Current Student looking for Advice from Pros

Fukuyama

Buford T Justice wrote: »

To be fair, there's a lot of that kind of hand holding going on here too.

With myself regarding my questions or generally, on this form with "do my homework" posts?

Buford T Justice

Fukuyama wrote: »

With myself regarding my questions or generally, on this form with "do my homework" posts?

With respect to the attitudes and behaviors on my course.

14ned

Fukuyama wrote: »

That's very inspiring to read!

I found myself in a somewhat similar position. Except I was working office jobs etc... Very tedious work. I was promoted but found myself swimming in boring bureaucracy, busy work and paper shuffling. I made a few VBA scripts to automate a lot of my tedious work (resulting in about 3 work-free hours per day ) and all the memories of mini-projects on my computer as a teenager came back. I started practicing Javascript at night and decided to quit my job and go back to college full time.

It's tough, particularly living on savings, but hopefully in a year I'll be in a paying position and actually enjoy my work!

I hope that becomes the case for you, however the reality is that most of the jobs are in boring tedious work. Even from my position as an expert consultant for hourly hire, almost all the best paying work is for dreadfully easy/boring work pretty much as you'd do as a permie. The clients with money generally want someone competent they don't have deal with as an employee, so you weirdly end up doing exactly what you would have done as a permie, except with more before tax pay and fewer protections like a pension.

The real gain for me personally is the fixed terms of the contract. I work exactly the time I'm contracted for, not what management manage to cajole and squeeze out of me. Because you're an hourly worker, your time is valued whereas as a permie you can be seen as a political pawn useful for point scoring and turf warring in internal wars of attrition against some faction or other.

Equally of course you get no pay for sickness nor holidays, and you can and will be fired at the drop of a hat for any arbitrary reason. Still, I prefer this arrangement, though it's not for everybody.

The really weird thing about contemporary high skilled employment is that all specialists end up in the same place as they rise higher in position: administration and management. None of which exactly excites, but a medical consultant will get paid multiples for doing 80-90% the same work as a middle manager in an equivalently sized org. Waste of the medical training of course, but that's how modern society has chosen things.

Niall

D Hayes

brevity wrote: »

1. Be easy to work with.
2. Be enthuastic.
3. Don't be afraid to ask for help.
4. Don't do anything obviously stupid.
5. Learn from your mistakes.

Great advice for any line of work.

On a specific note, one thing that would be worth learning about is source control. Any respectable software company implements it. Git is quite popular at the moment and Codecademy has just launched a course on it.

Talisman

Buford T Justice wrote: »

This. Go too fast and you run the risk of information overload and its a complete waste of time. OOP programming is a massive subject and its important to get the basic fundamentals nailed down first.

On the other hand, Solas do an online java associate course, and if you do it, they race through material straight into classes, constructors, encapsulation and all that stuff without any real concrete examples as you go. Its a nightmare for a n00b

Two books that I would highly recommend to people new to programming are:

Computational Fairy Tales
Best Practices of Spell Design

They give you the concepts at a high-level so the jump to actual freaky stuff like coding isn't as daunting.

I originally bought them for my son when he was first learning to code and a friend has found them most valuable for getting to grips with her ICT conversion course.

yes there

brevity wrote: »

1. Be easy to work with.
2. Be enthuastic.
3. Don't be afraid to ask for help.
4. Don't do anything obviously stupid.
5. Learn from your mistakes.

Where I work this is all they ask of you coming in. Ill add dont be afraid to make mistakes.

Atomic Pineapple

Understanding Unit Testing/Test & Behavior Driven Development also would be a good way to stand out as a graduate.

brevity

yes there wrote: »

Where I work this is all they ask of you coming in. Ill add dont be afraid to make mistakes.

Yea, number 5 could read:

"Dont be afraid to make mistakes but do learn from them"

Fukuyama

D Hayes wrote: »

Great advice for any line of work.

