SetFocus Career Night
WARNING !!!!
GEEK SPEEK
Last night I attended the Set Focus career night....
The drive was aboot 67 miles each way to Parsippany, NJ. I'm not really a fan of Jersey roads, but I-287 off of the NYS Thruway was not a bad drive. It was 30 miles from the NYS Thruway to the I-287 exit for SetFocus.
The night started out with a presentation from a dude named Keith, who is a Microsoft employee, and whose job title is ".NET Evangelist".
Keith explained what .NET exactly is; he said "It's everything we do at Microsoft". That's pretty broad, but what I took away from it was that .NET is Microsoft's attempt at making ALL THEIR SOFTWARE web-centric.
He next explained the .NET Framework, which is really only of concern to developers. At the top are the various development languagements for .NET (Visual Basic .NET, C++ .NET, C# .NET). HE said the 3rd parties can implement ANY language and it would work in the Visual Studio Compiler as a plug-in. I thought that was pretty cool. He said Fujitsu is actually making a COBOL .NET compiler !!! The point is that now with .NET, each language is supposed to be just as equally capable, or close to it, for writing applications; it's up to the developer to use the language they are most comfortable with. They are also really forcing Object Oriented Programming, though I don't see how COBOL fits into that scheme.
The compilers produce something called "IL assemblies" which are just like Java's bytecode. There is also a datatype layer, which I didn't quite understand.
Under that is some propritary stuff; ASP.NET, ADO.NET, and some other stuff.
Below that is the Common Language Runtime and class libraries, which really are just like Java's virtual machine.
I did ask Keith if .NET will be ported to places like Linux. He said "No, because we wpn't let them." That middle layer is all proprietary stuff Microsoft will not give up. The upper layers HAVE been submitted to ECMA however for standardization. So I think Microsoft is kinda shooting themselves in the foot, because I do like the platform independence of Java.
Next Keith showed us Visual Studio, Microsoft's development suite for .NET. It looked pretty slick to me, and it can also produce code for things like PocketPC, the new "Smartphones", and even a new watch that can stream news, stock prices, etc. Keith had such a watch, but he confessed tha the personally has yet to write code for his watch. That just sounds weird... writing code for your watch.
Keith talked aboot "Longhorn", Microsoft's next version of Windows. Though I tink it's two versions away, because before that is something called "Whidbey". It seemed interesting, but it was all architecture charts... nothing to see here folks.
He said a few more things, then the SetFocus people spoke aboot their program.
It is INTENSE !!! By the time you are done, you will have written 10,000 lines of code. All your code is code reviewed. You have assignements, tests, and deadlines, just like in the real world. You are expected to maintain a "B" average. You wil learn VB .NET, or C# .NET (your choice). You also learn ASP.NET, ADO.NET, XML, SQL Server, MTS, COM, and Web Services. Object Oriented design is stressed. You must be able to defend your design choices. They also cover "best practices". You are given mock interviews, resume workshops, salary negotiation training. In short, at the end of the 13 weeks (or 39 weeks if taking the evening/weekend track), you should be able to walk into a business and be a systems designer in the latest Microsoft technology. You are also prepared to take the MCAD and MCSD exams for certification.
Their placement rate is over 90%. I was told privately that the 10% who didn't get jobs within 3 months are the people that didn't take advantage of the program.
I was told that out of 2000 plus applications per quarter, only aboot 100 people are offered a technical and personal interview. So that was an ego boost, because I was offered such things last week. Out of those 100, only aboot 15 or 16 will be selected for the C# track. So it really is the best of the best.
What does it cost ? The training as of today is $16,200. Ouch. I applied for a TERI loan today thru Fleet Bank. I understand IBM is going to give me $3000 for job re-training, so that would lower the cost to me to $13,200.
They did say that in the industry, the people who took and passed at least one certification exam are 100% employed.
It was also claimed by SetFocus that they used to do Java training, but that there are LOTS of unemployed Java developers. I don't know if that's really true or not. I see lots of Java jobs on Monster.com. But SetFocus did say that to be employed, you really need to know J2EE and have LOTS of experience.
Speaking with the academic administrator, it sounded like I WILL get selected into the program. She said the technical interview is writing some code just ot see if you understand Object Oriented Programming concepts. She came right out and said that the personal interview is just to see if you have a life. They don't want nerds in the program. They want well rounded people.
We were all given folders with info in them. One sheet was a bunch of case studies by Microsoft of companies using .NET. Some of the compaies listed... Jet Blue, Continental Airlines, Pepsi, All State Insurance.
On the drive home, the question going thru my head was whether this is a good deal or not. I reasoned thusly... the training would not be in some niche technology, it would be in the FUTURE of Microsoft. If Microsoft goes away, then it's a bad move; if Microsoft doesn't go away, it's a good move. .NET IS the future of Microsoft development. I think lots of portable devices will use .NET, and I see portable devices becoming a big market. In scientific computing, I think UNIX will always have that market, though I think the move will be to cheap PCs running some flavor of LINUX. But for B2B or office software, I think Microsoft wil be around for awhile.
