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Advice to a college sophomore programmer

pchristensen.com

21–27 of 27 posts

Re: Advice to a college sophomore programmer

#21
post #11

WHILE YOU'RE STILL IN COLLEGE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL YOUR NON-PROGRAMMING OPPORTUNITIES ESPECIALLY IN WRITING AND DESIGN HOW IRONIC THAT THIS ARTICLE IS FROM A GROUPON PERSON AND GROUPON HAS SUCH CLEVER AND HUMOROUS WRITING AND BEAUTIFUL DESIGN YET HIS BLOG LIKE THIS COMMENT IS PRACTICALLY UNREADABLE BECAUSE OF YUCKY TYPEFACE AND BLOG SETUP DO WHAT OP SAYS BUT NOT WHAT HE DOES

How do you like it now? Better? (aside from the broken images for the RSS logo)

Re: Advice to a college sophomore programmer

#22
post #11

WHILE YOU'RE STILL IN COLLEGE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL YOUR NON-PROGRAMMING OPPORTUNITIES ESPECIALLY IN WRITING AND DESIGN HOW IRONIC THAT THIS ARTICLE IS FROM A GROUPON PERSON AND GROUPON HAS SUCH CLEVER AND HUMOROUS WRITING AND BEAUTIFUL DESIGN YET HIS BLOG LIKE THIS COMMENT IS PRACTICALLY UNREADABLE BECAUSE OF YUCKY TYPEFACE AND BLOG SETUP DO WHAT OP SAYS BUT NOT WHAT HE DOES

How do you like it now? Better? (aside from the broken images for the RSS logo)

Not really. Firefox on Windows XP. Needs:

  - smaller font (too much scrolling)
  - darker font (not enough contrast)
  - proportionally spaced font
  - left margin way too small
  - right margin doesn't need to be aligned
  - white space between bullets
Didn't mean to pick, it's just that this design is so different from the Groupon emails I enjoy getting every day :-)

I also wanted to point out some of the best advice I ever got, that even for a programmer, there's a lot more to life than programming, especially while you're still in college and so much else is readily available. Once you're in a cubicle, you won't have as many opportunities to learn other stuff.

[EDIT: I refreshed and it looks great now, all except the left margin. Wow, I feel empowered. Thank you Peter and thank you Groupon.]

Re: Advice to a college sophomore programmer

#23
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you like it now? Better? (aside from the broken images for the RSS logo)

Not really. Firefox on Windows XP. Needs: - smaller font (too much scrolling) - darker font (not enough contrast) - proportionally spaced font - left margin way too small - right margin doesn't need to be aligned - white space between bullets Didn't mean to pick, it's just that this design is so different from the Groupon emails I enjoy getting every day :-) I also wanted to point out some of the best advice I ever g…

Try a hard refresh. I put in a completely different theme that has most of those things. It sounds like you're still getting the old theme.

Besides, Groupon might as well close up shop if they had to rely on my design sense :)

Re: Advice to a college sophomore programmer

#24
Find a project. It doesn’t have to be something meaningful or important, just do it! Write a scraper to find the nearest Starbucks to you. Make a group management website for your study groups. Write software to control a LEGO mindstorm robot. Just do something, post projects online, put code up on GitHub, and write something about what you did, and put it on a blog. This gives you a public record of interest in programming outside of work, which is very, very appealing to employers and probably the number one thing in getting to an interview. It will also give you practice writing and show you how you improve over time.

In my experience, I don't think a single person who has interviewed me has gone to the trouble of sifting through my commit histories and reviewed any of my code. When I mention the open source projects I commit to, they usually just nod and say, "that's cool." I don't think that it really helps all that much tbh.

Unless you wrote a major project that many businesses rely on, don't hedge your bets on your bug fixes and feature enhancements turning any heads.

Re: Advice to a college sophomore programmer

#25
post #11

WHILE YOU'RE STILL IN COLLEGE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL YOUR NON-PROGRAMMING OPPORTUNITIES ESPECIALLY IN WRITING AND DESIGN HOW IRONIC THAT THIS ARTICLE IS FROM A GROUPON PERSON AND GROUPON HAS SUCH CLEVER AND HUMOROUS WRITING AND BEAUTIFUL DESIGN YET HIS BLOG LIKE THIS COMMENT IS PRACTICALLY UNREADABLE BECAUSE OF YUCKY TYPEFACE AND BLOG SETUP DO WHAT OP SAYS BUT NOT WHAT HE DOES

[deleted]

Re: Advice to a college sophomore programmer

#26
post #7

I would advise that instead of reading SICP, you should just take the class: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussma... Similarly, using available online courses to get through the crunchier topics (compilers, theory of computation, garbage collection, artificial intelligence, etc.) have always been more beneficial to me than just straight trying to read a book on my own.

Whatever you do, do the SICP exercises. You'll learn a lot (and discover that you don't really know things you thought you did).

Re: Advice to a college sophomore programmer

#27

I wish someone had given me this useful advice back when I was a sophomore.. oh wait, thanks! It's really good advice, IMHO. With regards to the first point... Most companies here (Pakistan) are in the web/mobile app development business or developing CRUD apps for clients. While I don't necessarily think that's bad, I'd prefer doing something more innovative or interesting, possibly AI, data mining, or just somethin…

The US has a class of visas (J1) specifically for trainees and interns. I don't think they are capped like the H1B so they should be easier to get.
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