On the subject of qualifications, I think they're a rather poor metric of ability. That's why, without work experience, many people find it almost impossible to get work.
At highschool, I was predicted the best results possible, across all subjects, so I stopped trying. I walked away with mediocre (at best) grades, and started working in bars to fund myself through college/university.
At college, I found I liked the party life too much, and my Computing lecturer would often mark me down for not completing paperwork (while 90% of the class "borrowed" my code, did the paperwork, and got better marks - and the lecturer knew full well what was happening).
But that was my first lucky break, because the lecturer knew I could do the work, but couldn't be bothered with the paperwork, when the system admin came asking for help, the lecturer pointed him to me. I spent that summer upgrading a co-ax network to ethernet, along with installing pcs, setting up new software etc.
Because that work was easy, and I also wrote software to automate parts of it, the system admin recommended me to friends, and I found myself working on very prestigious projects, earning more money a year than both my parents could, combined, in a decade!
Then I went to university, and enjoyed the party life too much, so dropped out after 4 months (still with a large debt).
So I went back to working in bars, and at one point, had a job cleaning out garbage trucks at the end of the day!
At some point, I learnt that experience & effort were key. So I planned my career somewhat. I moved from bars to sales, and then technical sales. I had a time where I ran my own business (installing telecomms & networks). I then moved to IT support, through QA and into development.
Each one of those steps was carefully planned, in terms of direction, but not always timing. That made the interview question of "why do you want to work here?" much easier to answer.
Now, I'm not only Lead & Architect, but a manager responsible for a development team.
Qualifications aren't useless, but they're not as important as teachers & lecturers make out. For example, I know that if you spend time working in a bar, you'll be reasonably ok working under pressure, or dealing with a code review that's descended into an argument, etc.
On the subject of qualifications, I think they're a rather poor metric of ability. That's why, without work experience, many people find it almost impossible to get work.
At highschool, I was predicted the best results possible, across all subjects, so I stopped trying. I walked away with mediocre (at best) grades, and started working in bars to fund myself through college/university.
At college, I found I liked the party life too much, and my Computing lecturer would often mark me down for not completing paperwork (while 90% of the class "borrowed" my code, did the paperwork, and got better marks - and the lecturer knew full well what was happening).
But that was my first lucky break, because the lecturer knew I could do the work, but couldn't be bothered with the paperwork, when the system admin came asking for help, the lecturer pointed him to me. I spent that summer upgrading a co-ax network to ethernet, along with installing pcs, setting up new software etc.
Because that work was easy, and I also wrote software to automate parts of it, the system admin recommended me to friends, and I found myself working on very prestigious projects, earning more money a year than both my parents could, combined, in a decade!
Then I went to university, and enjoyed the party life too much, so dropped out after 4 months (still with a large debt).
So I went back to working in bars, and at one point, had a job cleaning out garbage trucks at the end of the day!
At some point, I learnt that experience & effort were key. So I planned my career somewhat. I moved from bars to sales, and then technical sales. I had a time where I ran my own business (installing telecomms & networks). I then moved to IT support, through QA and into development.
Each one of those steps was carefully planned, in terms of direction, but not always timing. That made the interview question of "why do you want to work here?" much easier to answer.
Now, I'm not only Lead & Architect, but a manager responsible for a development team.
Qualifications aren't useless, but they're not as important as teachers & lecturers make out. For example, I know that if you spend time working in a bar, you'll be reasonably ok working under pressure, or dealing with a code review that's descended into an argument, etc.
Thanks so much. It's good to hear from another perspective and was very inspiring.