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Tech Jobs For a Student?

Posted by Zonk on Sat Nov 04, 2006 08:37 PM
from the live-and-learn dept.
Education Programming Technology IT
Nick Manley writes "I turned 17 back in August and have been fascinated with technology my entire life. I have a special interest in software and computer programming. I am really hoping to find a job, or at least an internship, where I can learn more about my field and expand my knowledge of software development. Does anyone have recommendations for someone like myself, without any college education, for ways to get a head start on my career? Preferably, one that doesn't include selling iPods to kids at Best Buy."
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  • Incorrect Title (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Quobobo (709437) on Saturday November 04 2006, @08:42PM (#16720915)
    ...Shouldn't this be "Tech Jobs for a Non-student"?
    • I don't see where he said that he wasn't going to college. He probably wants to find a part-time job to go alongside it.

      My advice is to look for a tech job on-campus. Most companies won't touch you unless you have the right piece of paper, but once you do, experience helps. Also, prepare to be frustrated as hell; I certainly was.
    • No, it should be "Tech Jobs for High School Student". I'd say he has a choice between Best Buy and his dad's software corporation (if that doesn't exist, he doesn't really have a choice).
  • See if you can do some coding for an open source project.

  • College research projects! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Czyl (696277) on Saturday November 04 2006, @08:45PM (#16720929)
    Have you considered contacting professors at your local university? Plenty of research groups can use someone with coding skills, and you'll have a great experience. It might not be paid, but you're likely to find someone who'll take you and you'll be able to pick up letters of recommendation for future work.

    You might also get to learn something about actual computer science (rather than simply programming or IT), and better yet, you might get to contribute to the development of cutting-edge technology.

    As a warning, you may have to knock on a lot of doors before you find someone who thinks a high school student knows enough to contribute usefully to a project (many academics might just ask you to read a stack of books and come back in a few years), but there are those of us willing to take on a high school intern -- you'll just have to be persistent.

    • Re:College research projects! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by juushin (632556) on Saturday November 04 2006, @08:58PM (#16721025)
      I am a professor at a large highly ranked national university and I hire students that can code (high school or whatever). I have tons of projects I would like to work on that require programming (typically in Matlab but also in other programs), I don't have time to do it all myself, and I am in a department in the life sciences where we don't necessarily get students who can program. I agree with Czyl. Contact a professor at a local college/university and I think that you will find an opportunity. Make sure you come across as being motivated, smart, and dependable.
    • I quite agree. Also, don't just ask in the Comp Sci department. Talk to the physicists, the biologists, the chemists, the engineers, even some you might not expect, like the linguists (especially if you're around Ohio State U; they have an extensive Computational Linguistics program). In fact, oftentimes, the most interesting and useful in the future projects will not come from the comp sci people.

      If you find that there are a lot of people interested in you, don't be afraid to be picky. OTOH, if you d

  • My advice? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drdanny_orig (585847) * on Saturday November 04 2006, @08:47PM (#16720935)
    Go to college, take neat classes, be well rounded. Learn to read, learn to think, learn to write (English first, then C++/Python/Java, what-have you). All of that, plus enjoying these next few years of life is way way more important than an internship or being some Google-head's code slave for a summer. Plenty of time for work after you've had some fun. And yes, I'm completely serious about this.
    • I agree with this completely. I got into computers at 10, started working at 16, and was a paid PC tech by 17. I worked in various tech positions until I got into software at 20. I spent 6 years in school, working full-time doing development for four of them. I am now 27 years old, and have been employed in technology full-time for almost 9 years. I have been doing software exclusively for seven of those years, and now have my own software business.

      I had fun in school, but I often look back and regret not h
    • College is important. It will teach and educate you on many skills you will need in life.

      However, internships and other summer jobs are the best networking opportunities that exist. They will help you get job when college is done. Please don't write them off. If you intern wisely (on your summers off), with the right people, you can walk right out of college into a nice job or have a resume that has an excellent combination of experience and education (and quite possibly earn a fair amount of money).
    • Go to college, take neat classes, be well rounded.

      Start early. See if your high school offers programs for high-school students to take post-secondary courses (in Minnesota we call it PSEO - Post Secondary Enrollment Option). You get to take college credit for free. You should be able to get a couple classes in for the second semester.

      When you actually go to college, visit your advisor and meet with professors, frequently. While the advisor could be worthless (mine were) there are some exceptions. Ther
    • Ok, so you've got advice going to both directions: work-work-work vs. play-play-play. A truth: if you're not working, and you're not playing, then you're wasting time.

