[nfbcs] {Spam?} C# materials:

Wed Jul 20 22:21:27 UTC 2016

Assistance:

I need to get fluid with C# rather quickly. I have programmed in .net and
know java and some about c#. I need to get some of the more advanced
material; especially xml knowledge. Does anyone have a good resource?
Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Martin, Vincent F
via nfbcs
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2016 6:06 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Martin, Vincent F <vincent.martin at gatech.edu>
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Help for older students

Getting a degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or any
Computing related discipline is a good start for your education, but it will
only guarantee you that you are educated.  Converting that initial education
into a desirable and marketable skill is much more difficult to do and
requires diligence and ingenuity.  Just being on this list is even a way of
assisting yourself in your job search.  Did you know there are actually
currently about 5,000 jobs open in the Computer Science/ Programming arena
in Seattle right now?
When you hear that about 85 percent of jobs are given out on who you know,
they are not exaggerating in any way!  I currently have a friend where an
organization that wants to hire them is actually writing the job
announcement by using their resume as a guide.  This is how you get the
person you really want when you have a competitive process, even with State
and local governments, Federal positions, and even with many large
multi-national corporations.  You have to be qualified enough to get into
the top five or three people in the initial pool of applicants.  If they can
get you to the interview, then they can choose the person they want!
I have a blind friend with a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering and a MBA
who was told by her friends at a major company that they just opened up a
job one day and she should apply.  She applied that day and they closed the
position the next one.  They had been looking for and creating the right
position for her as they had known her for two years before she was to
graduate from her graduate program.  I actually paid for her registration at
the CSUN conference during her first year of grad school.  She even was able
to present part of her master's research there and this major company
happened to have representatives in the audience to listen to her
presentation.  She interviewed for two positions with them, and Amazon over
the past few months, but was "picked" for this one.  They told her in
January, that she did not make the cut for the other position, but she
should keep on trying.  She was just rewarded for her diligence with a six
figure position with a nice bonus each year.
I am fifty-one years old and every job I ever had, whether when I was
sighted, low-vision, or blind has been through a personal connection.
Before going back to graduate school, the past three jobs I had were all
"created" for me.  Two of them I turned in the resume and filled out the
application after I was employed.  I am a PhD student now, but have been
"creating" my next job over the past two years.  Instead of just doing
research, and attending a conference to present it when it is selected, I
have also strategically attended other conferences (at my own cost and
sometimes by getting some other entity to pay for it) as a way of meeting
the right people or just letting the "players" know that I am still in
school and will be on the market in a few years.  There are people over the
past twenty years that I have assisted in getting other positions that are
now in strategic positions to assist me if I need them in my job
creation/search as well.   
All the connections I make at conferences/ meet-ups, webinars, or anywhere I
encounter people is an opportunity for me to make a job connection as well.
There have even been some places where I have specifically been happy that I
was the only person that was there that was blind, because I knew it would
make me stand out enough for the people to remember me when I contacted them
again.       
I have a saying that I like to use that I think fits the situation very
well.
"It is not who you know or what you know, but who knows that you know what
you know"
I can quietly sit on a bus, train, or plane  and listen to a book and let my
guide dog and I fade into the background, or I can choose to interact with
people around me and casually let my education and background "slip" out in
the conversation if needed.  I can let them think I am "just" a blind person
in the room, or let them know about the Textile engineering degree,
Industrial and Systems Engineering degree, the Psychology degree, the
Master's degree in Human Computer Interaction and the continuing work on the
PhD in Human Centered Computing.  Occasionally, it is too my advantage to
also let them know about the three Paralympic Games and the US records in
Track and Field, or they can never find out about it.  Either way, the
skills I have in my technical field are totally irrelevant if I don't
interact with the public in the best manner that suits me.  
   I am teaching an undergraduate Computer Science course this summer at
Georgia Tech.  I currently have my students working on their end of the
semester projects.  They begged me for a take-home exam for their final and
I let them fall for that trap.  When I released it on Tuesday in class, I
let them know that they actually have two take-home final exams.  The first
one or the first half is fifty points and their groups can work on it
together or by themselves, but they all have to come to a consensus and turn
in answers as a group.  The second half of the exam is under the school
honor code and they have to do it by themselves.  I gave them the first part
for one major reason.  I told them that you cannot like each other, or even
hate each other, but you need to learn to work with each other.  Most
importantly, you will see each other later in life and business after you
graduate.  The current dean of the college of Engineering here at Georgia
Tech and I went to undergrad together in the early 80's.  I have five
tenured professors in my department, including the chair of the school of
Interactive Computing that went to undergraduate and graduate school with my
baby brother!
For the last example of how interacting with people is just as important as
the education you have and the skillset you possess, one of my blind mentees
that I met a few years ago wanted to come here for the PhD program in
Biomedical Engineering.  I came back to school two falls ago and cleared the
way for him.  I went and met the right professors on campus and told him to
contact.  He took it from there, by making a great GRE score, graduating
from Cornell with honors, but also by "grabbing" his future and making the
leap.  I have also been working on the right connections for his fiancé to
get a position when she moves here this fall.  
So, I say listen to the people on this list, use us for any information that
you can pry from under our fingernails, and keep on interacting with the
rest of the world.  Grab that bull by the horns and wrestle it to the
ground!

