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About to graduate with non-CS degree and low GPA. How do I break into tech?

7 points by bkcreate ↗ HN
Like the title says, I am about to graduate with a non CS degree. I have some programming experience from making my own projects but nothing worth showing off. How can I use the next 8 mos. to set myself up for a job in tech?

5 comments

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AnimalMuppet
What is your degree? Can you get hired in that at all? Then, after getting hired in that, spend the next two years becoming the go-to tech person there. Take on any programming projects that they have, but if they don't have any, become the unofficial IT person.

Then you've got experience, not just a degree. You've proven that you can walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Leverage that into a "real" tech job.

kjksf
Invest 6 more months and complete Lambda School
depecode
The Little Advice I Can offers you is that works and dedicate your time to know the cores of a programming language and use it to work on tangible projects to show... Because you works on projects , the you get more about the programming language and also contribute on Open Source projects on Github.com
JoshCalbet
Build a portfolio that speaks for your work and experience. Take those projects and make them worth to be shown. That way you can show concrete examples of your work with programming. Make them open source, show them on your github account, that way the interviewer will know that you have an idea of the workflow. Even better if you can get some issue on an already existing project you'd like to contribute, fork the repo, fix it and get it merged (repeat).

That will help a lot, if you fail in a couple of programming questions they can relay on your ability to learn and get things set up and running as your previous projects.

rchaud
What does "break into tech" mean for you?

I've spent ~6 years doing PM work for different software projects and the number of sub-areas within "tech" can include:

- Actual project dev work, like requirements gathering, Wireframing, UI/UX design, front/back-end development, usability testing, Quality Assurance

- Managing IT infrastructure. Databases, writing process documentation, running IT controls audits

- CRM/Marketing Automation/Conversion Optimization

- Business Intelligence

The rabbit hole goes pretty deep in any of these sub-areas, and the list above is definitely not comprehensive.

I suggest going to meetups in your community to learn from people about what roles they are in, what their day to day looks like, and if it's something you could see yourself doing.