From: Aaron Turner Date: 2009-01-08T03:42:39+09:00 Subject: Re: a good career choice ? Hi Ryan, Finding a job right now is hard- especially for entry level positions, and especially for HTML/CSS work since nowadays the programmers are expected to know enough HTML/CSS that the market for dedicated design people has dried up for the most part. At least that's what people tell me (I'm not really a web/application guy so I don't have any direct experience). You've got a few choices IMHO: 1) Learn an up and coming language/solution like Ruby & RoR. You'll be competing with fewer people, but there are fewer job opportunities as well- but companies will still want some experience. 2) Learn an established solution like Java and whatever framework is popular right now. You'll be competing with more people (many with a lot more experience then you will have) but there will be more jobs available (most of which will want previous experience). My point is pick something, learn it and use it for something. Find an open source project or a non-profit to contribute to and be able to put that down on your resume and get some people from that project/non-profit to be a reference for what a great job you did. You might even look around to find an open source project or non-profit looking for help first to find out what technology to learn. In the end, you'll realize that many of the basic concepts are common regardless what language/framework you end up learning first. Things like MVC, SQL and OO concepts are pretty universal and in general are more important to have a solid understanding of then a specific language/framework. Good luck, Aaron -- Aaron Turner http://synfin.net/ http://tcpreplay.synfin.net/ - Pcap editing and replay tools for Unix & Windows They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 1:12 AM, wrote: > Hello, I am from the USA and I graduated last year with a BS. I've > been trying to find a job doing HTML and CSS or Flash, but to no > avail. I know finding a job will be hard, but I want to give myself > the best chance of success. A couple people that I have talked to > suggested that I learn Ruby on Rails saying that it was the "future". > I've spent the past few days reading book tutorials on basic Ruby, and > it seems like something I could do and enjoy. Would learning RoR be a > good skill to learn to help me better get a job? If not, then is there > another language/s that would be good to learn? To any responses - > thanks in advance. > > -ryan > >