If the tech industry suddenly goes down you won’t starve - just write a novel
cheers

Here in France after the High School Graduation, most of the computing students aim at a Bachelor’s Degree… It’s weird because getting a better degree don’t bring you much more… But something like an Associate’s Degree really handicap you. I do hope there won’t be a neck due to the massive flow of students getting out of University with a Computing Degree…

Being stuck to unemployement after 5 years of post-High School Graduation studies must be frustrating :-/ Something I have to put the stress on is the fact that if you get an “Computing Engineer Degree” (5 years of studies) in a private school, you’ll have more chances to get a job… But you’ll have to pay a 6000$/year school. Not really pleasant…

To conclude, I would say the situation is approximately the same in both countries (other must suffer from the same situation), but it seems to be tough in America.

*asking for more details on the US situation*
*proposing more details on the FR situation*

I think mid way through learning basic c and visual i was thinking “this is useless, i can’t believe i’m learning how to do print commands”

but i mean, you just put it in a way that makes it worth the while…even if its not like that during the time in class.

Fundamental knowledge is important for everything else. When interviewing people, I don’t care if they have a CS/SE degree or not, but I do care as to whether they possess the fundamental knowledge about CS/SE (although I can’t see many could manage to do that without a CS/SE degree though). Yes, I mean OSI, TCP/IP, HTTP, relational theory, operating system, compiler, OO principles (no I don’t mean ‘encapsulation’, ‘inheritance’ etc. which any bad OO programmers is aware of), and so forth. I have an entry which is quite close to the topic here.

John Haitas - I took an x86 assembly class as my second programming class just to find out if I could handle it. I did just fine and I actually liked how limited and low-level it is.

Robert - one way to promote yourself is to have a portfolio. If you’re interested in web development it might help to create a website to show off your skills. I’m still working on learning web standards and best practices because these are things employers are looking for.

Martin - try taking a computer science course for non-majors, since these are usually less focused on math. Then see if you like it and are willing to brave the math courses.

K.J. - I work a little with electronics as a hobby but my love is still programming. To each his/her own I guess.

Frank - Good luck!

Steve - so true. Context is everything when it comes to determining the best solution.

Vincenzo - I attended the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology in Minneapolis.

I was in the same labs and courses as all the majors, including the “fun” ones. I managed to avoid the science and math requirements, though.