Question about school.

[gkai]

Not sure if it's completely relevant to Computer's or not, but I was wondering if I could get some input on people that are currently in school for .net / web design / programming etc..

Basically I just want to know what program you're in, and why you chose that current program. I'm having a hard time figuring out what is right for me. The field seems a little bit over saturated, so jobs after could be tough since there's not a whole lot of companies that are willing to hire fresh from college / university students.

Anyway thanks for your time.

[Cyanotical]

well, whatever program you are going into, try and get a workstudy, this is basically free on the job experience

[Badpaladin]

I chose Computer Science because it's fun and awesome (so much more than materials engineering...), plus it has the benefit of being one of the most in-demand fields in the job market (not sure where you heard it's over-saturated). I'm also emphasizing in a field of CS that's more math-intensive, so hopefully that'll boost my value to future employers later on. AFAIK, getting a degree in CS is a very, very good option.

However it really still does matter where you go to school. If you're not in a "main" state school or well-regarded private school you'll may have a difficult time getting contacts through your university. Even worse, you may not end up getting as comprehensive of an education, and employers won't be interested. For most states, either "<state> State University" or "University of <state>" public school will have plenty of industry connections and a good program. If there's some sort of regional modifier on the name (e.g. "Eastern <state> State University" or "University of <state> - <city>") it may be a bad choice. Quality may differ in states - sometimes "<state> State University" has a better computing program or vice/versa - but it's generally hard to go wrong if you go to either. Some states also have "specialty" schools, where specific programs are very good and valued highly in the professional world. You'll really have to go to Google for more info about that, though.

Another thing to watch for is funding. If a school is getting grant money measured in the hundreds of millions, it's probably a good choice. The better-funded the school, the more options you get. Someone who's really into graphics and simulation should go to a school where they can emphasize in that, rather than get pigeon-holed into a "standard" degree. You also want to watch for location. Schools in the general vicinity of or an hour or to away from major "hubs" in computing probably have representatives visit the school on a very frequent basis, meaning you'll get a lot of chances to connect with some companies as you're getting a degree.

Hopefully this helps. I can't speak for the other options.

[Yohassakura]

I'm in my final year of a BSc in Information Systems Engineering...

My course has a good spread of modules, so you can basically do anything from it, maybe except for embedded / robotics programming (though already knowing basics of programming still greatly helps).

There's been web programming (html, css, javascript, php), some flash (mixed with XML, and we also used php and MySQL with it for database management).
There's been application based programming (.NET's visual basic for a frontend interacting with an SQL server)
We had Java which was mainly just CLI programs for us, although there were a couple of GUI-based tasks, like stimulating a petri-dish experiment.

There's also been plenty of write-up stuff like "Research and Development Methods", "Information Systems Strategy", "Usability Engineering", "Data warehousing" and a Networking module which was mainly "memorize this crap".

Most of them really are important for real world jobs, and do cover a wide range of them too - depending on where you go, you'd be asked to do specific things or you may have to research things for your job, you'll definitely have to analyse possible paths to take while accepting a job, and knowing the best way to go about it.

If you're solely looking into going into programming, then maybe a specific hard-core programming course is for you, (where the majority is programming based on what you want).

This year for example, there's no programming modules but I can easily spend some of my free time learning new programming languages or just extending my knowledge.

[gkai]

well, whatever program you are going into, try and get a workstudy, this is basically free on the job experience

Yeah for sure.

Cool. Thanks for the info guys, i'll probably look into each group in depth and figure out what's best for me. Take care!