Mountain Clams

Work/life

My college allows students to submit an application for work/life experience. Basically, pick a class and send the faculty three pages on how you already learned the subject matter outside the classroom.

As a professional software engineer working on a computer information systems degree, I submitted an application for consideration in nine classes. I just heard the results today. Of the nine classes, I was approved for credit in six classes. Sounds like good news, right? Well, it is, but read on.

Of the six classes I got credit in, three were essentially "introduction" level classes - computer program design, object oriented programming, and relational databases. The other three were all about database programming. As a software engineer where I work now, I design and use databases a lot, and I was a database consultant from 1992 to 2000.

What's really remarkable is what I didn't get credit for: Java Programming I, and Building Internet Applications I & II. HUH?!?

So let me get this straight. I work for a dot com. Not just any dot com, but the dot com that YOUR SCHOOL RUNS ON, and yes, some of the system was written by me. For fun, I built a database-driven, interactive fantasy sports web site. To help out IFGS, I'm building their online registry. I've written computer programs professionally since 1986, and have written web-based code in HTML, XML, Java, C-sharp, PHP and VB since 1995. But you won't give me credit in Building Internet Applications?!?

I guess I still got lucky on the other classes, and my last couple semesters should be pretty damn easy.

Labels: school

posted by Brett @ 10:21 PM