I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I don't feel like I know how to program.
- by Wendy Peters
I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I see websites like Stackoverflow and search engines like Google and don't know where I'd even begin to write something like that. During one summer I worked as a iPhone developer, but I felt like I was mostly gluing together libraries that other people had written with little understanding of what's happening underneath the hood. I'm trying to improve my knowledge by studying algorithms, but it is a long and painful process. I find algorithms difficult and at the rate I am working through my book it will a decade will have passed before I will finish. Given my current situation, I've spent a month looking for work but my skills (C, Python, Objective-C) are not so desirable in the local market, where C#, Java, and web development are much higher in demand. My GPA is ok (3.0) but it's not high enough to apply to the large companies or return for graduate studies and I don't have a good network of friends.
Basically I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I don't feel like I know how to program. I thought that joining a company and programming full-time would give me a chance to develop my skills and learn from those more experienced than myself, but I'm struggling to find work and am starting to get really frustrated.
I am going to cast my net wider and look beyond the city I've grown up in, but what have other people in similar situation tried to do?
