The article is primarily aimed at young people who are just thinking about choosing a profession.
foreword
In what we think is a distant 2015, I graduated from high school and began to think about who I want to become in this life. (good question, I'm still looking for an answer to it) I lived in a small town, ordinary schools, a couple of vocational schools and a branch of a simple university. He graduated from a music school, played throughout his school life in the theater, but after the 11th grade he pulled himself onto a technical path. I did not want to become a programmer, although I studied in a class with an emphasis on computer science, looked at specialties related to design or robotics. I applied wherever I could, went to a military school, realized that it was not mine. There were 2 universities to choose from, I was not, I will go to St. Petersburg.
In St. Petersburg, the choice is huge, but something convinced me to go to study as a pilot - it's prestigious, money, status in society. Upon admission, it was proposed to choose 3 directions, without hesitation, he indicated the pilot (2 directions: specialist and bachelor). But the guys in the admissions committee still convinced me to choose the third one, he said that, in general, it doesn’t matter to me, if there is something with programming, then I can go there (it’s not for nothing that I studied remotely at school the basics of an IT specialist (also for money) ). August is coming to an end, monitoring the lists every day, I understand that I obviously don’t get into the pilot because of the number of points, I was slowly going to the army, replanting trees, clearing the snow, but suddenly, a call from my parents: “Son, congratulations you got in!” I'm looking forward to continuing. “You enrolled in OrASUVD, we don’t know what it is, but on the budget! We are very happy!” “Yes,” I think, “the main thing is the budget!” Scratching my head, I thought about what this mysterious ORASUVD means, but be that as it may, I'm going to St. Petersburg, and this is already a huge reason to rejoice.
Start of studies
The decoding sounds like this: the organization of automated air traffic control systems. There are many letters, as well as meaning. For the record, the first year I did not study in St. Petersburg, we were sent to Vyborg, not from a good life, of course, but in general it was even better than one might expect.
Our group was very small, only 11 people (at the moment there are already 5 of us), and everyone, absolutely everyone did not understand what they were doing here.
The first course was simple, like any specialty, nothing unusual, inscription, mathematics and a couple of humanities subjects. Half a year has passed, and I still don't understand what OrASUVD means, let alone what they do. At the end of the first semester, a teacher from St. Petersburg comes to us and reads the discipline "Introduction to the profession" to us.
“Well, finally I will hear the answers to my eternal questions,” I thought, but not everything is so simple.
This specialty turned out to be very popular and not so far from programming. We were even more surprised by the fact that this is generally the only specialty in Russia that has no analogues.
The essence of the profession is to understand all the processes taking place in the sky, collect information from all types of locators and transmit it digitally to the controller's monitor. Simply put, we do what the controller can do (aviation software). Inspiring, right? We were told that even criminal liability is provided if suddenly your code causes a disaster.
Let's move away from a bunch of trifles and subtleties and talk about the topic of programming.
Grain after grain
After we successfully completed the first year and came to study further in St. Petersburg, it became a little more interesting, and with each semester it is becoming clearer what they want from us. We finally started coding, learning the basics of C++. With each semester, our knowledge increased, there were many subjects related to aviation and radio engineering.
By the beginning of the 4th course, I already knew a couple of libraries, learned how to use vector and its relatives. I practiced a little OOP, inheritance, classes, in general, everything without which programming in C ++ is generally difficult to imagine. A lot of subjects appeared related to radio engineering, physics, Linux appeared, which seemed very complicated, but in general interesting.
They didn’t try to make good programmers out of us, they wanted to make people who understand all the processes out of us, and this is probably the problem. We were supposed to be hybrids, something between a programmer, an operator and a manager at the same time (it’s probably not for nothing that they say that you can’t kill two birds with one stone). We knew a lot of different things, but a little of everything. Every year I became more and more interested in coding, but due to the lack of subjects aimed at this, the desire to learn more remained unfulfilled. Yes, perhaps I could study on my own, at home, but in my student years, you rarely worry about things that will not be in the session. That is why, being on the threshold of the 5th year, I understand that all the knowledge I have accumulated over 4 years is a small handful, with which no one is waiting for me anywhere. No, I'm not saying that we were taught badly, that knowledge is neither the right nor needed. I think the whole point is that the realization that I like programming came to me only at the end of the 4th course. Only now I understand how huge the choice in coding directions is, how much you can do if you choose one path out of a thousand and start studying everything related to this topic. After reviewing many vacancies, I come to the conclusion that there is nowhere to go, no experience, knowledge is minimal. Hands drop and it seems that all the efforts in studies are crumbling before our eyes. I passed everything on 5, I tried so hard in writing programs, and then it turns out that what I do at the university, real programmers click like seeds on breaks.
“ITMO, GUAP, Polytechnic… I really could have entered there, I would have had enough points, and even if I didn’t want to go where I wanted, it’s probably still better than here!” I thought, biting my elbow. But the choice has been made, time has taken its toll and I can only pull myself together and do everything in my power.
Conclusions and a little parting word for those who have not yet begun their journey
Already this summer, I have to do an internship in a very reputable company, and do business directly related to my specialty. It is very scary, because I can not justify not only my hopes, but also the hopes of the leader. However, if you do something in this life, then you need to do it wisely and with high quality. Although I have not yet created anything super-complex or ordinary, but I have only just begun, I have just begun to understand what needs to be done, and I still have to learn the whole taste of programming. Perhaps I started in the wrong place, and in the wrong area, and in general I’m not doing what I dreamed of. But I already started from something and realized for sure that I want to connect my life with programming, though so far I haven’t chosen the very path I’m going to take, maybe it will be a database, or industrial programming, maybe I’ll start writing mobile applications , or maybe software for systems installed on aircraft. One thing I know for sure, it's time to start, and as soon as possible to understand what out of all the software abundance I would like to taste.
Young reader, if you still don't know what you want to be, don't worry, most adults don't either. The main thing is to try. It is through trial and error that you can finally figure out what you want. If you want to become a programmer, getting started is always more important than knowing exactly what field to be in. All languages are similar to each other, and programming is no exception.
PS If I had known that I would swim, I would have taken swimming trunks. I would really like to start understanding all this earlier, but due to disinterest, the routine of learning and not understanding what will happen next, I missed the time. But I firmly believe that it's never too late.
Source: habr.com