[Coco] Re: Thoughts about going back to school full time.

[Jim Cox]

There was an interesting post on Slashdot on this very 
subject:

http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/05/12/16/1833210.shtml?tid=156&tid=187&tid=4

It made me wonder why am I taking programming classes at 
47.
Should I do it for my employer because they are hanging a 
carrot on stick in front of me, or should I do it because 
I can learn something new that I can apply to a hobby 
(CoCo's and other projects) that I can have fun with and 
maybe parley into a better job.

I'm choosing the latter.  I'm looking back on my 23 years 
in the business and I am just realizing that all I have 
been doing is working with technology, and not having fun 
with it.  I look at what I haven't done with the CoCo and 
other projects (Ethernut, etc..) and I realize if I spent 
time having fun with those things, I most likely I would 
have learned a lot more and wouldn't be worried about 
where I am going.

-Jim

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 19:59:19 -0600
  John Donaldson <johnadonaldson at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>   Here's my 2 cents. Back in June of 2004, I was working 
>as a Sr. 
> Software Engineer,
> when the company I was working for got into bad money 
>strates. As 
> result they shut down
> the entire department I was working in. This was in WV. 
>In WV you 
> either worked for a
> hand full of big companies, which paid great or you 
>worked for everyone 
> else at 50-60%
> . So you see the  problem here, they will not hire you 
>because they feel you will not be
> happy taking a 50% cut in pay. So we sold our house and 
>moved to 
> Dallas, TX. We lived
> with my sister until I could find a new job. That took 
>14 months, since 
> I am over 55. I just
> happen to get interviewed  with a company that was 
>looking for a Sr. Software Engineer.
> After I was hired, my boss told me the reason he hired 
>me was I knew 
> more about
> software than  most of the younger people he had 
>interviewed. So guess 
> I got a break.
> Being over 50 and even worse over 55, many corporations 
>will not hire you. Yes it's
> discrimination,  but try and prove it.
>    I used to be a Electronic Research Tech back in the 
>60/70's. I fell 
> in love with
> computers and took courses at the local Jr. College. 
>Back then it was all punch cards,
>Fortran, and Mainframes. One course I took was in Pascal. 
>Then one day I saw a ad
> for a Pascal programmer. I appled and got the job and 
>became a Software Engineer.
> The rest is history as they say. Softwre is one of the 
>last bastons where if you got into
> it early days, you did not need a degree, as there was 
>NO College Degree's in
> programming.
> 
> 
> 
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