I worked with and later became a “student programmer” when I was in college. I had classes with some of these guys and I would ask them how long the homework took. “2 hours”? That’s crazy. It took me 10 and I knew people who were 15 hours in and not done yet.
Then I got on a new project as a dev. Within months I was down to 3-4 hours for similar assignments. My last class at school was the first time we had a shortage of hardware (good school). I would sit at home and remote into one of the machines, get my code to compile and show up to the lab the afternoon before it was due to debug. And everybody looked at me like I looked at my old coworkers.
It’s been a while since I’ve talked to undergrads but I always tell them to beg borrow or steal an internship or a job on campus. You have no idea how far a little concrete experience takes you.
Yeah, there was a great incentive to get done with the homework fast, because then you could get back to writing scripted mob behaviors and quest scripts for your MUD.
Finish with the boring programming, and you get to do fun programming.
Then I got on a new project as a dev. Within months I was down to 3-4 hours for similar assignments. My last class at school was the first time we had a shortage of hardware (good school). I would sit at home and remote into one of the machines, get my code to compile and show up to the lab the afternoon before it was due to debug. And everybody looked at me like I looked at my old coworkers.
It’s been a while since I’ve talked to undergrads but I always tell them to beg borrow or steal an internship or a job on campus. You have no idea how far a little concrete experience takes you.