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Deborah Armstrong
via nfbcs
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2016 5:17 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Deborah Armstrong <armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu>
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Help for older students

>college was about 20 years ago and nothing came of the promises with
placement or a second so called guarantee after completing a specialized
programming program graded by it managers.

It's my opinion but I think all these job training programs are more
marketing than substance. You get yourself some skills and you market
yourself to your friends, their friends and anywhere else you can think of.
And who would want a guaranteed job anyway, sounds like make-work for the
handicapped!

Though I've been a rehab client several times, DOR never actually did much
in helping me score the jobs. I used DOR to fund all the classes I wanted to
take, but I think searching for jobs is best done without agency
interference!I got this current job because I was interviewing for another
position here and went beforehand to the restroom. My husband, who had
driven me to the interview helped me find the restroom before he left, and
happened to see the current job I now hold posted on a notice board next to
the wrestroom. He used his phone to take a picture of the job posting and
over dinner later read it out loud to me. He knew it would be something I
wanted, and he was right; I immediately set about with all my resources to
score this, the perfect job for my desires and abilities.

Before that, I found my job at Stenograph when a friend of a friend
described it to her friend, and said they were really looking for a person
with a special skill set. 

I got my job at Caere because I was an OmniPage user. I just called and
badgered them; said quite truthfully that I liked the product and wanted a
position starting out in support.

I got my job at Aveo, a company that's now defunct because I got lost at a
job fair when I went to relieve my dog. The nice man who helped me back to
the convention center  started talking about he couldn't find a programmer
with strong writing skills and I sold him on agreeing to look at my
portfolio. Thank goodness my dog needed to go out that afternoon!

And I've gotten jobs off Craigslist and from room-mates too. A job you hunt
for yourself, and earn yourself is the job you want, one you'll work hard to
both acquire and keep.

As for skills, there is so much free training out there now. If, say I
wanted to learn Windows Powershell, I can download books from Bookshare, get
stuff from Youtube, (some is not as visual as other training), listen to the
excellent Coding 101 podcast segments on Powershell and above all, write
lots of powershell code to do hobby stuff, like catalog my MP3 collection,
or make registry editing easier. I don't want to learn PowerShell right now,
but for you maybe it's Wordpress, or PHP, or JavaScript, or something. I
want to learn Python because it looks fun, and I want to learn Java so I can
write some apps. So figure out if you can learn a skill where there's plenty
of free training online and just go for it! Then when you know it you can
start looking for work doing it.

So stop trying to get some agency to "get you a job";  it's just silly!

--Debee

_______________________________________________
nfbcs mailing list
nfbcs at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbcs_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nfbcs:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbcs_nfbnet.org/vincent.martin%40gatech.e
du

_______________________________________________
nfbcs mailing list
nfbcs at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbcs_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nfbcs:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbcs_nfbnet.org/charleseblack%40att.net