Did any of you programmers learn how to program from a trade/vocational school? If you didn't, but managed to be hired (for your programming skills) anyways, what exactly was your method of learning? Don't answer if you're gonna say college, that's an easy answer. If you didn't go to trade school nor college then I'd assume you learned using programming books. Go ahead and suggest some if you wish, but that isn't the primary concern at the moment. Did you keep a GitHub portfolio?
Another question, if I may; if you did go to a trade school, how exactly did you find it? I'm in the market for one, myself, but haven't actually found any, and google seems to confuse trade schools with community colleges and actual universities, which I want no part of.
I taught myself pretty much everything I know, then found a shitty entry level job and worked my way up from there to a decent job surrounded by suckers who fell for the college meme.
Xavier Adams
No one is going to admit they went to trade school because it is considered low status.
Aaron Ward
As long as you have 115 IQ you should be able to l2c.
Grayson Nelson
Over the last few days I've been trying a different approach, I'm doing it like a white man and reading through C64 books. I'm about half way through All about the commodore 64 volume 1 and If things go smoothly by next week I'll be starting on 6502 ASM. Perhaps modern programming practices make you think too much like a nigger.
Hunter Baker
Yes, it's quite common to do apprenticeships here and unlike the US it's not looked down upon and everything's regulated on a federal level (dual ed bullshit). You can't expect much from it though. I ended up getting a web dev job making shitty PHP websites for small to medium sized businesses. My colleagues from school didn't fare much better either. After getting bored to death I went back to school and am starting my undergraduate in CS this september. Bottom line is: It'll probably work, but you can't expect a software engineer's position with trade school. If you know you'll happily settle with web dev positions for the rest of your life, go ahead. Otherwise just go straight to university.
Colton White
I learned the basic shit in high school, learned more advanced basic shit in college, afterwards I took a trade school course that only taught the basic shit for absolute beginners so I learned nothing there. I got experience doing open source stuff and learning from people much better than me and then when I got a job I learned other stuff. I still suck if I have to do something on my own, but I know my way around code. If I have to work on something that already exists I can manage, but I am pajeet level if I have to start from scratch. Does that make sense?
Alexander Brooks
Honestly, it's not even looked down upon in the US. That's just a post-rationalization people use when they take out a loan for a college that costs 40K per year.
Chase Gutierrez
I never formally learned to program, but it's not too hard. 1. Find a project you want to do. Make it simple and useful, like sorting your music based on the artists' name in the filename. 2. Logically, think about how you can complete this task. For the music sorting above, if the filenames are:
Then you can see there is always a separator between the artist name and the song title. 3. Pick a language such as Python to complete this task. 4. Now you will need to start doing tons of searching. Start with obtaining all files within the directory, look up how to do that in Python. Then, search how to split the filenames so you can obtain the artist name. Keep doing this until you finish you task.
This will be the hardest part of the entire thing. 5. You've completed the task, good job. Go back and optimize your code or learn how to do it different ways. Add more features and then find another task to complete.
Hunter Robinson
Not even remotely true.
Carter Hall
First of all if you're going to school to learn to programs you're an idiot. Anyway I went to a trade school for software development and got a 4.0. All of it was incredibly easy and I felt no more employable than I was before aside from a piece of paper on my resume. I of course did not find a job and am now going to a real school for a bachelor's.
I had already been programming for years before I went. I only went for the degree. It was a mistake.
Ayden Campbell
I went he traditional route with a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering. Most top tier jobs won't even consider you without one.
However if you're looking to just be a niche programmer, you can just learn on the job and with books. For books, I like the Pragmatic Programmer series.
I've been looking at some books recently, even considering buying one on paper. It bothers me a bit that some these books focus mainly on specific libraries (scikit-learn etc). What's the chance that these will still be useful in the way they were printed 2-3 years ago in the future? I've been considering getting the 2nd edition of this one which is due to come out in may shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033400.do
Grayson Baker
Why is it then that only a small fraction of US students are going into apprenticeships or tradeschools if it's apparently not looked down upon? In european (especially german speaking) countries the students going into vocational education outnumber those who go to university.
Landon Ortiz
Because they fell for the idea that everyone needs a college degree to work at even McDonalds.
Oliver Watson
If you find it useful at any given time, it will likely have been worth it to buy and read. The area you're looking into is pretty stable too, so I wouldn't worry too much about the knowledge becoming obsolete.
David Clark
I think it's because the quality varies a lot between different universities in the US and what said
Grayson Martinez
You have no idea just how hard they push the (((Degree))) meme here.
Asher Turner
I went to trade school for programming. I 100% could have learned everything there on my own, but I don't have that kind of drive. So it helped. It was also free for me, because socialism. So there's that.
Luke Ross
Yeah it is quite hard coming up with something out of the blue
David Gutierrez
Top wew! Zig Forums is full of LARPers who don't even have a Bachelors degree.
Eli Jackson
based sage negated though
Evan Gray
protip: getting a bachelor's degree doesn't imply intelligence. it only implies the student has the patience to work through a degree
Tyler Rodriguez
No thank you.
Liam Sanders
...
Gavin Lopez
That's for Bachelor + Master. unbaser btw
Ryan Carter
Self-taught to start with, but I did eventually go to a community college (which does have a trade school and gives certificates in "Computer Programming") and then transferred to a University. Most of the stuff you need to know to be good, and I mean really good, not just a code-monkey who can bang-out scripts that superficially do a lot but aren't well-architected, you can learn from books. The problem is people lack discipline and don't always absorb lessons from text, they just memorize statements.
There is nothing wrong with trade school, although for computing it's pretty worthless. You basically get a "Certified Pajeet" paper for your trouble. You might be able to use it to find work as a WebDev, but a lot of those guys have "certificates" that aren't even accredited from programs far sketchier than a trade school, so that's not saying much.
I recommend picking a couple languages, at least one on the Top 10 of StackOverflow or some other site, and then dedicating yourself to them. For optimal practicality, you probably want on systematic language (C derivative, including C++, Java, C#, Rust (lol), something that compiles and has Objects is optimal) and a scripting language. C++ and Python is a killer combo. Maintaining a github or gitlab is good for building a portfolio.
The main benefit to attending a university (or even a community college) is the chance to join clubs, meet people who will also go into the industry, and find internships. Exiting with job experience will give you a big leg-up over others. Trade schools are normally good at this because you can't become a "true" carpenter or whatever without being an apprentice first. But for programming this is not how it works. Maybe it should be, but it isn't.
Pick a language... a mature one (so NOT Rust, that was a joke) and I can recommend books to read.
