So, I took an organic chemistry course recently, and there was lots and lots of tension in that class. I truly believe that a lot of it came from the pre-med, pre-dental, pre-optometry, and pre-vet types who are all willing to kill their own grandmothers to keep their 4.0 average. It doesn't help that some of the professors, especially the lab professors, are humorless trolls who act like they're specially anointed gatekeepers of the holiest of holies. Maybe I let my own predilections come too much to the fore, but chemistry as a subject past freshman chemistry just seems grim.
Computer Science, on the other hand, seems much more relaxed. There are some serious people, but there are some fun and happy people as well. People don't seem as stressed about their grades.
So here's the question: How important are grades going to be for someone who might possibly graduate with a BS in CS say, around May of 2012? Will a 4.0 be required to get a decent job, or would there still be hope for someone who only had a 3.8?
So here's the question: How important are grades going to be for someone who might possibly graduate with a BS in CS say, around May of 2012? Will a 4.0 be required to get a decent job, or would there still be hope for someone who only had a 3.8?
I failed out of CS at RIT; I have only an associates degree. I currently work for Google.
CS and IT is about doing, not knowing. Know your stuff, interview well, get good internships, and a 3.8 is more than enough.
So, I took an organic chemistry course recently, and there was lots and lots of tension in that class. I truly believe that a lot of it came from the pre-med, pre-dental, pre-optometry, and pre-vet types who are all willing to kill their own grandmothers to keep their 4.0 average.
As someone who dates a pre-med student, I will attest that if killing her Grandmother would indeed allow her to keep her 4.0 she would do it. Having met a few of her classmates I would hazard that they would as well.
So, I took an organic chemistry course recently, and there was lots and lots of tension in that class. I truly believe that a lot of it came from the pre-med, pre-dental, pre-optometry, and pre-vet types who are all willing to kill their own grandmothers to keep their 4.0 average. It doesn't help that some of the professors, especially the lab professors, are humorless trolls who act like they're specially anointed gatekeepers of the holiest of holies. Maybe I let my own predilections come too much to the fore, but chemistry as a subject past freshman chemistry just seems grim.
Computer Science, on the other hand, seems much more relaxed. There are some serious people, but there are some fun and happy people as well. People don't seem as stressed about their grades.
So here's the question: How important are grades going to be for someone who might possibly graduate with a BS in CS say, around May of 2012? Will a 4.0 be required to get a decent job, or would there still be hope for someone who only had a 3.8?
The only time grades mean anything is if you want to work at very specific places that actually care about your grades. For example, the FBI cares about grades. IBM or Intel or Oracle probably care about your grades. Other places don't even care if you have a degree. Tons of people in the software field have no formal education. If you can get the job done, you can get the job. That's all there is to it. Even if you you had a 5.0 GPA somehow, you couldn't get hired if you couldn't actually demonstrate that you can do the work.
That's why someone like me who had a failed Calculus 3 multiple times GPA has people constantly emailing me for jobs. Because I coded in my spare time. It's a thing I cared about and knew how to do, even though I put forth a slacking effort in college. Meanwhile people who were in my same class who got perfect grades and studied like crazy are unemployed. They weren't actually good at computers. They were just really good at school.
It's also a field where you study every day. Every single day I go on the Internets and follow the latest developments and learn new things. About half of any given work day is actually learning things, even after having been gainfully employed in the field for almost a decade straight.
+1 to GauntletWizard and Apreche's comments. There are a few other areas where you might face more scrutiny of your academic performance:
Academia. Both grad school work and even being employed by a school. Government (State/Federal) work. Not for contract work so-much though. Internships, especially those that are tied in with your school.
I'm another "I learned what I wanted to learn and didn't necessarily dwell on my grades" programmer. It's hurt me a little at a couple junctions. On the other hand, always maintaining that attitude made me stronger in other ways.
I failed out of CS at RIT; I have only an associates degree. I currently work for Google.
I failed out of IT at RIT, and currently don't have any degrees. I work for a Swiss bank, and have worked for some pretty cool startups. I agree with everything GauntletWizard, Apreche, and Creamsteak said. Practical skills are worth more than your university's weight in gold.
For the past year, I've interned in the IT department at a financial office, and would occasionally have to choose between homework assignments, work, programming/research for fun, and sanity. Usually, I'd lean towards work and sanity, delaying assignments when necessary and accepting a B. Now in my last year, I say that was the correct choice. My hard work in the office paid off with a good job offer, and I'm confident that real world experience will look better on my resume when I decide to leave.
