Hi guys

[Rule]

IMO, the best of all worlds is to get involved in opensource development (your own projects or others'). You get experience, skills, connections, etc.

Hard to support yourself doing that, though...

[Ender]

I thought I would update you guys. I got an IT job, which is not bad for my first job out of college. It's a six month contract, and after I finish I will apply for software engineering jobs. My hope is that with this job on my resume, and my part-time job in college, both employing SQL, Unix, and Java, I will have enough 'credentials' to be taken seriously for software development. In the meanwhile I might want to learn .NET and RoR.

While an English degree is a hurdle in the short run, I think that in the long run I'll be happy that I did it. While it would be nice to be rich, I don't put too much stock in the idea. It's more important to me to be able to live where I want, like the people I work with and have fun on the job. And, ultimately, it's the immaterial things that make me happy.

NOTE: The scary thing about my job is the commute. I don't yet have a car (my cousin totalled my old one) so I'm biking ten miles to work every day. There and back. It's a nightmare. I hate biking across intersections. I hate biking across traffic. SCARY.

ALSO: I'll be getting a car in the next 2-3 weeks and then I'll be driving to work every day from my new apartment. It will be a 40-70 minute commute depending on traffic. This is also scary. I haven't driven more than a dozen times in the past five years. I only just started driving on the highway a few weeks ago. Is anyone else scared by driving? It seems to me that smart people are scared of it and stupid people aren't - because the stupid people don't understand the physics of accidents!

[iago]

IMO, the best of all worlds is to get involved in opensource development (your own projects or others'). You get experience, skills, connections, etc.

Hard to support yourself doing that, though...

True, in the short term. The goal of that is to build up a portfolio and contacts and to put yourself in a position to find something good.

[Explicit]

Have you considered easing your way into the field by first being a technical writer/editor?

[while1]

Have you considered easing your way into the field by first being a technical writer/editor?

That's a good suggestion to consider actually.  Depending on the job, I think that demonstrating your technical knowledge and abilities through your technical writing and interaction with those whose duties are purely technical would most definitely expose you to the right people who would be able to vouch.

[dark_drake]

ALSO: I'll be getting a car in the next 2-3 weeks and then I'll be driving to work every day from my new apartment. It will be a 40-70 minute commute depending on traffic. This is also scary. I haven't driven more than a dozen times in the past five years. I only just started driving on the highway a few weeks ago. Is anyone else scared by driving? It seems to me that smart people are scared of it and stupid people aren't - because the stupid people don't understand the physics of accidents!

Haha! I'm horrified of driving everyday in Austin, TX. People here like to hang out in my blind spot, accelerate when I try to pass (and then slow down when I move back into their lane), and generally are infinitely more distracted than the ones I dealt with in the Rockies. I was almost rear-ended today because some guy thought going 60mph in a 45mph zone while screwing around with his cell phone was a good idea. I saw him in my rearview mirror, slammed on my accelerator, and, thankfully, he looked up at the last minute and decided braking might be a good idea.