Hate Programming

[Partial]

I absolutely hate what I am doing in school. I will never, ever be strictly a programmer for school.

Any folks out there in the industry have any idea of what I can do to separate myself from the pack so I can work on projects that I find interesting and to get a job in a more hardware related field?

[Fosco33]

Re: Hate Programming

I absolutely hate what I am doing in school. I will never, ever be strictly a programmer for school.

Any folks out there in the industry have any idea of what I can do to separate myself from the pack so I can work on projects that I find interesting and to get a job in a more hardware related field?

Most of my college roomies were either EE or CE. One went the hardware route and worked for National Instruments in Austin. He was on projects for a few years but is now leading them (instead of just programming). Key for him was excellent, timely, accurate work and expressing interest to the employer that you want to be a project manager.

Lots of former IT programmers in my employer (software) end up leading projects after about 2 years - it's just a matter of being a stud.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

As Fosco said, being excellent will often lead to a promotion. However, just because you are good at one position doesn't mean you will be good as PM. Unfortunately, the only way to reward a good employee and pay them more is to put them in a position that they may not be good at. Basically, the Peter Principle.

If you are serious about becoming a PM, I would suggest getting your certification from PMI. You will decrease you on the job learning time, it looks great on your resume and will put you at the top of the list. I wouldn't suggest taking the courses from PMI..kinda costly, but most colleges/jucos have courses in it..or look at skillsoft to do it online.

Another area to consider is Six Sigma. If you like examining problems and then determing a solution systematically then Six Sigma is a great way to go. The pay is great, you are PAID to criticize and tear things apart, and is a great way to become a consultant.

[Fosco33]

As Fosco said, being excellent will often lead to a promotion. However, just because you are good at one position doesn't mean you will be good as PM. Unfortunately, the only way to reward a good employee and pay them more is to put them in a position that they may not be good at. Basically, the Peter Principle.

If you are serious about becoming a PM, I would suggest getting your certification from PMI. You will decrease you on the job learning time, it looks great on your resume and will put you at the top of the list. I wouldn't suggest taking the courses from PMI..kinda costly, but most colleges/jucos have courses in it..or look at skillsoft to do it online.

Another area to consider is Six Sigma. If you like examining problems and then determing a solution systematically then Six Sigma is a great way to go. The pay is great, you are PAID to criticize and tear things apart, and is a great way to become a consultant.

As a consultant with Lean Sigma experience; I'd agree completely

[BF4MVP]

I hate it too. Thats why I quit..

[Scott Campbell]

As a consultant with Lean Sigma experience; I'd agree completely

Is that the same thing Toyota did with Lean Solutions?

[Fosco33]

As a consultant with Lean Sigma experience; I'd agree completely

Is that the same thing Toyota did with Lean Solutions?

Exactly - the Ohno development at Toyota. One gig of mine was w/ the largest med device company in the world - we had to work with the Lean Sigma folks. I would've been considered a Master Blackbelt with my project successes

Major differences in the 2 are a focus on stats vs. removing non-value activities. Here's a quick outline...

http://www.bizmanualz.com/information/2005/07/14/lean-thinking-for-process-improvement.html

[Partial]

man all that stuff is going right over my head.

I am thinking I will just go to grad school. I am getting pretty into linear algebra and stuff like that, so I could go with a mathematics research emphasis and consult for companies, or take a couple actuarial tests, etc.

I just gotta find something I enjoy!!

[Scott Campbell]

I am thinking I will just go to grad school.

I still think you should go into the work force and work on your resume for 4 or 5 years and get some employer to pay for it.

[Rastak]

Re: Hate Programming

I absolutely hate what I am doing in school. I will never, ever be strictly a programmer for school.

Any folks out there in the industry have any idea of what I can do to separate myself from the pack so I can work on projects that I find interesting and to get a job in a more hardware related field?

I'm surprised you hate programming. I find it interesting as all hell.
What sort of hardware are you talking about? Network? Servers? Mainframes? The most ugly thing of all time, the AS/400?

[Fosco33]

Re: Hate Programming

I absolutely hate what I am doing in school. I will never, ever be strictly a programmer for school.

Any folks out there in the industry have any idea of what I can do to separate myself from the pack so I can work on projects that I find interesting and to get a job in a more hardware related field?

I'm surprised you hate programming. I find it interesting as all hell.
What sort of hardware are you talking about? Network? Servers? Mainframes? The most ugly thing of all time, the AS/400?

No doubt - my current client runs iSeries for their hospital billing. But it's better than their homegrown system to manage admissions/registrations...

[Rastak]

Re: Hate Programming

I absolutely hate what I am doing in school. I will never, ever be strictly a programmer for school.

Any folks out there in the industry have any idea of what I can do to separate myself from the pack so I can work on projects that I find interesting and to get a job in a more hardware related field?

I'm surprised you hate programming. I find it interesting as all hell.
What sort of hardware are you talking about? Network? Servers? Mainframes? The most ugly thing of all time, the AS/400?

No doubt - my current client runs iSeries for their hospital billing. But it's better than their homegrown system to manage admissions/registrations...

I should probably elaborate. I don't mind the hardware at all but the OS?....Yikes!


Everything begins with a Q.....

[Partial]

Re: Hate Programming

I absolutely hate what I am doing in school. I will never, ever be strictly a programmer for school.

Any folks out there in the industry have any idea of what I can do to separate myself from the pack so I can work on projects that I find interesting and to get a job in a more hardware related field?

I'm surprised you hate programming. I find it interesting as all hell.
What sort of hardware are you talking about? Network? Servers? Mainframes? The most ugly thing of all time, the AS/400?

No hardware programming yet. That would be fascinating and something I would enjoy. What we have been doing in school is lame C++ programs that don't do anything (we wrote the same program about 8 times using a different data structure each time (array, dynamic array, list, doubly-linked list, binary search tree, etc).

I took a system level programming class which was great because we actually learned how a processor handles commands and stuff like that. That was interesting and pretty cool.

[Rastak]

Re: Hate Programming

I absolutely hate what I am doing in school. I will never, ever be strictly a programmer for school.

Any folks out there in the industry have any idea of what I can do to separate myself from the pack so I can work on projects that I find interesting and to get a job in a more hardware related field?

I'm surprised you hate programming. I find it interesting as all hell.
What sort of hardware are you talking about? Network? Servers? Mainframes? The most ugly thing of all time, the AS/400?

No hardware programming yet. That would be fascinating and something I would enjoy. What we have been doing in school is lame C++ programs that don't do anything (we wrote the same program about 8 times using a different data structure each time (array, dynamic array, list, doubly-linked list, binary search tree, etc).

I took a system level programming class which was great because we actually learned how a processor handles commands and stuff like that. That was interesting and pretty cool.

Yes, machine language is interesting. I took that in trade school and messed around with it a bit on my 80286 processor many years ago.
C++ and java are quite interesting. I haven't really done any C++ but wrote a boxing game in C once. Java programming can make you a fair bit of money if you are good.

[BallHawk]

My Dad works as a Java Programmer. He loves it. He finds it really interesting.