career thread

[Prelude]

>Sorry Prelude I have already started development on world conquest.
That's okay, I can always crush you and steal your work.

On the serious side, I'll probably go back to school in the near future so that I can get a "real" degree. After that I may try my hand at teaching, but the research end of computer science appeals to me a little more I think.

[DrakkenKorin]

>>9 months ago, I would have told you I would be a computer programmer in 10 years. Today, I'd say translator or some type of linguist, possibly in the military.<<

you may want to look into the "lesser known" languages - farsi, arabic, etc. (mostly from the near and far east).

as for me, i have a degree in anthropology and computer science and i waste my time wiritng and administering contracts for the government - woohoo.

[LuckY]

I am currently one of three programmers (the other two are an owner and his son) for a small company (there used to be about 100 employees, but after 9/11 there are about 30) that does revenue accounting for airlines. I've been with the company for going on 8 years (I started there when I was 18) and have worked on some very interesting projects, but most of the time I sit and do homework or surf the web. It's not where I want to stay once I graduate but because of the generosity and hopes the owner has put into me (he is sort of grooming me to help fill his shoes [he's nearly 60]), I'm going to have a hard time figuring out what to do.

I've been in college for about 8 years as well (since I was 18) and was originally majoring in Business Administration. I was really into computers but was terrified that taking the 10 math classes I needed would take forever and be too hard. I'm now 1 year transferred to a university (CSUF) and with any luck will graduate June of '06. Once I do graduate I'm not sure what I'd like to pursue, but for the last year or two I've really been getting into low-level stuff, but I love C++ (it's practically all I program in [but not at work]), so I guess we'll just wait and C.

[Perspective]

Ive finished 3 years of a CS degree. Im now on a 16 month internship (ending next august) at which point i will dedicate my life to building a better fajita than cheez.... or ill go finish the last year of my degree, havnt really decided yet.

[Govtcheez]

i will dedicate my life to building a better fajita than cheez....

Pffft. Whatever.

[Sang-drax]

I'm studying engineering mathematics, so I guess I'm one of the few here who doesn't study CS.

[Thantos]

IIRC both govt and ober got CE degrees and not CS

[Darkness]

Well sang I've noticed that if people aren't in cs they're in something relating to engineering. I might be changing from engineering to engineering physics.

[Govtcheez]

IIRC both govt and ober got CE degrees and not CS

Yep.

[ober]

Computer Engineer here (as noted by Thantos and GC). I graduated a year and a half ago and just passed my 1 year employment mark with my company (Volvo Trucks North America or VTNA, Mack Trucks Powertrain Division). I support our engine development lab doing a variety of programming/IT tasks. I program a split 50/50 between web stuff and other application development.

The web stuff is all database/ISO work getting reports to the other engineers. The other programming is cell automation. Myself and 2 other guys write the programs that run a variety of emissions and endurance tests on the engines. Some of the software is stuff we have written (combo of VB and RTP Netarrays) and the rest is done in software packages that we bought from other companies. I prefer our own stuff, but the other stuff interfaces with the hardware better.

I won't say I totally enjoy the job, but it's certainly better than others I could have. I won't be here forever, that's for sure.

[Govtcheez]

I guess I'll actually add something to the discussion besides "Yep."

I finished my CE degree at Kettering 6 months after ober, last December. I was unemployed through a combination of laziness and our craptacular economy until last September, when I accepted a job with Patrick Engineering (I'm technically employed as a contractor, but whatever). My offical job title is "Drafter", but I'm pretty sure that's just so they don't have to pay me as much. I've done absolutely 0 drafting since I started here, 3 months ago.

Our company has a contract with a local utility to do work on somewhere in the neighborhood of 170 electrical substations by the end of next year. Because the drawings we're working on are still actually owned by our client, it's up to them when they issue them to us. Sometimes the drawings get held up by disagreements, sometimes they're checked out to another company for revision, and sometimes there are other minor problems (the amount of drawings they've lost is pretty impressive). My real job is to keep track of what we're getting, what we have, the issues with the other drawings. My boss and I are pretty much the heads of document management here.

We're trying to acquire some software to help our work out, but with bureaucracy the way it is, we're not holding our breath. Chances are, we'll modify my existing access database or write something new to deal with things.

I'm also pretty much the lone IT guy here. My boss has picked up some things by virtue of just being around for a lot longer than me, but he doesn't have a lot of formal computer training. It helps a lot that he's young (29) and is still able to pick up new things easily - not a dig on the older members here, it's just that most of the older people around here are still totally befuddled by the computer machines, in spite of using them 8 hours a day for years and years.

[hk_mp5kpdw]

Graduated with a Comp Sci degree from Virginia Tech (go Hokies!). I now work as a contractor for the FAA in Washington DC. I started out mostly as code monkey but as things have progressed I find myself forced more into a DBA type role since we are transitioning to an Oracle database from a godawful archaic Btrieve database.

The database keeps track of all frequency assignments (radars, VHF/UHF air/ground communications, microwave transmitters, etc.) the FAA uses throughout the USA. I help manage the backend database flow (the import into and export from) of said database while the engineers in the office use programs that access this data and run analysis models to search for things like radio frequency intereference.

I tend to write a lot of database extract programs (or rather much simpler SQL scripts now that we use Oracle) to convert an export/dump of our database into a specific format required by the end user, either other offices in the FAA or FOIA requests (Freedom Of Information Act) from the public.

I also help out the less technically inclined engineers around the office (you'd think being engineers would count for something). Take this recent example:

Eng: I want my program to run in full screen mode when it starts up.
Me: Ok...
Me: (right-click on title bar, adjust settings)
Me: Done!
Eng: Thanks!

Fast-forward a couple days later...

Eng: I changed my mind, I now want it to start in windowed mode but there is no place for me to right click on now
Me: (wow, he actually remembered that right click thing, I'm sorta impressed)
Me: Fine (walks over to his computer grumbling all the way)
Me: (Alt-Enter gets the program back in windowed mode, right clicks on the now available title bar and adjusts settings)
Me: Done!
Eng: Thanks!
Me: You sure this is what you want?
Eng: Yes.
Me: Absolutely sure?
Eng: Yes.
Me: Really, really, really sure?
Eng: Yes.
Me: Fine (walks away grumbling)

Bet he asks me to change it back in a few days.

[edit]World domination sounds nice but its too much work... I don't have that kind of motivation.[/edit]

[ober]

I've found that being an engineer does not involve the necessity to understand the basics of a computer.... or so it seems around here.

I had one engineer here going home every day with headaches. Then I had to use his computer one day to show him something and I sat down and I could barely look at the screen because the refresh rate was so low. No wonder he was getting headaches! I changed it and his health has since increased.

[jlou]

Graduated 5 years ago with CS/Math, good timing since there were still programming jobs around. Luckily, picked a company that has not gone under or downsized much. I basically work on our big program all day every day, I guess code monkey is accurate. They like me, I like them. I am not ambitious, so I'll be writing code until something changes.

[nvoigt]

Finished my degree in Germany 6 years ago and got a job before I even had the official papers. Lucky me, our economy sucks and I wouldn't want to be in the same situation now.

I'm coding a variety of C++ | C# | PL/SQL ( Oracle SQL Scripts ) stuff in a development department for a local corporation.

Coding itself is easy once you know what people want the program to do. Getting people to tell you what they want is actually the hardest part. Sometimes I feel like a need a second qualification as a nursery school teacher.