your views

I personally don''t have any experiance with these matters but do have an idea as to what you can do. I would suggest keeping your job for a while longer to find out if you really don''t want to do what you are doing. If you find that you don''t, seek another programming job--perhaps you will like it better. If you really don''t like a second and maybe third job, you may want to do something else. I think this is a good plan because it is always bad to get stuck in a career that you dislike. Hope that helped.

Just stick with it. All will work itself out over enough time. You''re getting the "jitters,” which happens with any new change in life.

When I first started a business of my own, I was nervous like hell - suddenly I had the responsibilities to report VATs, register 1000 different things dealing with local tax administration and company registration, not to mention making investment calculations, budget plans and such.

I didn''t have any formal training to handle these things.
But I learned.

Now, as I see my small business to grow to a small enterprise, I''m very glad I didn''t call it quits then.

Stick to the job, if you at all can. I''m sure you''ll learn it, grow to it, and someday master it.

With my kindest regards,
-Nik

Just about everything worth doing is hard ... but at least programming can be fun while it''s being hard. Stick with it for a while longer. Any new position you take will bring challenges and will require learning. Knowing how to learn is the most important asset you have.

quote:

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Original post by Jerry Velders
Just about everything worth doing is hard ... but at least programming can be fun while it's being hard. Stick with it for a while longer. Any new position you take will bring challenges and will require learning. Knowing how to learn is the most important asset you have.

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In addition, quiting a job not long after starting is going to leave a bad mark on your employment history. Future employers are going want to know why you left.

There is good money in lecturing, but if you don't have much real world experience, making a living doing it could be tough.

[edited by - yspotua on March 26, 2004 4:26:17 PM]

frankly if you don''t like doing hard work, then looking to be in the video games industry probably isn''t for you. even just time-wise it''s hard. we tend to work 50-60 hour weeks during the beginnning of projects and then death 70+ hour weeks during crunch mode. sometimes during crunch you don''t leave the building for 2-3 days except maybe for lunch.

the programming itself is probably as hard as programming ever gets. working with huge systems, on big teams, with complex rendering/ai/what have you. there are so many things that effect so many other things that debugging a simple problem can often take an entire day or more.

games programming is about thinking as hard as you can almost all of the time. it''s about pulling your hair out when you can''t figure out why the hell guys are passing through walls when everything seems to be working perfectly in the collision system. for those that enjoy such things, this is the best industry in the world. it''s a do or die kind of industry and, for me, that rocks. i spent 3 years as a java engineer for web application stuff and was bored out of my mind. for now, game programming is where it''s at because it''s never easy. easy sucks, easy is boring, and nothing is worse than boring.

-me

but yeah, to end on an upper. jobs are ALWAYS far harder during the first few months while you get your feet on the ground. a lot of the difficulty of a big programming job has to do with familliarizing yourself with the codebase. once you start to figure out where stuff is, you can do things much faster and with greater ease.

so stick with it for a while and if it turns out it''s really not for you, no big deal. people switch jobs and industries all the time.

-me

i have read all the articles in the tread..like 3 times already...just to make sure i got all the messages that you ppl were trying to pass on..

i appreaciate the advice and help.

ill let you all know what my decision is...soon, ok

thanks

Get used to it.

If you are not constantly discovering that there is more to learn, or that something is harder than you thought, then you are growing in the direction of ignorance.

Here''s an interesting thought: Moore''s "Law" states that the number of gates (thus computing power) doubles every 18 months. Doesn''t that imply that half of what you are learning now will be obsolete in 18 months?

1. "For Beginners" probably isn''t a good place to get real advice on this topic.


2. It''s perfectly normal. The one thing college almost never prepares you for is integrating into an existing system and codebase. You''re not going to be writing projects from scratch in the real world; you''re going to have to consider large, existing investments (sometimes worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars) and you''re going to have to comprehend and correctly leverage them.

You''ll be fine.

quote:

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Original post by JohnBolton
Doesn''t that imply that half of what you are learning now will be obsolete in 18 months?

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Um, no.

Oluseyi,

where would be a good place to post this topic?

and you are dam right, what the hell are colleges and unversities teaching students..huh...i always thought that i could program....but in the real world, the training we receive is useless...to say the least.

Weclome to the real world. It''s normal to find it difficult, or confusing, whenever you change companies or jump in to an existing project.

In a year or so you''ll forget you ever felt out of place. Keep at it, because you''re learning some important skills.

Will

quote:

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Original post by milkywayman
where would be a good place to post this topic?

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Topics like this tend to go into the lounge, since they''re not strictly topical (ie, about game development) but are of interest to the community.

quote:

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and you are dam right, what the hell are colleges and unversities teaching students..huh...i always thought that i could program....but in the real world, the training we receive is useless...to say the least.

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I wouldn''t go as far as to say useless. I would say grossly inadequate, though. I switched majors, and it''s given me the freedom to focus on doing exactly such (I''m resisting the urge to "write my own <insert technology> from scratch") and concentrate on integrating various libraries/components instead.

If I get any insights worth sharing, I''ll put up an article.

Oluseyi is right. You''ll get more feedback in the lounge too.

Moved from "For Beginners".

I went through the same experience and I really don''t have an answer, I''m just working right now to make money in a MUCH more easier job. The pay isn''t that bad, so I''m not complaining. I work on that harder stuff at home under my own timeline.

quote:

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Original post by Tiffany_Smith
You''ll get more feedback in the lounge too.

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Or not.

Personally, I would stick at it, at least give it a few months and then think about it again. Starting a new job is never easy initially and if you give up on this too soon, you may regret it for the rest of your life.

Don''t give up, you can do it!

quote:

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Original post by JohnBolton
Here''s an interesting thought: Moore''s "Law" states that the number of gates (thus computing power) doubles every 18 months. Doesn''t that imply that half of what you are learning now will be obsolete in 18 months?

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Obviously. This is apparent when you consider that all programming languages, paradigms, and technologies are less than two years old.

Personally, I''m scared to death of getting out of college. I think I''ll just become a professional student and get some research fellowships to tide me over.

CM

Just stick with it. Sounds like you''re just a bit shocked by a big life change.

.bas

printf ( "And for the %dth time, I''m not American!", ++lIdiots );