So for the past two years I have been in an AA program at my local community college with the plan to transfer into a bachelor’s Computer Science program. I wanted to do Calc 1, Calc 2, and Physics 1 while I was in CC so that I could enter straight into the college of engineering this fall at my University.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take any of those 3 courses since my CC options were very limited. I realize now I should have tried to do University all 4 years but there is no going back now. I am going to have to try to find some somewhat unrelated courses my first semester or two until I get the basic requirements done to “unlock” my core courses that I need for my major.
So that brings me to my main concern. I realize to get a good programming internship I should have some programming experience. My only job experience right now is a year being a Desktop Support Intern at a local state agency. All of my programming experience over this next year will probably only come from intro level courses. Can I learn enough within that year to land a good internship as a programmer next Summer (two semesters)? I’ll also add that I do plan on doing some self teaching at home but this can only do so much for me.
Also, will my AA mean anything to a recruiter looking for an intern? I feel like I really screwed myself with all of this transfer stuff. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
I don’t know anything about landing internships and transferring into 4-year universities, but I can tell you that you don’t need to learn programming from classes. There are a ton of free programming videos on YouTube, and lectures from MOOC sites like EdX, Coursera, most likely Udemy (for a fee). You can just Google ‘free programming resources’ or similar and you can get tons of sites. It probably won’t hold much weight in an interview unless you can demonstrate you know the material well and can apply it effectively to problems, but if you put in the effort to do well and learn from what you find online, you could probably demonstrate it.
I’m already going to be transferring into my University, I just won’t have access to most courses in the computer science program until I get those first few. And I’ve gotten a basic start at a lot of those free resources you mentioned. I just want to be sure that through little coursework and mostly self teaching (talking about a year) would I have a good chance to land one of those big internships, or would it be best to wait for two years or so.
Also, on a side note, will me being a Junior (since I have an AA) but having little programming coursework also hurt my “appearance”?
If you can get through data structures & algorithms, then all that matters is interviewing well. Spend lots and lots of time on data structures & algorithms.
You can find plenty of opportunities to learn programming outside of school. A great way to get into it is to think about something you wish you could automate or somehow make easier, and then take steps to learn how to program it yourself. There are tutorials on how to create most basic programs, and if you use that as a starting point, you will find yourself drawn to increasingly complex programs so that you can improve the basic thing you create. And if you find that you are not drawn to the increasing complexity, you might want to reconsider your career path!