IT as a Career - 1

Around the time that college/school ends that people usually start asking me about IT as a career for thier children. In India, it is career is usually a decision made by the parents as most probably the children have no idea at all of what they really like as they have not been exposed to any real work environments at the time they need to make a decision.

This post I expect is going to be the first in a series of posts on my thoughts/advice to people looking to IT/Softwares as an career. Also I suppose, there will be sprinkling of other thoughts along the line.

Software is considered one of the best paying of jobs in India and that has made a lot of people choose it as a career choice.  The problem is that they have no idea, what a job as programmer means when they make that choice.

Before you choose software development as a professions, just think about whether you would be OK with spending the best part of the next 30 years or so of your life, looking at a computer for almost all of your working day. It is not a easy thing if you don’t actually love doing it. If you don’t, then you are going to have a very hard time. Programming is not always easy nor is it as soft job as it looks from outside. For people who have do not share the love for it, it may even at times look illogical (My mother, said that, when she took a BASIC course around 12 year ago, just to check what the hell I was doing everyday after school hours).

The secret of being a good programmer, is to love programming and computers. Even if you are a wonderfully logical mind, if you don’t love programming, you will actually tire of it very soon and then your productivity starts declining, your ratings go down and you start hating the job. Programming is strange in many ways. At times it needs logical thinking, some time illogical and always a lot of patience and brain power.

Strangely, programming can give you immense freedom to be creative, but at the same time can put in the most frustrating restrictions. I remember that when someone asked me why I enjoy programming so much, my answer was it is one of the few professions (that pays well J) where you can create something from nothing, essentially play god (in a world that is the computer. Maybe that is why a lot of good programmers like the virtual world better than the real and are usually categorized as geeks or nerds).

So Rule 1: Be sure that you really want to put yourself in front of a computer for the rest of your life.

Comments

[Yuvi]

That's really true. I've gotta couple of friends at my school who want to become programmers just because they don't want to be doctors. I tried to talk them out of it, saying that they should do only what they want to, but they still seem to be dazed or something. They're ignoring me and joining a Java Course, while they even have no Idea how to use MS office!

Hopefully, this craze will stop soon...

[Mohan]

Well thought, the outside world sees only the pay package and air-conditioned work place. I love computers and technology but I did not know this untill I completed my graduation. But it does not stop me to become a good programmer. My love towards the computers is immense that I often feel sad for not being able to learn computers as a computer engineer would have.

[Dreamchaser]

Inspiring one ;)!

[Deepak Kumar Vasudevan]

True.

The external world sees it in a different perspective of an enviroment similar to how heavens were portrayed in olden Tamil films.

The internal actuals and the reality are quite different. Unless there is a passion or interest for the developer or programmer from within, it is highly impossible for the programmer to survive in the field for a significant amount of time.

It all depends on the internal interest and self confidence to propel one's own self towards development.