Hi Fergus, I think the Computer Engineering course at UNSW is fantastic... some of the lecturers there are world leaders in their fields of expertise. Computer science is also a fantastic course from the perspective of that you get a bit more "freedom" to do unrelated subjects. From memory, in Computer science you had to do 9 computing subjects (and related maths subjects) and 6 others ... the others could be "anything" - from french to philosophy to... i found that gave me at least a good perspective on life that i brought back into programming.
Doing a degree course is in my opinion very important as it gives you the opportunity to get a sound base and an appreciation for all aspects of what goes on in a program (eg. you might never have to worry about semaphores, but it's important to know they exist and what they do and the basis behind them)... there are too many "tinkerers" that make things work, but inevitably they create a mess resulting in much much higher operational and maintenance cost. I worked with a few people that were "senior developers"... and one in particular, when he could not work out why a cookie was not being set, asked me for help. I said, have a look at the headers being sent/received by the browser/server... and he had no idea how to go about that or even what the headers would contain (and he was a senior web developer!!!)... he learned tools to get a job done, but did not understand the base of how things worked.... that scares me to hell!!!!!! A uni degree in my opinion gives you the a good environment for an understanding of the underlying principles... If you are interesting in programming mainly, my recommendation... do computer science and take electives in other interest areas (including business) that give you: * solid grounding in programming * well rounded education into areas you are interested in * let you do interesting subjects (that are unrelated) and create sparks of brilliance in every field using your core understanding of computers in the vertical of your choice... And where should one do the course... UNSW :) (yes, i'm biased... but i went there, and can't praise the lecturers and their genuine interest enough... many of whom are still there teaching :) s :) On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 10:26 AM, Fergus Barker <fergusbar...@gmail.com>wrote: > Hey there Beachers, > > I thought I'd finally introduce myself, now that I have a question to ask. > > I am currently in my last year of high school, and looking forward to > going on to a university course, and looking at doing something software/IT > related. > At the moment I am doing a lot of development using Python for general > work, and Ruby on Rails experimentation so I have a better understanding of > web development. > I have a lot of interest in startups and would love to be involved with > various projects over the rest of my life. > > So my question is just related to University. I'd just like to know a bit > about what courses/qualifications you have and would recommend for someone > wanting to get involved in the programming side of startups. Also if you do > have a related qualification, how did you find it? Was your course > enjoyable? > > I hope I've made enough sense to get some ideas about what you think about > all this. > > -- > Thanks, > Fergus > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach > Australia mailing list. Vist http://siliconbeachaustralia.org for more > > Forum rules > 1) No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. > 2) No jobs postings. You can use http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/jobs > > > To post to this group, send email to > silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Vist http://siliconbeachaustralia.org for more Forum rules 1) No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. 2) No jobs postings. You can use http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/jobs To post to this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en
