It has been a confusing few years. I have gone from one job at a small company to a very different one at a mid sized company. I have lived alone, moved back home, lived with my girlfriend and finally moved back home again with her. I have had many different plans and goals and some have been accomplished, some abandoned, and some obviated by circumstances. I am constantly re-evaluating what I want to do and be. This makes it difficult to definitively state what my plan is. All I can do is say what my plan is now.
I have been going to school with the aim of earning some form of bachelors degree. This is ever more seeming like a plan B. For a long time I have been of the opinion that the really successful people in the world do not need a college degree to achieve their success. I reluctantly embraced a return to school, and have been taking classes again. After a careful examination of the Bachelors degrees that are reachable, I have come up with CIS or Business Management instead of the more interesting Computer Science. I have become more and more interested in programming and although CS is the degree that would get me there, the required classes seem too onerous to be a real option.
I have been attempting to learn programming and to meet programmers. First, I went to the first Los Angeles "Drink Up" hosted by the website Github. This website offers code hosting, version tracking, and bug tracking. While there, I met a couple of guys who run Lemur Heavy Industries, a guy who wrote this Rails Tutorial and had some good conversations. I have also met some programmers while playing Ingress. Add to this the very enviable work situation of my friend OrangeWolf in programming freelance and as an employee. I want to do the kinds of things that these people do. I want to make useful application and work on new things.
I want to have a job where I am creating things, not where I am playing hall monitor to keep people from deleting their browser history or telling them why they have to use Internet Explorer instead of Firefox. I understand that every company needs tech support, to fix broken computers and help clueless computer users, but I don't want to be that guy.
My plan now is to learn programming skills wherever I can and to build a portfolio. I need to build a cool website as an exercise in building something and as proof of what I can do. I plan on going to programming related social events and meet as many people as I can. The hard part is that these goals have no timeline and I have nobody to be accountable to but myself. I also have school taking up my time. I will need to find a way to set and achieve the goals on this while maintaining my progress on school.
One of the most important skills in life is being a "Self Starter" and I need to figure out how to make myself into one.
I have been attempting to learn programming and to meet programmers. First, I went to the first Los Angeles "Drink Up" hosted by the website Github. This website offers code hosting, version tracking, and bug tracking. While there, I met a couple of guys who run Lemur Heavy Industries, a guy who wrote this Rails Tutorial and had some good conversations. I have also met some programmers while playing Ingress. Add to this the very enviable work situation of my friend OrangeWolf in programming freelance and as an employee. I want to do the kinds of things that these people do. I want to make useful application and work on new things.
I want to have a job where I am creating things, not where I am playing hall monitor to keep people from deleting their browser history or telling them why they have to use Internet Explorer instead of Firefox. I understand that every company needs tech support, to fix broken computers and help clueless computer users, but I don't want to be that guy.
My plan now is to learn programming skills wherever I can and to build a portfolio. I need to build a cool website as an exercise in building something and as proof of what I can do. I plan on going to programming related social events and meet as many people as I can. The hard part is that these goals have no timeline and I have nobody to be accountable to but myself. I also have school taking up my time. I will need to find a way to set and achieve the goals on this while maintaining my progress on school.
One of the most important skills in life is being a "Self Starter" and I need to figure out how to make myself into one.
