[ciapug] Looking for guidance

[Matthew Burch]

Hello,
 Pardon for the verbosity of this email.
 I have been a board leech for a few months now, but I was wondering if the members might mind
giving some professional advice.
 First, some background to set the stage. I am the bread winner of a family of four. At night when
I get time from my 4yr old and autistic 3yr old, I have been teaching myself various technologies
such as PHP and ASP and programming languages such as C++, Visual Basic and now the .NET framework
and some ADO. I have yet to find a distribution of Linux that I really like to get to know well. I
have been using computers since 1984 so I am not technically challenged. I started my career with
networking and administration about 10 years ago, but have always enjoyed the little bits of
programming that I have done and its challenges. I did have my MCSE back in 1999 with Windows NT4.
I taught myself enough to pass all of the tests on my first attempt in a 4 week span, though I
have never been an administrator in an Enterprise environment. I have zero experience with working
in a team programming environment or as a professional developer. I have read numerous website
tutorials, and started a decent sized library of various books. The major downside to all this
unstructured self education is that most tutorials on the Internet and from books are small and
uncomplicated. They teach ideas but not how they are often implemented with real world
applications. I taught myself C++ and went to take a night course at DMACC here in Des Moines to
try to learn more, but they don’t go beyond a 2 semester offering. Unfortunately I was unable to
get much from the class as I had already taught myself most of what the class contained and am
unable to attend college full time to get a degree. 
 My questions are as follows:

•	How possible is it to get a programming job at such places as Principal without a programming
degree or any certifications?
•	What suggestions would you offer to help prove to a possible employer that I can do the job?
•	Do you know of any companies that offer Internships or would consider hiring someone cheaply
just to get more experience?

Thank you in advance for any and all responses.

Matthew Burch


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