On a specific note, one thing that would be worth learning about is source control. Any respectable software company implements it. Git is quite popular at the moment and Codecademy has just launched a course on it.

Git has been on my list for quite a while. Everytime I go onto Github.com and take a look around I realize a) how little I know b) that Git is some for of dark magic.

Will definitly do that Git course on Codecademy over the Christmas break.

What kind of projects would you recommend a newcomer to programming contribute to?

I've read through some code on Github and it's way above my head. I'm thinking of making a little HTML5/JS Pong game as a project over Christmas. I might put that up on my Github profile and then see if I could fix issues with someone elses game...

Talisman wrote: »

Two books that I would highly recommend to people new to programming are:

Computational Fairy Tales
Best Practices of Spell Design

They give you the concepts at a high-level so the jump to actual freaky stuff like coding isn't as daunting.

I originally bought them for my son when he was first learning to code and a friend has found them most valuable for getting to grips with her ICT conversion course.

Thanks! I'll get a hold of these and give them a read. I'll see if any libraries have them.

yes there wrote: »

Where I work this is all they ask of you coming in. Ill add dont be afraid to make mistakes.

Do you mind me asking what kind of company you work in? Startup, SME or large multinational? I'm giving some thought to what kind of company's I should be cold-emailing come Jan/Feb... Not sure which kinds would be the best to intern in.

yes there

Fukuyama wrote: »

Do you mind me asking what kind of company you work in? Startup, SME or large multinational? I'm giving some thought to what kind of company's I should be cold-emailing come Jan/Feb... Not sure which kinds would be the best to intern in.

Large multinational. With your attitude you are already ahead of most. You just need the basic skills you learn in college to back it up and you are sorted. I have never cold emailed anyone but so cant offer any advice there on but you could use linkedIn maybe to find the people you should contact. Can someone else advise if this is a good idea or not?

Fukuyama

Hi Guys,

Sem 1 exams done and dusted. Went well ( I hope!). I've been mucking around with a few little projects the past week and having fun.

Anyways, college is back pretty soon and I need to start thinking about an internship for the summer.

I'm at a bit of a crossroads with this for a few reasons:

• I've been getting more and more interested in Java as a career. It seems that the only jobs available in java are in large banks / multinationals.

• There seems to be very few (if any) advertisements for interns in Ireland. Loads going in the UK but that just isnt an option for me right now, financially. The few that are out there tend to be Jobsbridge (which I'm not eligible for) and some very obvious "we have no developers on staff but want someone to come in and do XYZ for free" ones.

• No ideas about pay or if the possibility even exists in Ireland for interns. I know that in may ways interns are expected to work unpaid to learn etc... however obviously I'd favour a company that did pay interns (even a stipend..). I guess there'd also be more chance of being kept on in a company that did pay interns as they've invested in you and are less likely to turf you out and wheel the next intern in. I've only ever encountered unpaid interns that are treated like photocopier lackeys in previous companies Ive worked for (non IT). They wind up very downtrodden and disappointed when it becomes clear their internship was never intended to be even remotely for their benefit.

I guess my main fear would be going another three months living like a pauper in an internship, ending up in a company where I'm viewed as an errand boy with zero chance of being kept on. I've no chip on my shoulder and I pretty much expect to be unpaid for an internship. I'm just worried about finding myself in a nightmare scenario as I've heard a fair few horror stories and witnessed it myself.

I'm also undecided about targeting big or small companies. Big companies seem to pay more and have more opportunities but multi-nationals tend to have very "corporate" cultures.

Anyone have any advice from when they were interns?

Cheers!

fukuyama

c_man

Fukuyama wrote: »

I'm also undecided about targeting big or small companies.

Woah nelly, send your CV everywhere and don't start narrowing your options prematurely!

You mentioned ads for interns, well previous places I've worked whilst having great intern programs never once advertised. We were inundated with CVs anyways and have deals with certain colleges.

