[nfbcs] Computer science major college question

Wed Jul 6 12:14:20 UTC 2016

I want to add 2 things to Nicole's well-thought-out post.
In my office, communications skills are essential for everyone.  Even people
who mostly write code still have to communicate clearly with the rest of the
team, and often with their users.  Sometimes it's through email, and
sometimes speaking with the other person.  Either way, it has to be
effective.  So classes in communication skills, like writing or presenting,
are useful.

And to another of Nicole's points, not only do other people not know what
blind people need, they often make assumptions about what we need which are
completely wrong.
Back when I went to college, my school had no disabled student services
department at all.  I had to make all my own arrangements to get textbooks
and take tests.  It was a pain, but I learned how to do it, and how to
explain to authority figures like professors exactly what I needed.  I think
the experience did a lot for me, once I graduated.  I'm sure it's very nice
for someone else to make all those arrangements, but I am concerned that
blind students get used to someone else handling all that stuff.  Maybe
someone will be around to keep making arrangements, at least the first time,
when the student graduates and gets a job, but mostly you're on your own,
and you have to know how to manage your accessibility needs yourself. Like
Nicole said, if you sit back and wait for someone else to figure it out, it
may never happen, or you may not actually get what you need.  If you don't
know what you need, you have to know what resources to tap to figure it out.
I sometimes wonder if that's why some blind people are unemployed--that it's
such a huge hassle sometimes to figure out access problems.  Jumping down
from my soapbox.
Tracy

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Nicole Torcolini
via nfbcs
Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2016 7:20 PM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
Cc: Nicole Torcolini
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer science major college question

I think that both a degree and experience are necessary to get some jobs.
The degree is mainly to show that you have the knowledge in certain areas.
Unfortunately, since all colleges are different, a degree from one college
has a different meaning from a degree at another college. Most computer
science programs will have basic requirements for every branch of computer
science, such as Java, C, C++, and assembly, and students then get to not
only pick the branch, which has its own requirements, but also have a few
credits that can be met by any number of computer science courses, such as
compilers and operating systems. Regardless of what programming language you
learn in college, some of the concepts are the same. Some colleges also
require you to take a lot of other classes so that you have a well-rounded
education. Different people have different opinions on whether or not people
will ever use the other skills. For one, I do believe that learning to write
and present are important, especially if you get a job at a company where
you have to make decisions and present ideas instead of just doing the work
that you are given. Also, if college was going to prepare you for every job
out there in computer science by teaching all possible programming
languages, you would never graduate. It is a basic expectation when you get
hired by a company that, even if they hired you for a particular programming
language, that you can learn new ones.
	Yes, you are not going to learn everything about a programming
language, but part of the reason for that is because there are certain
aspects that are easy enough for you to learn on your own. For example,
neither APCS nor any of my college classes ever taught me how to compile a
jar file from a java, but, given the simplicity of it, I think that it would
have been a waste of time.
	You cannot get experience by just going to college, but experience
alone is not enough. Some of the experience that you get from internships
would be hard for colleges to teach because every company is different.
	Some tools are accessible, and some are not. I use Eclipse for Java
but write JavaScript in TeXnicCenter, which a program for writing LaTeX,
that I like because of its editing features, such as being able to jump to
the location of the last edit.
	Whether it is high school, college, an internship, or a job, the
only way to get by is to know what you need. If it is not working, and you
just sit around and wait for other people to figure out what you need, it is
not going to get any better. Most people do not know what blind people need,
and, if they do, they are often under the common misconception that all
blind people need the same accommodations.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Currin, Kevin via
nfbcs
Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2016 10:20 AM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Cc: Currin, Kevin
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer science major college question

I completely agree Deborah. People ask me all the time what accessible
programming tools I use. They are either surprised or disappointed when I
say I mainly use notepad and then compile on the commandline (usually cygwin
on windows). I have used more complex editors, such as notepad++ and
EdSharp, but for most of what I do, notepad works great and is perfectly
accessible. 

When I started programming, which was only about 4 years ago, I took a
python class and used notepad and did great. I then took a java class on
object oriented programming and tried to use Eclipse and did not so well.
While eclipse is much more accessible than most IDEs, it has a huge learning
curve itself and constantly froze on my laptop with 2 gb of RAM. At the time
however, I thought I just wasn't good at "real" languages like java and that
oo programming was beyond me. When I revisited OO programming again later
using notepad, I did just fine and didn't have nearly as many errors trying
to get things working.

