Programmers: What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

I'm actually referring to the airplanes that I have flown as an airline pilot. But you can believe whatever you want.

I believe you, I think cars have more priority since the everyday consumers drive it, they are not trained pilots, so it needs more protection from dumb decisions...

[exprg:melonhead]

Really, I'd just like to be a math professor, or some other profession involving mathematics. but, I don't want to stop programming. I see battle bots in my future.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

I'm actually referring to the airplanes that I have flown as an airline pilot. But you can believe whatever you want.

This needs to go offline. Please check your PM.

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[BigJ]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

I am assuming you are going with programming the rest of your life, what do you want to specialise in? There are many types of jobs out there that require programming. I honestly don't know what I want to do, I would LOVE to work for a big gaming company like Blizzard, Square Enix and ect, but I would also want to work for JPL, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, anything similar. I started programming with gaming in mind, but after I joined robotics, I have found a love for robotics. I also have the desire to start a gaming company, which is easier than making a robot company. Well, what do you guys want to do?

I knew I wanted to do something with programming since I was a junior in high school. I was totally intending to go be a game programmer/designer (I was even accepted to and intending on attending DigiPen for a B.S. in Real-Time Interactive Simulation). After joining FIRST in my senior year (sadly I hadn't discovered our team before then) I decided to pursue a B.S. in Software Engineering at MSOE.

As for personal preference, I like to do back-ends and algorithms and such. GUIs aren't my thing because whatever I make never looks as good as my original vision

Plus, I realized that if I became a game designer I don't think I would enjoy video games as much anymore.

EDIT: My dream job? Being the guy to create frameworks to parse statistical data on characters in an MMO like World of Warcraft and heading up the balance department (Kinda has to do with games...)

[,4lex S.]

Not everyone who programs is moving towards a degree in it; my teams former main programmer is actually in civil engineering (and he was good enough to get into one of the best software engineering programs in Canada).

Realistically, every engineering discipline programs now. As a mechanical engineering student, I have three or four programming and electrical control based courses in my first two years.

[SavtaKenneth]

If I'm doing active programming I'd like to do back end algorithms. it gives me the most pleasure to work these out plus it incorporates mathematics and physics (application dependent) which is the most interesting part IMO.

However what I'd really like to do is to do project management, while this is not technically programming it is an interesting and challenging job.

[StuMac]

I started out from high school wanting to be an electrical engineer. Now I just made the jump to computer science. I love writing code way to much.

To be honest, I don't really have a set goal for where I want to end up. I figure as long as I'm innovating, working with a good team, and helping people with their lives, I'm sure I'll enjoy the job.

[dag0620]

Well I am either going to be a programmer, or a pilot, or Aeronautical engineering sounds cool.

[EricVanWyk]

As a side note, it is easier to innovate with automobiles than it is with airplanes. More types of cars are released than types of airplanes, and the regulations around things that fly are oppressive/stifling. To overgeneralize, plane manufacturers are thinking "Safety, Safety, Safety", and automobile manufacturers are thinking "Safety, out-cool the competition, Safety".

I want to be a professor.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by EricVanWyk

As a side note, it is easier to innovate with automobiles than it is with airplanes. More types of cars are released than types of airplanes, and the regulations around things that fly are oppressive/stifling.

This is true but it's been slowly changing. Auto software development is slowly coming under increasing scrutiny and micromanagement. Toyota's latest problems will provide an extra push in this direction.

Also, it is easier to innovate with automobiles in Europe than it is in the US, due to Europe's more reasonable tort laws.

Those of you who want a taste of what Eric is talking about (oppressive/stifling regulations for aircraft), try Googling

DO-178B site:faa.gov


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[TPNigl]

I actually want to go into chemical engineering, but I would love to incorporate programming into it as well, because it's grown on me over the years

[daltore]

I plan to basically keep making robots. My big hope is that I can work on developing artificial intelligence, while still building hardware as well. I think medical applications would be a nice way to contribute (think the Luke arm), but I can't help but think that bio-form robots would be cool.

[CMSD]

Either a computer or software engineer

[Alex.Norton]

Well, thats there is a hard question to answer. I recently got a job working on fossology.org, a website dealing with the legal problems associated with free and open source software. However, I also just finished my favorite professor in rewriting his research (an vision recognition system). Both of these projects have been incredibly interesting but they reside in very different parts of computer science.

If you put a gun to my head and told me to choose I would probably have to go with systems at this point. I love working with low level application and operating system programming. However, I start my senior level classes this summer and I plan on getting a masters after those, so I have plenty of time to dable before a decision needs to be made.

There is something that I would like to say for all those thinking of getting into the gaming industry:

Don't make your hobby your career.

And I say this because there are so many interesting places to take the field of programming that you don't need to make your entire life revolve around video games. In addition there are soooooooooooooo many students in computer science students who will tell you that they want to work on video games that its becoming a sad stereo type.

EDIT: missed a word