My advice is to start sending your CV off right away (a lot of companies will have already filled their intern take for the Summer) to as many software houses you can find in your area (or city you'll be staying in). Put a nice cover letter on there and get cracking!

In parallel, start doing a bit of interview prep. Know your basics and be able to talk a bit about any college work.


Finally, I've never heard of unpaid internships in sofware dev in Ireland but I'm sure it exists. I'd think rather lowly of any company offering that tbh.

JackHeuston

Hey Fukuyama,
unfortunately I don't know how the situation is for interns in Ireland, but if you really can't find anything around that satisfies you, I would keep the UK as an option. Or even any other EU country (if companies there will be recognised by your college for the internship period). At least try emailing and calling around in the UK.

Now, I don't know if in the UK they are used to pay interns, but if by any chance you get an internship that pays, you shouldn't have too many issues moving there for a few months and paying rent.

Have you tried asking your college, too? Sometimes they have a network of companies willing to take students for short-term internships.

I'm saying this because I've done the same mandatory internship to graduate from college in 2012. I was studying CS in Italy, there was this opportunity in Dublin advertised on the bulletin board of the department which nobody wanted to get since it would have meant moving abroad, even if it was for only two months. It was paid and requirements were pretty basic, too. Most students preferred doing photocopies and trivial office tasks in the nearby companies for free or for a little expenses refund. I took it, done the interview, and took a flight three days later to start working. I had to ask my parents for some money at first but they paid me after the first month and at the end of those two months I came back with the internship done, some experience in a real company, and some money too. Now I've been working for them for two years.

What I'm saying is don't leave any option behind even if it looks impossible, those are usually the best ones. And after you've gotten some actual experience developing for a company, it's easier to look for another job than looking with zero experience at all.

I did a couple of interviews with some local companies there before considering the internship I did. They were either generic companies (a mattresses factory!) looking for someone to make them a website for free, or companies that needed some IT support for their offices (plug loosen ethernet cables back in, help the secretary unfreeze Windows...). I didn't even try starting with any of them because I badly wanted some real programming experience in a company that offered services or softwares. I was lucky I admit and it paid off at the end.

Imho only if you see that you're running short of time, you can lower your standards and start looking again.

Lastly, don't look too much at the company size.

14ned

Fukuyama wrote: »

Hi Guys,
Anyways, college is back pretty soon and I need to start thinking about an internship for the summer.

(snip)

Anyone have any advice from when they were interns?

Yes, firstly never work for free. You are not in fashion design, you are not a journalist, you are an engineer. Engineers don't work for free (*), if a role offers that it isn't a role worth bothering with as you won't be doing any CV building work anyway.

Secondly, I'd really stress again that Google Summer of Code is highly worth doing. Google will pay you $5,500 for the summer, so that's about five grand euro for three month's of remote working. If you pare down your costs i.e. move back in with your parents, that's more than twice than being on Jobseekers. Not bad. Far more valuable is an enormous gain in terms of contacts, networking, and it being on your CV will help discussion in job interviews for at least the next five years.

In the Boost C++ Libraries, our GSoC students are generally approached immediately by the big US multinationals with hard offers. One of our best students was offered a six figure dollar salary by one of the most elite teams in Microsoft who get their own especially nice building with every worker with their own large and private office. For the record, he actually turned it down, so there you go.

Now, it's hard to get into GSoC, and you will need to work hard once in and need to get back in next summer to really gain maximum value. You may also have to stump up cash to get to conferences to present your work as we make our Boost GSoC students do. But it's all about raising your profile, building your CV, impressing a network of contacts, and none of that comes for free.

Niall

(*) There is a long list of why and when we do work for free, but in your case above none apply to you.

Graham

14ned wrote: »

Yes, firstly never work for free.

Secondly, never say never.

Hollister11

I'm currently a second year student, what should i know in java for a summer internship ?