I work as a geologist and sate my horn for academia by working with collaborations on larger projects. Most recently on the possibilities for the Singaporean government to invest heavily into potential geothermal sources to power their country.
This and this are both scaled down versions of papers for a university science magazine detailing some of the fun stuff I work on peripheral to my main income stream. My point is that my passion for research has not granted me fatty bank (yet), but has given me the opportunity to work with renewable energies and get paid to hike around Asia. If you have practical skills and carry yourself as an enthusiastic advocate of your chosen craft people will notice you.
As has been stated, you do not need a degree to be successful. Passion / Interest in a topic and a little drive will do most of the work for you. If you have passion and interest, you will likely be happier with what you achieve. Too many people enrol in tertiary institutions expecting "Degree in Engineering = profit" with no real drive or passion behind that decision, just the expectation that the light at the end of the tunnel involves success of a sort.
That's why someone like me who had a failed Calculus 3 multiple times GPA has people constantly emailing me for jobs. Because I coded in my spare time. It's a thing I cared about and knew how to do, even though I put forth a slacking effort in college. Meanwhile people who were in my same class who got perfect grades and studied like crazy are unemployed. They weren't actually good at computers. They were just really good at school.
I totally can relate to the bold text. When I was like 13 I got bored of playing vanilla Unreal Tournament. It was one of the two games I had (Quake 2 being the other). At that time, I had no internet at home (someone ran up the phone bill and didnt know how modem works ). So I resorted to internet cafes to do research. I came across 3DBuzz.com and read some stuff about unrealscript. From there I started Java and I've been programming ever since. While I cant find my final project for UT2k4 called 'UWeaponz' (old pc died along with its old 80GB HD), it was kinda simple. There were classes and the more powerful the primary weapon, the slower you move. I even added a few new weapons, such as Penetrator Rifle which shot through walls. Basically, I iterated through the game's Controllers and found the associated Pawn. Then, using some drawBox() utility function (remember the spaceship assault mission?) to draw enemy boxes on screen when target's behind an obstacle (lineOfSightTo() == false).
I'm glad I decided to make programming my #1 hobby. I remember a particular Biology experiment and we had to create pie chart. I didn't use Excel or whatever. I used my Trig. skill and Java2D to create an awesome anti-aliased pie chart. When I submitted it, everyone who saw it was impressed.
I've been listening to GN for quite a while and much of what you and Rym talk about I investigate. I've never heard of Madoka before, so I checked it out and it was definitely worth it. Likewise with GitHub, I investigated and considered that I should start uploading some projects. Next up is the networked music player written in Flash and php. Some pics are in my imageshack album (http://imageshack.us/g/12/nmpd.jpg/).
I'd take you on your offer about tutoring, but I need to get a new headset first.
I'm going to bold a different bit of this comment:
That's why someone like me who had a failed Calculus 3 multiple times GPA has people constantly emailing me for jobs. Because I coded in my spare time. It's a thing I cared about and knew how to do, even though I put forth a slacking effort in college. Meanwhile people who were in my same class who got perfect grades and studied like crazy are unemployed. They weren't actually good at computers. They were just really good at school.
As an engineer at Google, everyone does interviews. I've only done two or three, but I was amazed by the interviewees - One was a PHD student, had contributed code to a project I use daily, but had almost zero ability to practically program, and no clue how systems worked. Another had an impressive resume, but didn't get simple algorithms, and totally didn't get the large systems design portion either. Both obviously had good "Book Knowledge", but little real-world acumen.
I believe many of you have been restating the same thing again and again, that actual skills are much more important than theoretical knowledge. "Don't think...Do."
I believe many of you have been restating the same thing again and again, that actual skills are much more important than theoretical knowledge. "Don't think...Do."
If you can get the job done, you can get the job. That's all there is to it. Even if you you had a 5.0 GPA somehow, you couldn't get hired if you couldn't actually demonstrate that you can do the work.
That just brings me back to the question I had before that I still don't quite understand. How do you show you have these skills with no formal education? Do you carry around a portfolio like an artist? Do you rely on your hacker cred as if you were a character in Neuromancer? Does the employer you're interviewing with give you an on-site test?
If you can get the job done, you can get the job. That's all there is to it. Even if you you had a 5.0 GPA somehow, you couldn't get hired if you couldn't actually demonstrate that you can do the work.
