A few days Ago, I asked you to email me your most pressing questions on beginning your computer programming career. Read the previous post here:

I received a question from Matthew, an IT Student about how to succeed as a Visual Basic programmer and here is my reply:

1. Get A Job: Matthew, the most important thing I want to tell you is to get a job as a Visual Basic programmer while you are still in college. You can work the job along with your full time studies or as an intern.
2. Gain Valuable Experience: If you wait till you graduate from college before getting a job, you will may be in for a surprise. Employers don’t like giving a job to programmers with only a theoretical knowledege of a programming language. Hiring managers prefer students and job candidates who already have some experience building real world software applications.
3. Understand Programming: Working on real world software projects while you are still in school will help you understand the computer science concepts you are studying. The insight you gain will in turn help you to write better code.
4. Better Entry Level Position: By working on software projects while studying computer science in school, you will graduate with more experience than your colleagues who don’t. This experience will help you negotiate a higher entry level salary and a better position.
5. Develop Your Skills: By working on software projects for clients while you are in school, you will quickly discover which aspects of computer programming are in demand and which are not. For example, you may thing that developing compilers is what you will do when you graduate only to discover that web services are in-demand. This information will help you sharpen your skills for a ready market.
6. Network: By working for an employer while you are in college, you have the chance to create relationships and networks that you can piggy-back on after you graduate. If you do a great job for someone as an intern or as a student software developer, you are more likely to be hired for a full time job than some other computer science college graduate who doesn’t.
7. Make Money: Matthew, you might get rich programming computers while in college. Both Bill Gates and Michael Dell started their multi-billion dollar business from college. I know 2 college friends of mine who struck it rich while they where in college with a software training contract for a large corporation. The last all the money and went bankrupt within 2 years, but that is besides the point

Matthew, I hope I gave you some valuable information with this post. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help your career succeed.

To learn more about your computer programming career, visit this resource.

If you enjoyed reading this article, Subscribe to Software Development/Programmers Boot Camps Newsletter

Looking To Advance Your Career?

Shopping Cart Visit the Shopping Cart for affordable, convenient and effective online training!

Go Faster! Or get the hands-on experience and cutting-edge skills required for today's competitive job market now

About Training & Coaching Classes

• Business Analyst Boot Camp - Online, Web Based, Instructor Led, Business Analyst Video Training


• Become A Leader Coaching


• SQL Boot Camp - Online, Web Based, Instructor Led, Hands On, SQL + RDBMS Video Training


• Software Developer Boot Camp - Online, Web Based, Instructor Led, Software Developer Video Training


• Data Analyst Boot Camp - Online, Web Based, Instructor Led, Data Analyst Video Training


• Get Hired Fast - Online, Web Based, Resume + Job Search + Interview Video Training