game development, you can either develop your own or get a group of other people who are trying to make games. That can be an option aside from open source work.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Hmmm, a question for the developers here. What can I do in the mean time while pursuing the master's? Aside from getting acquainted the career center on campus, networking and actually writing apps for practice, is there anything else I should be doing? Especially since I won't be taking any master's classes until (hopefully, I can take some of the prerequisites this fall) and it'll probably be at least two years before I actually finish all of the classes.

O cool, game dev. Im hoping to get in it to. You might wanna find out what your getting into though. I "hear" that you can wind up doing crazy hrs and not get properly compensated, whereas if you do consulting, you're more likely to be compensated.

I had an interview where they asked me how to reverse a string, and ppl be doing crazy shyt, lol. doing 5 nested loops for that in C#?

But since you're into game development, you can either develop your own or get a group of other people who are trying to make games. That can be an option aside from open source work.

byte [] byteArr = str.toByteArray()

for (int i = byteArr.length()-1;i >0;i--)
System.out.println (byteArr);

LOL a 5 nested anything

Or StringBuffer strBuff = new StringBuffer(str);
strBuff.reverse();

 

[Spatial Paradox]

O cool, game dev. Im hoping to get in it to. You might wanna find out what your getting into though. I "hear" that you can wind up doing crazy hrs and not get properly compensated, whereas if you do consulting, you're more likely to be compensated.

I had an interview where they asked me how to reverse a string, and ppl be doing crazy shyt, lol. doing 5 nested loops for that in C#?

But since you're into game development, you can either develop your own or get a group of other people who are trying to make games. That can be an option aside from open source work.

Five nested loops to reverse a string?

C++ snippet:
string strToReverse = "Whatever";
for (int index = strToReverse.length(); i >= 0; --i)
cout << strToReverse[index];


If nothing else, I think I can handle most of the common interview questions. Too bad I won't be going for any interviews any time soon

I've read some of the horror stories of game developers getting fukked over. Hopefully I can avoid BS like that. But game development's more of a longer-term goal anyway. Right now, I'm just concentrating on getting better at actually writing software and going after that degree. So I'm not too worried about things like that...yet.

 

[FreshFromATL]

my advice to you is that u pick up a few programming books. read them to determine which ones are the easiest for you to understand. then make sure you master them.

i guarantee that u could be making ridiculous money before u graduate.

pick up books on java, perl, bash, awk, php.

pick at least two from the aforementioned languages. master them. u will be thanking me when you get your first job.

try not to depend solely on the crap they teach u in school. schools hardly ever teach REAL LIFE scenarios. use ur imagination.

GREAT ADVICE! If anyone needs a programming book (on any language), I have a whole library I can recommend.