      From my experience in the great down under, web development work is probably the only (decent) computer work with public advertisments for part-time placements. Everything else is very formal, very full-time, very BSc/BE/equiv. exp.
  • It's exactly like becoming an author:

    Write Something.

    Download Ruby, download eclipse, download visual studio express- they're all free. Play. Pick your favorite. Buy a few books. Spend some time each day doing it, pick the part that interests you, and do more of it.

    When you've got some experience, volunteer for an open source project and keep learning- or find a job that offers training, and go to town. There's a million ways to do it...

    but you have to start with step 1:

    Write Something.
  • The place I work at is great at hiring interns and putting them to solving real problems instead of seeking out coffee. Seven months ago I started there as an intern, and now I'm managing the Systems Department. Get an internship at a good, fast moving company, and don't look back.
  • Can you get involved in a degree program somewhere? That's usually the most certain path. (You might also learn a few interesting and valuable things while you're there, too -- it's not a complete waste of time.)

    Consider the situation from your potential employers perspective: how do they know whether you're any good? There are lots of people out there who think they are great programmers, but can't actually program their way out of a wet paper bag.

    Networking/nepotism is the best way to overcome th

  • If you want to learn how to program, start teaching yourself some C/C++ and Java. You might also want to look into .Net (I wouldn't but I know some of people that need to know that language). Go buy some book in one of those languages, work through it. If you know of someone that is in a job and can mentor, grab them, and learn from them. Since you don't have a formal education, it will be hard, get some basic course first though. Books and basic knowledge will help. You can also start reading some open so
  • My advice, find a mentor and network like hell. Use your free time now to develop your skills and hone in on your interests. Try finding local tech companies around you and let them know that you have great interest in learning and are interested in seeing if they have any internships available. Once you get your foot in the door, meet people and stay in touch with them. It will come in handy once you graduate from college. I know it did with me.

  • Don't overcommit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Harmonious Botch (921977) * on Saturday November 04 2006, @08:54PM (#16720993) Homepage Journal
    You're seventeen? That's way too you to commit yourself to a career. ( Not meaning to imply that you're stupid or have poor judgement, just that you haven't had time to see a lot of the world and the different ways that it can be viewed ) If programming interests you, do it for fun.

    Speaking as an employer, technical skills - beyond a bare minimum - are seldom the most important thing that you can bring to a job interview. Being articulate both verbal and written - helps a lot. Having a history of jobs ( even flipping burgers ) in which your former boss will give you a good recommendation - showed up on time, cooperated with fellow employees, didn't steal, didn't drink or toke on the job, etc - really may be the most important thing.

    You're only seventeen and the world is your oyster. Don't commit too early. Try several jobs, try several majors, travel a bit; find out more about the world. Then choose.
  • Chances are you're going to be working retail or similar jobs until you're in your twenties. In the mean time you need to work on your own projects (and not stupid little hello world programs either) and make them resume quality. I've never gotten a programming job based on my formal education. I've been working as a programmer for most of the time I've been in college.

    Once you have a resume worth looking at then you can go to software companies looking for a job.

    It's hard to convince a company that "I l
  • If you look for a technical job at 17, you're likely to come up empty-handed. Just don't be so arrogant that you refuse to work below your technical skill level. Get some experience and some good references. 17 is young; focus on education and knowledge more than work now. You might be incredibly smart at 17, but you may not have the discipline and dependability of someone older. There's nothing wrong with selling iPods at Best Buy. I worked at a pizza place 2 years ago; now I'm an IT Coordinator at a unive
  • First, continue school. Get a good engineering degree. Don't stop school to work before you get one. Otherwise you'll be screwed into sucky jobs for the rest of your life.

    Second, get involved in Free Software (Open Source). I became a core developer of GnomeICU (the Gnome ICQ client) when I was 17 and ICQ was still synonymous with IM. It got me into the Gnome community, I'm still reaping the benefits.

    Third, when I was 17, it was the peak of the .com craze, so I managed to find a summer job as a programmer t
  • This is the reason that Google's Summer of Code exists. It's basically a summer scholarship so that Computer Science students do not have to flip burgers through the summer. There's nothing wrong with menial jobs when going through college. I worked at the University and moonlighted at various restaurants throughout my college years.

    You get a paycheck with the Summer of Code. Whether you get paid depends on if you make sufficient progress in accordance with deadlines and to the satisfaction of the spons
  • Contact your local Microsoft partners and offer your help.

