[nfbcs] Is majoring in information technology in a mainstream college a good idea?

[Susan Stanzel]

Hi Amy,

I just read 	Robert's message. I graduated with a business degree in 1971
with an emphasis in computers. I worked from August 9, 1971 to February 28,
2015. My first employer was the City of Kansas City Missouri and then I
worked for 40 years at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I finally got a
80 cell Braille display. I kept saying they didn't have to spend that money
on me. I actually found it so valuable that I had an old Braille display at
home and I traded it in for an 80 cell at home. I worked from home two days
a week. I coded Java at the end of my career. It took too long to do
arrowing to find out what the line said.

Susie Stanzel

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of rjaquiss via
nfbcs
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2017 2:27 PM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
Cc: rjaquiss
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Is majoring in information technology in a mainstream
college a good idea?

Hello Amy:

     I think an IT or CS degree is certainly doable by a blind person. I
obtained a BS in Computer Science in 1976, worked for Tektronix for 23 years
and the NFB for 5 years. Now, I do some consulting work. I am a braille
reader and use a braille display along with JAWS.

     I suggest that you learn braille if you don't already know it. I find
that an 80 cell braille display is invaluable when I program. Object
oriented program languages such as Java, Python, c++ and c# indent blocks of
code. Python requires blocks to be indented. A braille display displays
lines showing their indent.
Here is an example of a simple Java program.


public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello, World!");
    }
}
The web site the above code is from explains the various lines.
http://www.learnjavaonline.org/en/Hello%2C_World%21 

Note there are two levels of indent in the above program. 
I would definitely look at free tutorials for learning a language like
Python or Java. You will likely need a skilled reader to deal with the
interactive development environments (IDE) that your school uses. The
Eclipse IDE can be used by a blind person. Hope this helps.

Regards,

Robert



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