3 ms·

I would love to do this, but in my country it is impossible to get a (decent) job without a degree. How do you get at least an internship as, say, a high school

I would love to do this, but in my country it is impossible to get a (decent) job without a degree. How do you get at least an internship as, say, a high school graduate with mediocre grades and nothing to your name? You show them your open-source projects? I think HR is technically illiterate and will be more impressed by any degrees you have.

nzmsv 17y ago
Exactly. How do you get that internship as a high school dropout? Thinking back to high school, I couldn't even get a job at McDonalds (probably deemed too nerdy for customer service). My parents aren't computer programmers, and did not know anyone in the field. I also had a similar attitude for the first half of my university studies. I figured I could already program quite well, thank you very much, and classes were a waste of time. So, after failing a bunch of classes, I decided to go work for a year. Got a job hacking on an awful mess of PHP code. Then I actually got interested in school. It turns out just because something is hard doesn't mean it's a waste of time. Hardware is actually interesting, as is theoretical CS. Now that I want to learn more, I can't get into grad school because of my too cool for school attitude earlier.
- robryan 17y ago
  Hmm, I had the same problem with those fast food/ supermarket customer service jobs in my teens. Got to the point where I was like well I wouldn't want one of these jobs even if they came after me. I kinda find it funny now that I probably still wouldn't be able to get one of these lowly paid casual service positions. I have a mate who takes uni the same way, clearly smart enough to pass programing classes easy judging by what he's done programming for fun, but just doesn't seem to care or apply himself enough assuming it will be really easy.

3 ms·

I would love to do this, but in my country it is impossible to get a (decent) job without a degree. How do you get at least an internship as, say, a high school

by impeachgod 17y ago

nzmsv 17y ago
Exactly. How do you get that internship as a high school dropout? Thinking back to high school, I couldn't even get a job at McDonalds (probably deemed too nerdy for customer service). My parents aren't computer programmers, and did not know anyone in the field. I also had a similar attitude for the first half of my university studies. I figured I could already program quite well, thank you very much, and classes were a waste of time. So, after failing a bunch of classes, I decided to go work for a year. Got a job hacking on an awful mess of PHP code. Then I actually got interested in school. It turns out just because something is hard doesn't mean it's a waste of time. Hardware is actually interesting, as is theoretical CS. Now that I want to learn more, I can't get into grad school because of my too cool for school attitude earlier.
- robryan 17y ago
  Hmm, I had the same problem with those fast food/ supermarket customer service jobs in my teens. Got to the point where I was like well I wouldn't want one of these jobs even if they came after me. I kinda find it funny now that I probably still wouldn't be able to get one of these lowly paid casual service positions. I have a mate who takes uni the same way, clearly smart enough to pass programing classes easy judging by what he's done programming for fun, but just doesn't seem to care or apply himself enough assuming it will be really easy.