That just brings me back to the question I had before that I still don't quite understand. How do you show you have these skills with no formal education? Do you carry around a portfolio like an artist? Do you rely on your hacker cred as if you were a character in Neuromancer? Does the employer you're interviewing with give you an on-site test?
Every employer will do something different. What exactly they do is important because it tells you more about the philosophy and attitude of that workplace than anything else they are going to show or tell you. For example, Google's hours and multiple rounds of interviews made me realize I have no desire to work there whatsoever.
Some common things I have seen are making employees write a fizzbuzz. That's asking you to write a very simple program on the spot. The kind of program that I can write, literally, in thirty seconds. It would be like hiring a mechanic and asking them to change the oil in a car as a test. You would be shocked to know that an incredibly high percentage of applications struggle, or are unable, to pass this. It's mostly used as a filter to not waste the interviewer's time with crap applicants.
As I said before, some places like Facebook have you do puzzles. These are usually kind of crummy, but I can understand why a big place like Facebook needs some extra automatic resume filtration.
The only portfolio you have is software that you have written. This is important and can set you apart from other applicants. This is why at RIT they make us do co-ops. We do real work and have real projects on our resumes before graduating and trying to get real jobs.
You have to write actual software. Not just homework assignments or school projects. You have to make something that is actually used, by at least yourself. It's best if you write multiple things. You can contribute to an existing open source projects. You can start your own. You have to have an actual body of work. I wrote the X iPhone app, here's a link. I wrote these web sites. Here is my GitHub account. This is the difference between an ignored resume and an interview.
The interview itself is mostly going to be talking. Imagine if I read a bunch of books about fixing cars. Then I went downstairs and tried to pass myself off as an experienced auto mechanic to get a job. He'd try to talk shop with me, and know almost immediately I had never actually fixed a car in my life. People with experience can just tell. It takes one to know one.
Just by talking to someone for a few minutes I can tell if they are for real. Based on how they answer the questions, what words they use, etc. Fooling me would be as amazing as me fooling the mechanic downstairs that I had years of auto repair experience. It would be extremely hard even for a con-artist. If you are a programmer, you can comfortably talk shop with other programmers, and they can tell.
Funny enough, in the lab I work with some of the highest level people don't have any degrees at all. They worked their way up from the lowest level job at the place and I'm sure they get screwed on pay but if they are actually good at their job the degree isn't even required. So I guess if you can get into Google as the janitor and then befriend someone who gets to know you know what your doing. You can move up even easier then other people :-p
On good project someone could work on, to add to their programming skills, would be a Vanilla 2 plugin that checks for the words "then" and "your". If it finds them, it asks the user to tick a box to confirm that they really mean "then" rather than "than" and "your" rather than "you're". It will work by re-writing the sentences to include other words, and ask if it still makes sense, or if it no longer makes sense.
For example:
"Then" is indicative of something happening after something else. A function of time. If you can add the word "and" before the word "then" to make "and then", and the sentence still makes sense, you've probably used "then" properly. If not, try the word "than", and if it makes more sense than "and then", you should probably use "than".
Tick the sentences that makes more sense, and we'll automagically change your text before posting!
* You can move up even easier and then other people
* You can move up even easier than other people
* get into Google as the janitor and then befriend someone
* get into Google as the janitor than befriend someone
"Your" is indicative of something belonging to someone. If nothing belongs to the person you are talking to, you are probably using "your" incorrectly. If you change the word "your" to the words "you are", and it still makes sense to you, you should probably use the words "you are" or "you're" instead.
Tick the sentence below if it still makes sense to you, and we'll automagically change your text before posting!
* you know what you are doing.
I think this could work! All it has to do is extract parts of sentences, change a word here or there, and present alternatives for the user to select.
I can see how it would help several people on this forum, but wouldn't it just be annoying for a lot of people having to tick those boxes before being able to post?
I can see how it would help several people on this forum, but wouldn't it just be annoying for a lot of people having to tick those boxes before being able to post?
I think Luke is just poking fun at Cremlian for not knowing English.
Okay, so say I'm interested in cybersecurity. Actually, I am pretty interested in it.
Aside from a lot of the stupid, obvious stuff I find on Google and Wikipedia, where can I find/and what resources are available to do some learnings about security and defeating hackers/spammers and such to get a head start on actual formal classes in the cybersecurity program? Is cybersecurity a needed field or is it just hype?
Finally, what sort of training does a person have to get to be an information systems manager? What do those people do in their everyday jobs, i.e. what is their "job description".