    We are all listed here: http://directory.microsoft.com/ [microsoft.com]

    I can assure you that a lot of us have a ton of interesting projects that need a lot of research and we don't have the time to do it. You'll probably be interested in working with ISVs.
  • I came in to offer a few suggestions, but they've already been made. You can't really expect to get a programming job at your age/experience even if you know how to program. Your best bet is to do open source development, try to get on a research project if you live near a university (professors love free labor), or to get a job at a computer repair shop. If you haven't had a job yet, working a "normal" job for someone your age is actually a good social experience that I would recommend. I used to want
  • I started working pretty young, learning java and web programming. I've had a couple jobs at different departments of a state university, even while i was in highschool. There are a lot of state departments that want talented students they can pay a (relatively) small amount to learn on the job and take care of small tasks. Sometimes you can try starting out data entry and express interest in doing more interesting stuff.

    It's happened for me and a friend of mine. It may not work the same everywhere, I'm in
  • I may be comitting a major violation of the groupthink here, but if you are a U.S. citizen, the Air Force or even Air National Guard is a good way to get a jumpstart on an IT career, especially if you can get into a combat comm squadron. Our current comm suite is pretty modern, with Cisco routers and switches, Sidewinder firewalls, Red Data Modules, etc. You will also qualify for some decent educational benefits, such as the G.I. Bill, tuition assistance, and if you go Guard and depending on what state yo
    • For technical stuff, I absolutely agree. The modern military is quite computerized, and they need someone who knows how to fix it when things break. Furthermore, if you're smart enough, they'll be much less likely to send you into combat. My sister has a friend who enlisted to go to Afghanistan (whee, terrorist hunting!), but they won't send her there because she scored too high on her ASVABs.

      Also, most employers these days like military veterans, and will be loath to turn them down for employment if you

  • At 17, concentrate on college (Score:3)

    by DrDitto (962751) on Saturday November 04 2006, @09:26PM (#16721245)
    Concentrate on getting into college and earning money if needed. Absolutely continue to dabble in programming...teach yourself Java, Python, C++, or whatever floats your boat, but only in your free time. Until you are accepted into a college that satisfies your goals, don't put a lot of time into anything that doesn't help this effort.

    Do not be tempted to bypass college. It would be a huge mistake.

    Contrary to what many people believe, a college education is not meant to teach you practical job skills. It is meant to educate you about life. It is a way for employers to weed people out and to put yourself in a better pool. If you don't have a B.S., 9/10 places will throw away your resume.

    • Contrary to what many people believe, a college education is not meant to teach you practical job skills. It is meant to educate you about life.

      I disagree. Looking for a job in technical field, coming out of college with no practical job skills is going to ensure that you do not get the best jobs out there. Most new-grad interviews in the technical field concentrate on questions that try to figure out how well the candidate understands the basic concepts. It doesn't matter how well you are educated about

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by TheRaven64 (641858)

        I'm speaking as a 16-year old currently in community college and seriously considering not continuing on to a four-year.

        Of course it's your decision, but I would strongly recommend against skipping university.

        I know it's insanely arrogant of me to think this way, but my opinion is, if 9 out of 10 places will throw my resume away because it doesn't have a line of text on it, I wouldn't want to work for those 9.

        That's fine. I probably wouldn't either. But what if you're applying to the 10th one, and

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by ameoba (173803)
        If you're in HS and taking classes at the CC, you'd probably speed through college in 3yr, if you don't get sidetracked. You'll enjoy yourself a lot more spending 4-5hr/day on courses and coursework and then doing what you want than you will working 8hr/day in some demoralizing, unrewarding, shitty job and then trying to gather the energy to learn on your own when you get home.

        One thing you're overlooking is that the just being a college student opens you up to a world of opportunities - there's tons of st
  • is sit down and learn all the stuff they dont teach in (most) college(s), this means assembly, low level C, learn how traditional data structures work (i.e. linked lists/queues/et cetera without things like the STL), learn how dynamic memory allocation works, and study math study math study math. If you get good at all of the above, while college is still good and it makes you more rounded, it isn't necessary.
      • I didn't go to college, and yes I know they're taught, but what I've found from interviewing people for the last few years is that few people with degree's actually have really used any of it/know it, i recently interviewed a guy with a masters in CS from a fairly average US .edu who couldnt really follow some code because of this line: while (*dst++ = *src++), he could tell me what linked lists were and draw a representation of them on the board, but couldn't tell me what potential security risks there wer
  • I got my first gig "hacking" passswords and writing spam scripts for Pegasus mail at local college... the network admin caught me, was pissed at first and then hired me 6 weeks later. I worked there for about 2.5 years and got my next job through the work I did there.
  • If you're going to college, look around campus for a part-time coding job. Don't go to the CS department, but look at the schools of education, the humanities, etc. A lot of these schools do computer projects, but lack the skills to write their own apps or admin their own systems.

