[ciapug] Re: Looking for guidance

[afan at afan.net]

My story:
came to New York as war refugee in 1997. Had some programming experience
from my country (Bosnia) from collage. But, didn't have any certificate
here, in US.

Was working 6 months in Sprout Communications as internship. Boss found I
LOVE programming and I'm good and first hired me for 4 hrs/day, and after
next 6 months 8 hrs/day. After a year I got full time position. For 3
years jumped from 21K to 48K/year. We got GOOOOOD client (Sony
Entertainment Pictures" and I built GOOOOOOD portfolio (check afan.net).
No, it opens almost every door. :)

What I want to say, is EDUCATION is VERY important, not because you are
going to get some certificates, then you will get some KNOWLEDGE.

It's ok to (pre)plan everything but, actually, you CANNOT plan everything!
And you have to believe in your luck too. If you want to plan everything
up front - you will never start. Just GO, start. This moment.

Google for  web development/web companies and check internships. Almost
positive are plenty.
Also, start building web sites for non-profit organizations. They
(usually) are short on money a they will be more than happy to have
somebody to make them a web site for free. Build a web site for your
community. Build web sites for friends. YOU NEVER KNOW what could happen!
Believe me, you CANNOT plan everything.
:)

-afan
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 1 May 2006 15:47:04 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Matthew Burch <matthewaburch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [ciapug] Looking for guidance
> To: ciapug at cialug.org
> Message-ID: <20060501224704.66861.qmail at web53104.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> 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&#8217;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:
>
> &#8226;	How possible is it to get a programming job at such places as
Principal
> without a programming
> degree or any certifications?
> &#8226;	What suggestions would you offer to help prove to a possible
employer
> that I can do the job?
> &#8226;	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
>