I don't have to decide this today....
GEEK SPEEK
Last night I attended the Set Focus career night....
The drive was aboot 67 miles each way to Parsippany, NJ. I'm not really a fan of Jersey roads, but I-287 off of the NYS Thruway was not a bad drive. It was 30 miles from the NYS Thruway to the I-287 exit for SetFocus.
The night started out with a presentation from a dude named Keith, who is a Microsoft employee, and whose job title is ".NET Evangelist".
Keith explained what .NET exactly is; he said "It's everything we do at Microsoft". That's pretty broad, but what I took away from it was that .NET is Microsoft's attempt at making ALL THEIR SOFTWARE web-centric.
He next explained the .NET Framework, which is really only of concern to developers. At the top are the various development languagements for .NET (Visual Basic .NET, C++ .NET, C# .NET). HE said the 3rd parties can implement ANY language and it would work in the Visual Studio Compiler as a plug-in. I thought that was pretty cool. He said Fujitsu is actually making a COBOL .NET compiler !!! The point is that now with .NET, each language is supposed to be just as equally capable, or close to it, for writing applications; it's up to the developer to use the language they are most comfortable with. They are also really forcing Object Oriented Programming, though I don't see how COBOL fits into that scheme.
The compilers produce something called "IL assemblies" which are just like Java's bytecode. There is also a datatype layer, which I didn't quite understand.
Under that is some propritary stuff; ASP.NET, ADO.NET, and some other stuff.
Below that is the Common Language Runtime and class libraries, which really are just like Java's virtual machine.
I did ask Keith if .NET will be ported to places like Linux. He said "No, because we wpn't let them." That middle layer is all proprietary stuff Microsoft will not give up. The upper layers HAVE been submitted to ECMA however for standardization. So I think Microsoft is kinda shooting themselves in the foot, because I do like the platform independence of Java.
Next Keith showed us Visual Studio, Microsoft's development suite for .NET. It looked pretty slick to me, and it can also produce code for things like PocketPC, the new "Smartphones", and even a new watch that can stream news, stock prices, etc. Keith had such a watch, but he confessed tha the personally has yet to write code for his watch. That just sounds weird... writing code for your watch.
Keith talked aboot "Longhorn", Microsoft's next version of Windows. Though I tink it's two versions away, because before that is something called "Whidbey". It seemed interesting, but it was all architecture charts... nothing to see here folks.
He said a few more things, then the SetFocus people spoke aboot their program.
It is INTENSE !!! By the time you are done, you will have written 10,000 lines of code. All your code is code reviewed. You have assignements, tests, and deadlines, just like in the real world. You are expected to maintain a "B" average. You wil learn VB .NET, or C# .NET (your choice). You also learn ASP.NET, ADO.NET, XML, SQL Server, MTS, COM, and Web Services. Object Oriented design is stressed. You must be able to defend your design choices. They also cover "best practices". You are given mock interviews, resume workshops, salary negotiation training. In short, at the end of the 13 weeks (or 39 weeks if taking the evening/weekend track), you should be able to walk into a business and be a systems designer in the latest Microsoft technology. You are also prepared to take the MCAD and MCSD exams for certification.
Their placement rate is over 90%. I was told privately that the 10% who didn't get jobs within 3 months are the people that didn't take advantage of the program.
I was told that out of 2000 plus applications per quarter, only aboot 100 people are offered a technical and personal interview. So that was an ego boost, because I was offered such things last week. Out of those 100, only aboot 15 or 16 will be selected for the C# track. So it really is the best of the best.
What does it cost ? The training as of today is $16,200. Ouch. I applied for a TERI loan today thru Fleet Bank. I understand IBM is going to give me $3000 for job re-training, so that would lower the cost to me to $13,200.
They did say that in the industry, the people who took and passed at least one certification exam are 100% employed.
It was also claimed by SetFocus that they used to do Java training, but that there are LOTS of unemployed Java developers. I don't know if that's really true or not. I see lots of Java jobs on Monster.com. But SetFocus did say that to be employed, you really need to know J2EE and have LOTS of experience.
Speaking with the academic administrator, it sounded like I WILL get selected into the program. She said the technical interview is writing some code just ot see if you understand Object Oriented Programming concepts. She came right out and said that the personal interview is just to see if you have a life. They don't want nerds in the program. They want well rounded people.
We were all given folders with info in them. One sheet was a bunch of case studies by Microsoft of companies using .NET. Some of the compaies listed... Jet Blue, Continental Airlines, Pepsi, All State Insurance.
On the drive home, the question going thru my head was whether this is a good deal or not. I reasoned thusly... the training would not be in some niche technology, it would be in the FUTURE of Microsoft. If Microsoft goes away, then it's a bad move; if Microsoft doesn't go away, it's a good move. .NET IS the future of Microsoft development. I think lots of portable devices will use .NET, and I see portable devices becoming a big market. In scientific computing, I think UNIX will always have that market, though I think the move will be to cheap PCs running some flavor of LINUX. But for B2B or office software, I think Microsoft wil be around for awhile.
I don't have to decide this today....