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General Discussion

Posted by mrrobot
mrrobot
1,773 Points

Halfway through my BSc in Information Systems - what language should i focus on?

/disclaimer/ Perhaps this is the wrong community to ask these questions, therefore I apologize in advance. Given how many well educated people that are on here I figured it might be a good place to find an answer. I've tried other places (reddit & swedish equivalent for example) but I have gotten absolute 0 responses to my questions. /disclaimer/

I've read some JAVA & SQL the previous semester and going to start with ASP.NET & C# the upcoming semester. I have 1.5 years until graduation and would like to spend the upcoming year focusing on programming, but I don't know what language to choose.

My dream isn't exactly to be working with coding all day every day, but I do enjoy programming a fair bit and I have some talent & experience in graphic design (I was choosing between BSc in Info. Sys. or Graphic Design when applying for uni, happy with my choice though since design is something I like to just keep as a qualified hobby).

I recently tackled JavaScript on my own on codecademy (completed) & just started the front end development tree here on TTH. But all these different routes makes me confused, I feel like I need input from someone who knows the career routes better.

Should I focus on just learning JAVA, SQL and C# as good as i possibly can or should I try to become a decent html, css & js developer in my spare time while simultaneously reading C# in school? (Don't really like the microsoft platforms & bootcamping for C# and MSSQL if i can be honest, but it's required for my education).

It's a very difficult question for me, so I would just like some input and thoughts on why you might think route X is the better route to go.

2 Answers

r h
r h
68,552 Points
r h
r h
68,552 Points

Learn C, it's the lingua franca of most object-oriented languages.

christopher walsh
christopher walsh
7,272 Points
christopher walsh
christopher walsh
7,272 Points

what do you want to do as a job?

do you want to code websites, make apps, work with backend or work for networks and IT? Look for job postings of the jobs you will expect to apply for, they will list what languages they want you to know.

james white
james white
78,399 Points

I agree with Christopher --we really can't advise you unless you have an answer to:

"what do you want to do as a job?"

But here's how I would generally break it down (for Web Developers):

1.) Front End developer - heavily concentrated in html, css & js

2.) Back End developer - a whole variety of programming languages from Java, C#, Python, Ruby on Rails, etc.

3.) Full stack developer - being equally fluent in both

Of course being a Senior level Full Stack developer pays more than "just" a back end developer.

The thing with being a front end developer is that more and more companies are using CMS-es (Like Joomla, WordPress and Drupal), so knowing a little back end programming would seem like the best long term strategy.

mrrobot
mrrobot
1,773 Points

I don't mind coding for a couple of years, and I do enjoy front-end development. I can definitely see myself working with mobile apps/the view bit in JAVA/C# apps (MVC) /web development rather than working back-end writing heavy SQL queries and backbone server-side code which i find pretty dull. But I am not completely opposed to the idea of knowing both front and back end to be able to choose more freely.

With that said I am not sure if my self-taught skills will be theoretical/good enough to work AS a web designer but I would definitely like to keep that graphic element in to some extent. It's also a bit confusing since we read a mix of everything in my BSc (bit of psychology, economics, law, coding, project management & a lot of stuff centered around ERP systems.). Given the broad spectra of courses I have a fear to go too far away from my degree by focusing on front-end and thus ending up knowing neither front-end nor back-end well enough to be able to make a living off of it.

Also, a dream I've had since I was a child is to work for a bigger company and be able to travel to different countries & cities with the job. This is just a little side note that may or may not affect things.

Pretty vague I know. It's hard when I don't know exactly how all the languages are linked, but I feel front-end coding is a lot more appealing to me than back-end.

Thanks a lot all of you for taking time to help.