Useless degrees

A degree won't get you a job.

Not entirely true. My degree had a year IBL (industry based learning), ie. a job.
I continued working for that company after I left uni. So, actually my degree got me my first proper job.

Oh Pythagoras,
you bastard,
see what you've started.

You should flog that title to Morrissey.

@Rosmal: I'm the Front End Architect at a big media company.

Wow, how did you get there from Programmer.
Im hoping to go into the computing for a career,
but i don't want to do it forever,
open a bike shop or something when in old age.

I.T. is fucked. Don't do it.

Why?,
Anyway its something i enjoy, so i don't really care what people say about it.

What do you do hippy, enlighten us with your story of edumacation and careers.

hippy ain't been doin with no book learnin, he wuz raised by possums

1. Andyp
   
2. Tomasito
   
3. Wibble
   
4. Sharkstar
   
5. Ondine
   
6. Badtmy
   
7. Dancing James
   
8. dooks
   
   

another philosophy survivor here. desmond in philosophy from the university of north london (now metropolitan).

I.T. is fucked. Don't do it.

+1
(except if you are a god like vb)

My first permanent job was a delphi developer/support person. I lied and said I'd done 9 months when I'd actually only read the first 3 chapters of "Teach yourself Delphi in 21 days" but I'd done Pascal at college for the BTEC, so I was in a good blagging position. As it turned out the job was all support, and I did their website as an extension of writing their HTML help files. This gave me the experience to do a few start-up sites - none of which came to anything, but looked ok as a portfolio. After a year and a month I left, and got employed by a university as a Delphi programmer/web developer, for a considerable pay rise, just before the dot com bubble burst.

Some of it was luck - I was hired as a Delphi programmer who did a bit of web stuff, but they moved away from Delphi so I became all web. But basically I spent as much time as I could studying and learning all the latest web techniques whenever I wasn't doing the employer's stuff. I moonlighted by doing freelance work to keep my hand in, (and my finances solvent), and grabbed any project, the more challenging the better, to practice what I had learned and prove I was the best web developer in the company. I led the development on that company's new website, made the right decisions about standards and did a really future-proof site, and as their very prestigious and expensive design agency admitted when I went for a job interview with them a couple of years ago, I taught them everything they knew about web standards. I stayed there for 3 more years, doing less and less of their work and more and more of my own and decided to leave before my career stagnated.

At first I was going for senior developer jobs, but it was too little money and responsibility, and I was used to running the front end show, so when an agent said I should try for my current job, I read the spec, realised I was perfect for it, put on a 3 piece Saville Row suit and managed to convince them of that fact, so they employed me. The suit was important.

Okay why is IT fucked?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Why?,
Anyway its something i enjoy, so i don't really care what people say about it.
What do you do hippy, enlighten us with your story of edumacation and careers.

You do care, otherwise you wouldn't have asked for more information.

Care Factor 0 Fail.

I used to love fucking about with computers.. then I got a job doing it.

^ bad posture + working with a bunch of knobs like Hippy and myself.
I did a Computer Science degree and don't regret it at all, but the IT industry is* mostly probably* a long way from the things you will enjoy.
Good luck Rosmal! (I miss discrete mathematics, languages and automata theory, even computer architecture..!)

There are a lot of people being dumped onto the job market right now. A lot of IT companies are cutting staff. It's not a good market if you're trying to get a decent job, but going in at the bottom is probably still possible.

going in the bottom is probably still possible.

Maybe in your company..

I'm the same, I used to love fucking about with computers, but since working with them I really couldn't be arsed with them. They piss me off a lot.

I love my job because it is no longer about computers. It's about making things, and being creative is what I like.

Maybe in your company..

I see what you did there.

:)

You do care, otherwise you wouldn't have asked for more information.

Thats actually true,
but i am going to end up with a computing degree,
I'm not particularly good or interested in anything else so i dont really like hearing about how terrible what i believe to be my only career path will be, and how the rest of my life will suck.
Personally i really like computing and fucking about with them so ill see how long that lasts me.

There's still scope for change, see whatsisface up there ^^.
I'm too jaded and too much of a masochist to change my career though :)

I'm too jaded and too much of a masochist to change my underpants though :)

.

I told you I would if you asked nicely. Besides I've not done 'inside-out backwards' yet.

I ham got a degree in 'art'. (you know, drawing and colouring and all that).

But I have never used it, in fact I don't think I have ever even told anyone (work wise) I have a degree, in fact I - genuinely - don't think I have ever made or used a C.V. as far as I can remember (??).

I normally get the job with my charm, a warm hand on the knee and a 50 slipped in the top pocket.

Hippy is just jaded. Computers are wonderful and programming is one of the most satisfying things there is behind riding on a beautiful sunny day out in the country, down a big big hill you just made it over. That's how good it is.

Of course, returning to my original point... you have to have passion for it and really love it through and through. If you don't enjoy what it is you actually do, then all of the stuff that goes with it will beat it out of you and wear you down. If programming doesn't do it for you, then you have little chance of having any job satisfaction when you encounter the bureaucracy around it.

1. Andyp
   
2. Tomasito
   
3. Wibble
   
4. Sharkstar
   
5. Ondine
   
6. Badtmy
   
7. Dancing James
   
8. dooks
   
9. Skully
   
   

I got a Desmond in Philosophy too.

When I had to get my dissertation done (three weeks to the end of the course) I had to ask directions to a place at the University where I could use a computer, as I had never been there. I walked in and said ''hello... erm... I want to do... some... erm... typing?''. ''Mac or PC?'' they enquired. ''Excuse me?''

So my love affair with computers started. I now sit at one (or two) all ffing day long.