There are a lot of different aspects of security. I'm not any sort of expert, but if you're just talking about website front-end security for starters, I know that OWASP is probably a fair starting point. If you're more interested in cryptography, or large scale network security, or something else entirely - there are a lot of different angles of approach. What you should look at varies based on what you want to learn at the moment.
Also preventing spam is usually an entirely different problem from preventing unauthorized network access. You might use one to do the other, but those are essentially seperate problems.
I've never been good at telling what job titles do, as it varies from company to company quite a bit. I just call myself a programmer, but there's some extra words around it officially.
Cyber Security is extremely complex. It all depends if you want to be for real or not. There are plenty of people out there who don't actually know everything they need to know. That's why even a federal security contractor can be hacked by the likes of anonymous. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/HBGary They knew enough about cybersecurity to appear to do the job properly and get paid. But were they actually secure? Not even close.
Actually mastering cybersecurity requires knowledge of every technological discipline. Security vulnerabilities are possible at every level from electrons up. If you don't know everything, there will be attack vectors you don't know about. People even do things such as recreating the image on your monitor while sitting in your parking lot based on the electromagnetic waves it emits.
Once you really know how a part of a technology works, how to attack or defend any vulnerabilities in that technology are just obvious.
Another option is to just focus on one aspect of security. For example, you could become a cryptologist, or a network security engineer, or web security consultant. Just realize that a specialist can't get the entire job done on their own. You might spend all this time securing a web site, when the underlying server is insecure as hell, and you just wasted all your time.
Bruce Schneier is the pre-eminent security expert, so a good start is to read his blog.
Comments
Computer Science, on the other hand, seems much more relaxed. There are some serious people, but there are some fun and happy people as well. People don't seem as stressed about their grades.
So here's the question: How important are grades going to be for someone who might possibly graduate with a BS in CS say, around May of 2012? Will a 4.0 be required to get a decent job, or would there still be hope for someone who only had a 3.8?
CS and IT is about doing, not knowing. Know your stuff, interview well, get good internships, and a 3.8 is more than enough.
That's why someone like me who had a failed Calculus 3 multiple times GPA has people constantly emailing me for jobs. Because I coded in my spare time. It's a thing I cared about and knew how to do, even though I put forth a slacking effort in college. Meanwhile people who were in my same class who got perfect grades and studied like crazy are unemployed. They weren't actually good at computers. They were just really good at school.
It's also a field where you study every day. Every single day I go on the Internets and follow the latest developments and learn new things. About half of any given work day is actually learning things, even after having been gainfully employed in the field for almost a decade straight.
Academia. Both grad school work and even being employed by a school.
Government (State/Federal) work. Not for contract work so-much though.
Internships, especially those that are tied in with your school.
I'm another "I learned what I wanted to learn and didn't necessarily dwell on my grades" programmer. It's hurt me a little at a couple junctions. On the other hand, always maintaining that attitude made me stronger in other ways.
This and this are both scaled down versions of papers for a university science magazine detailing some of the fun stuff I work on peripheral to my main income stream. My point is that my passion for research has not granted me fatty bank (yet), but has given me the opportunity to work with renewable energies and get paid to hike around Asia. If you have practical skills and carry yourself as an enthusiastic advocate of your chosen craft people will notice you.
As has been stated, you do not need a degree to be successful. Passion / Interest in a topic and a little drive will do most of the work for you. If you have passion and interest, you will likely be happier with what you achieve. Too many people enrol in tertiary institutions expecting "Degree in Engineering = profit" with no real drive or passion behind that decision, just the expectation that the light at the end of the tunnel involves success of a sort.
From there I started Java and I've been programming ever since. While I cant find my final project for UT2k4 called 'UWeaponz' (old pc died along with its old 80GB HD), it was kinda simple. There were classes and the more powerful the primary weapon, the slower you move. I even added a few new weapons, such as Penetrator Rifle which shot through walls. Basically, I iterated through the game's Controllers and found the associated Pawn. Then, using some drawBox() utility function (remember the spaceship assault mission?) to draw enemy boxes on screen when target's behind an obstacle (lineOfSightTo() == false).
I'm glad I decided to make programming my #1 hobby. I remember a particular Biology experiment and we had to create pie chart. I didn't use Excel or whatever. I used my Trig. skill and Java2D to create an awesome anti-aliased pie chart. When I submitted it, everyone who saw it was impressed.
