Be Excellent To Each Other

Ladies and gentlemens,

I have a friend who's looking at getting into a programming career or some such and wants to know what's the most cost-effective training course she could do that would likely net her a job. She's an intelligent type anyhow, she has a 1st class honours BSc in Music Technology, but she's recently been teaching herself Java programming and so on and would like to eventually make a career out of it.

Currently she's looking at doing the CIW Web Foundations Associate course.

I said I'd ask on here for thoughts and opinions.

So. Any thoughts? Opinions?

Thanks in advance!

Join a grad scheme in a tech company might be a good route, on the job training is always more effective and a lot of companies take people from all backgrounds, rather than purely IT degrees.

I don't think any training course is going to get her a job per se; it's either have actual experience or go into the grad programme in a company that has such things. So, yeah, find out what the entry requirements are for the grad programme for a company and do that.

This.

Some course do more harm than good to your employment prospects, but that's generally down to who's looking to employ you.

I am not saying you are wrong, just how can this happen?

Because they teach you how to do stuff in a batch it insane manner.

Love it. Love it to bits.

Batshit, dammit.

Tell her to look at Coursera. I've found those courses to be pretty well supported in the main, and entirely free. Good practical applications and lots of group discussion.

Have her trained up and then get her to build something fun and inventive she can demonstrate and put on her CV. To my mind that alone will be far more impressive than the completion of some expensive 'official' course or other.

Personally, I can be extremely bigoted when I look at CVs

I've got her on to http://www.codeacademy.com at the moment and I've told her to get Xcode and the Android SDK installed on her Macbook Pro tomorrow so she can have a play around with those. I kind of guessed actually self-teaching herself a bit and making something would be a good way to get herself noticed. I'll get her to have a look at that Coursera thing too though!

Thanks for all the suggestions guys! If there's anything else anyone can think of, please let me know.

Would go the grad route.

I don't have any programmers and web developers working for me but do run an IT dept of 14

Most courses will have little creditability as they have no exam at the end, even the ones that do have a test mean very little as there are brain dump sites with all the answers.

If you friend gets a break and is self driven then will do fine.

Option 1. Go to uni and get a degree. Computer science/software engineer/computer engineering -- something like that.

Failing that, option 2: Self-learn.

Overall aim: Make lots of things. Put them somewhere like github. Try to make decently sized projects. Have one be about 5,000 lines or something?

Resources for learning python I can recommend are:
* http://interactivepython.org/courselib/ ... index.html
* http://inventwithpython.com/

I also have two text files full of exercises / syllabus if she wants to follow it. The exercise ideas can easily be used with any language. My girlfriend was learning python up until a few weeks ago -- then she got ill and fell off the wagon.

I don't know any useful resources for Java though. I would give you the book I learned Java from whilst at Uni, but the prof who wrote it appears to have finally finished it and monetised it and it's no longer hosted for free in an easily accessible place. (Personally I would say learn python as a first language. I think it is excellent). If she wants to learn C after learning something like Java, then standard K&R is fine. I also heartily recommend every noob read SICP -- the only downside to that is it involves LISP

Also, if she wishes to understand how computers work, then a great introduction is CODE by Petzold. After that a great way to cement that knowledge would be to do something like the excellent Nand2Tetris course which is free (the pdfs etc from the book that aren't on there are easily torrentable).


Finally: Spam places like reddit's learn programming. (Also read the sidebar and FAQ there for help).

Finally finally: If she lives in Hemel or whatever she could pay me to tutor her

I should really get better at Java.

My dad told me a few years ago that becoming a web site designer is simply a matter of getting "free software off the Internet", that creates websites for you with minimal effort, then you can go freelance and earn yourself £30k in no time at all. Completely seriously.

I assume he earnt more than £30k, hence why he couldn't be bothered to do this obviously simple money-maker?

From what little I knew, probably triple that. And yes, he is an offensively ignorant individual.

I don't necessarily disagree with that.

Me neither.