    I know one CS major who will have grad school offering all sorts of assistantships because he's gotten into coding applications for foreign language systems.

    You can also watch the local *nix Users Group lists for job offers to stud
  • See if there are any ISPs in your area that are looking for interns. You can get a lot of experience (some of it dealing with customers which can be a negative) and you can see a wide range of different roles you could step into one day. I had a lot of fun working at an ISP. The biggest bonus was working with a bunch of other geeks.

    The college professor route would also work but you might end up learning some interesting skills that only apply in that context that are fairly useless otherwise. Like some spe
  • At your education and experience level you may be hard-pressed to find a coding job that will offer you many experience points. You'll end up doing uninspiring, grinding crap with uninspiring, grinding tools for uninspiring, grinding purposes. My suggestion, therefore, is to find a job that pays something you can live with but that is mentally untaxing. Why? So that you'll have some mental energy left over between school and work to do something you enjoy and that will challenge your brain.

    Find an int

  • I got my first real job in the IT field right after I turned 17. I think you'll find that the people who climb the ladder the fastest were in similar situations. In my case, I had repaired computers for a number of the teachers at my high school, and one of them referred me to the supervisor of an IT department at a fairly large local business. I ended up getting an internship, in spite of the lack of certifications, or, for that matter, a completed high school diploma. My work for them lasted well into
  • Well, it worked for Linus. At least he was invited all over the world. I propose a namecombination of Manley and Unix: Manix.

  • What to do? read, Read, READ! (Score:4, Informative)

    by chris_sawtell (10326) on Sunday November 05 2006, @02:22AM (#16722823) Journal
    Go the college route only IF you can afford it, and IF the college has a well developed and staffed CS/IT department. If it hasn't then you are just throwing away your money, which would be much better spent on a decent library of text-books. Assuming you decide to teach yourself then you'll need to learn a language or three. I'd suggest you learn what the OO paradigm is all about. These languages are pretty good implementations of it:- Get your head around that lot, toss in a sprinkling of accountancy, and you will be a very valuable item, but don't forget to have a bit of fun on the side.
    • Be careful with "Computer Science" degrees. They often more akin to a mathematics degree than training to be a programmer. That doesn't necessarily make CS a bad degree, but people tend to mistake CS degrees for professional training, which they usually are not.
      • They certainly help when getting your first job, though. Especially if you study hard. Or so I hear from a few people.
      • The problem is that "CS" means different things to different schools and organizations. In my undergrad institution, it meant mostly programming, even though we had a separate Software Engineering program. In the grad. school I'm currently attending, it means theory.

        Of course, there's no reason why you can't learn both while in college, even if it means doing some self-study.

        • people tend to mistake CS degrees for professional training, which they usually are not.

          and that's a very good thing.

          I too am looking for a job, and I have obligations to my family that prevent me from moving far from my home town. However, even with a B.Sc. in computer science, I can't even get an interview in my home town because I lack recent paid experience. In order to make my resume more appealing, where can I get this "professional training" you speak of? Or am I supposed to go the fast food/retai

    • The fastest way to get a head-start is to get an education.

      "Best Buy" is a brand used in a major country that doesn't pay for four years of postsecondary education for all high school graduates. It could be that "Nick Manley", the submitter of this story, is looking to build-up a down payment for this education.

    • both dialects of Chinese and as many dialects of Hindi as possible.

      Also consider working at Best Buy if for nothing else but to get money to move to a fashionable part of Bangalore, India.

      Any job you are thinking of getting training for now, will be gone by the time you get out.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by daeg (828071)
          That's a load of crap. Unless the kid has made terrible financial decisions already (like taking out fraudulent credit cards), you can still get loans that are in a grace period until you are out of school. Sure, they are higher interest than subsidized loans, but most state schools are cheap for in-state residents. It's no Harvard or MIT, but it's better than nothing.

          At 17, go get a job. Any job. Your primary focus should be school and extracurricular things. Enjoy high school while you still can -- senior
            • Well, look at it this way. At that pay rate, you can buy your own car wash.

              The person in question, though, doesn't sound like he has such ambitions.
      • it sounds like you're just not talented at whatever it is you do; google notices if you're good at what you do, and nothing else matters, just like every other big IT firm out there.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by crazygamer (952019)

          No company is going to have you writing code with no experience/education

          You shouldn't say that without any first-hand experience. I'm 17, got hired at 16 as a Javascript and PHP programmer and get a 1099 at the end of every year. Working for a company now, and had a contract with a different company before.

          To the author: I suggest you browse craigslist for people needing you to write a small bit of code for a small price. Then just deliver the product and get your money, and they won't know your age. A

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