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Would I be good at computer programming?
Are you that good at math?
You don’t have to be good at math to be a good programmer, not anymore. But you do
need to think through logically the flow of the program.
You have to like working with computers. Real computers, not just video game consoles, so
2,000 hours of Xbox live doesn’t count.
I’d like to make a decent salary programming games and software interfaces.
You must be accurate. One mistaken character can change the meaning of a command and kill
the program; then you have to be detail oriented enough to find the mistake.
I can do that; look how thorough I am in the video gaming world. What languages should
I learn?
You can learn software languages like C++, Java, Python and others. To have more career
options, you actually need to learn more than one computer language.
That would be a great way to become bankable over the holiday weekend.
The days of someone learning code over Spring Break and making 80K in Silicon Valley are
over.
You mean I have to earn a computer science degree?
You don’t have to get a four year degree in computer science to become a programmer,
but employers prefer people who have a four year degree similar to it, like engineering
or math with a lot of programming classes.
I can major in computer science, information management or something like that for college
and be done with it.
You have to keep your programming skills up to date, because programming languages change.
Ask everyone who learned to write code in Fortran and Basic what happens if you don’t
keep up.
I’ve heard that there are new apps to let you build apps without learning code.
That won’t cut it when a company needs databases migrated or new web interfaces built. They
need programmers to do that work.
I’d like to be one of them, but you’re making me have doubts.
Try a coding camp to get immersed in a programming language and learn more about the field. It’s
a better investment than basketball camp again.