Kevin
________________________________________
From: nfbcs [nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] on behalf of Deborah Armstrong via
nfbcs [nfbcs at nfbnet.org]
Sent: Tuesday, July 5, 2016 1:07 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Cc: Deborah Armstrong
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Computer science major college question

I enjoyed reading through this discussion. I would add that if your name is
out there and you can demonstrate your knowledge of programming you can
probably find an employer who won't care about the degree.

But, if you are going to companies as an unknown, the degree is the only way
they have of confirming your skills; same thing goes for a community college
or even a MOOC certificate of completion.

One job I got back in the start of this century was writing JAVAScript. In
the interfview, the guy told me he wouldn't consider hiring someone without
a degree, and I didn't have one. I told him that JavaScript wasn't a "real"
language taught by academics and I would like to show him my skills. So
using just notepad on a tiny laptop, I made a simple web page with a form
and some simple JavaScript to verify the accuracy of the entries.

What impressed the guy was that I could do it in notepad, even though I made
a typo in the HTML that created a table. So he hired me, and then he tried
to test other prospects by making them use notepad, which for sightlings who
depend on authoring systems, didn't work so well. It was a borring job, I
ended up looking a lot at other people's flawed JavaScript and fixing it,
but there are worse ways to get a paycheck!

The problem blind people have today as that many of the programming IDES
aren't accessible, so especially as a beginner taking programming classes,
you could conclude that you can't code, when in fact you just can't hack --
in more than one sense -- the environment under which you are expected to
learn. Many of us old-timers learned when the command line was king and we
didn't need to futz with laying out objects on a screen, opening projects
and dealing with anything graphical at all.

For example, I programmed back in the 1980s, but you wouldn't want to hire
me today -- my skills are deprecated! I was looking in to writing some
Android apps and was unhappy that Android Studio is so inaccessible. Most of
the courses require you use Android studio, so I'll have to teach myself, I
guess with Eclipse. I also looked in to writing iPHONE apps, and after
reading a wonderfully detailed article here

http://www.applevis.com/guides/programming-ios-programming-os-x-voiceover/vo
iceover-users-guide-xcode
On how to do this eyes-free, I decided it wasn't worth the effort -- had I
been younger, I might have had a different attitude. I just don't have the
requisite skills, like a knowledge of Swift to really follow this article.

The difference for me is that I know I know how to code, and having taken
UML a few years ago -- that's another sstory, I do have some understanding
of design patterns. But at nearly sixty years of age, I'm not willing to
struggle with semi-accessible stuff just to get paid to code again. If your
first experience is with something that's semi-accessible, you could
conclude you lack talent which might not be at all true.

At the college where I now work, I think we've seen about twenty blind
people attempt and fail at programming courses. I don't think anyone has
succeeded yet, which is terribly sad, since I was a software engineer. I try
to help them, but it's all integrated development environments these days
and these twenty-somethings are so impatient. I wrote my own DOS screen
reader in Turbo Pascal and assembly when I was their age, and I'm not any
smarter than they are; I just have way more self-confidence -- always have!

If I was starting now, I'd take a year off from college, from any school,
and hone my self-discipline. I'd master Linux, get hooked up with some
open-source project, actively participate on forums, ask for mentoring.
These open source projects always need testers, tech writers and other
community support personell. If you focus on doing that while you read code
--lots of code -- work on understanding what it does -- you can then
approach some employers after that year and also begin to ascertain whether
you need to spend the time and money you'll need for that certificate or
degree.

If you need money, take a year off and focus on writing apps. Get together
with groups of local app developers; follow the above article; take some of
the free online courses on writing apps, but just do it. You might sell your
app and make enough money to help out your hobby lifestyle and you can then
decide on the degree later.

And while academics sneer at JavaScript, it's a great first language if you
don't know programming at all, as is the Bash scripting language, or in
Windows the built-in PowerShell language. Lots of free resources for the
absolute beginner who wants to master these, and if you're a Powershell or
bash whiz there are plenty of Jobs out there for you.

We've been sold a bill of goods that you need a degree to succeed. That
sounds sacreligious coming from someone working at a college, but the
reality is that many people get the degree because they are afraid to pursue
success without that lifeline!

--Debee

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