Even to this day, I'm still solving my own problems. My phone came with a crappy MP3 player. So I rolled my own.
https://github.com/Xiphias3/X3Mp3Player/blob/master/X3MP3Player/example/no_page.jpg
I've been listening to GN for quite a while and much of what you and Rym talk about I investigate. I've never heard of Madoka before, so I checked it out and it was definitely worth it. Likewise with GitHub, I investigated and considered that I should start uploading some projects. Next up is the networked music player written in Flash and php. Some pics are in my imageshack album (http://imageshack.us/g/12/nmpd.jpg/).
I'd take you on your offer about tutoring, but I need to get a new headset first.
Some common things I have seen are making employees write a fizzbuzz. That's asking you to write a very simple program on the spot. The kind of program that I can write, literally, in thirty seconds. It would be like hiring a mechanic and asking them to change the oil in a car as a test. You would be shocked to know that an incredibly high percentage of applications struggle, or are unable, to pass this. It's mostly used as a filter to not waste the interviewer's time with crap applicants.
As I said before, some places like Facebook have you do puzzles. These are usually kind of crummy, but I can understand why a big place like Facebook needs some extra automatic resume filtration.
The only portfolio you have is software that you have written. This is important and can set you apart from other applicants. This is why at RIT they make us do co-ops. We do real work and have real projects on our resumes before graduating and trying to get real jobs.
You have to write actual software. Not just homework assignments or school projects. You have to make something that is actually used, by at least yourself. It's best if you write multiple things. You can contribute to an existing open source projects. You can start your own. You have to have an actual body of work. I wrote the X iPhone app, here's a link. I wrote these web sites. Here is my GitHub account. This is the difference between an ignored resume and an interview.
The interview itself is mostly going to be talking. Imagine if I read a bunch of books about fixing cars. Then I went downstairs and tried to pass myself off as an experienced auto mechanic to get a job. He'd try to talk shop with me, and know almost immediately I had never actually fixed a car in my life. People with experience can just tell. It takes one to know one.
Just by talking to someone for a few minutes I can tell if they are for real. Based on how they answer the questions, what words they use, etc. Fooling me would be as amazing as me fooling the mechanic downstairs that I had years of auto repair experience. It would be extremely hard even for a con-artist. If you are a programmer, you can comfortably talk shop with other programmers, and they can tell.
For example:
"Then" is indicative of something happening after something else. A function of time. If you can add the word "and" before the word "then" to make "and then", and the sentence still makes sense, you've probably used "then" properly. If not, try the word "than", and if it makes more sense than "and then", you should probably use "than".
Tick the sentences that makes more sense, and we'll automagically change your text before posting!
* You can move up even easier and then other people
* You can move up even easier than other people
* get into Google as the janitor and then befriend someone
* get into Google as the janitor than befriend someone
"Your" is indicative of something belonging to someone. If nothing belongs to the person you are talking to, you are probably using "your" incorrectly. If you change the word "your" to the words "you are", and it still makes sense to you, you should probably use the words "you are" or "you're" instead.
Tick the sentence below if it still makes sense to you, and we'll automagically change your text before posting!
* you know what you are doing.
I think this could work! All it has to do is extract parts of sentences, change a word here or there, and present alternatives for the user to select.
Aside from a lot of the stupid, obvious stuff I find on Google and Wikipedia, where can I find/and what resources are available to do some learnings about security and defeating hackers/spammers and such to get a head start on actual formal classes in the cybersecurity program? Is cybersecurity a needed field or is it just hype?
Finally, what sort of training does a person have to get to be an information systems manager? What do those people do in their everyday jobs, i.e. what is their "job description".
Also preventing spam is usually an entirely different problem from preventing unauthorized network access. You might use one to do the other, but those are essentially seperate problems.
I've never been good at telling what job titles do, as it varies from company to company quite a bit. I just call myself a programmer, but there's some extra words around it officially.
Actually mastering cybersecurity requires knowledge of every technological discipline. Security vulnerabilities are possible at every level from electrons up. If you don't know everything, there will be attack vectors you don't know about. People even do things such as recreating the image on your monitor while sitting in your parking lot based on the electromagnetic waves it emits.
Once you really know how a part of a technology works, how to attack or defend any vulnerabilities in that technology are just obvious.
Another option is to just focus on one aspect of security. For example, you could become a cryptologist, or a network security engineer, or web security consultant. Just realize that a specialist can't get the entire job done on their own. You might spend all this time securing a web site, when the underlying server is insecure as hell, and you just wasted all your time.
Bruce Schneier is the pre-eminent security expert, so a good start is to read his blog.