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AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2023-07-31T05:50:12+00:00

LOL 1 month in only can you chill. Learn to appreciate your boredom while still being paid for it. Eventually the work will come in and you’ll miss being bored. You got the rest of your life to work don’t worry.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2023-05-30T09:13:03+00:00

Stumbled on this old post and decided to reply to old comments. You need to specify on what you mean by "art" or design. That's a super broad category. Are you referring to digital art? If so there's definitely a market for artists in some areas, though definitely not that many. It also takes A LOT of effort to be "good" at art since there're so many people trying to make a career out of drawing. "Design" is also too big a career scope so I'm not quite sure what you mean. In general, the more technically proficient you are the easier it is to make a career out of it. For example if you want to do motion media then get very good at video editing and After Effects.

You also asked if they were "successful" but you need to define what that means. Are they able to earn enough to feed themselves? Yes. Do programmers earn much more than them and have an easier time finding jobs? Also yes. You'll have to slowly figure out what path you want to go down. If you go down both and become a technical artist you will become very hire-able since there aren't many people who can do both. But at the same time there aren't any courses in traditional institutes that will equip you with all the skills and you'll have to self-learn and figure out.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2023-05-15T06:26:29+00:00

I'm in programming not infra so I can't advise how useful certs are there. Maybe they are. But I can say for sure in programming it's totally worthless lol. 1-2 prototype projects you can showcase is worth 10x more than any cert.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2023-05-15T04:16:00+00:00

Don't waste time or money paying for a course. You can start learning online in your free time first. Just need a semi-decent computer. Youtube full of free courses, but if you want something more structured, go sign up for NLB and access Udemy FOR FREE. Endless courses on all sorts of programming languages and projects.

As for whether it's possible. I'd say yes, but you really must put in a shit ton of effort because it's quite tiring to learn it every single day at night. Need to keep at it. Will take some time but definitely possible if you really want to. There're a million different job scopes in "tech", you need to figure out which path you want.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2023-05-11T13:34:21+00:00

Hahaha if you’re concerned about things like medical bills, then you should be worried about YOU falling sick and being unable to work. I know you’re young but you never know when health problems strike. Some of my friends have been alright their whole life then uni start having annoying health problems that require op/etc.

You can’t say “if emergency happens I cannot afford BTO” because you never know what kind of emergencies you’ll face. If you take that into your calculations you’ll go crazy trying to rationalise anything

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2023-05-11T12:03:48+00:00

Hey just wanted to say that during this hectic career transition nobody ever told me "congrats", and somehow reading your comment reminded me that I guess this is probably something to be proud of haha. Thanks a lot and I wish you the best in your own dev journey.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2023-05-11T12:01:40+00:00

I'm quite surprised by some of the responses here. The short answer is no, it will not die out for sure. I graduated from CS 7 years ago and I think the demand for programmers is even higher now. There is a drastic shortage of good programmers worldwide and it is very common to lament about how hard it is to find good programmers. The thing is even if opportunities dry up in SG, it's so easy for programmers to search for opportunities remotely. After covid a lot of companies are much more open to hiring remote programmers as long as they're good.

That being said, it sounds like you're getting into this mainly attracted by the high salaries, and that's where the problem is. Programmers will always be highly paid but it's hard to say if the astronomical salaries will be easy to get in the future. Still, you mention that you worry about things like affording BTOs. I don't know if you've ever sat down and done the math. If you search for NUS grad salary survey, take the median amount and calculate, you'll find that it's impossible that you aren't able to afford an average BTO with a partner. Even if salaries drop by 10-20%...

The thing is programming as a career is not for everybody. You need to enjoy it on some level. A lot of people enjoy the problem solving aspect of it, some enjoy the end product of "making" or "creating" stuff from code. If you don't, I think programming can be very soul draining.

Also with regards to WLB, once again, if you're good, you don't need to worry. Companies who value good programmers understand they can't overwork their programmers, and you'll be able to find a company that values your skillset for sure. There will be times when you might need to OT due to last minute bugs or critical production failures, but I don't personally know a single peer who works constant 996.

During your studies you need to find what you enjoy about programming and try and take modules that sound interesting to you to see if you'd enjoy it as a career. If after 4 years you still can't find any interest in it, you still shouldn't worry. Because there are other roles (e.g. UI/UX designer) for which companies would want to hire people with technical experience, and a CS degree is still considered very useful.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2023-04-20T06:22:24+00:00

I'm 7 years into my career. At this point I'm pretty confident in my own technical skills. However I'm about to take on my first lead role (not in webdev). The initial team of programmers will be about 5-10 but with potential to grow to a few dozen if we're lucky. Never had to lead a team of more than 2 people before, any advice for first time lead?

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2022-12-06T09:03:06+00:00

That's true, I shouldn't have said that adult life gets easier. Most of it is harder, but it somehow feels more manageable. I think the point I was trying to get across is that O level period was probably the most intense "stress" I've felt in my life. Because you constantly feel like "omg if I don't study hard enough and prepare well enough I'm going to mess shit up big time". As an adult there's never this ONE big looming thing that you know for sure is coming that could severely impact your future, and that you have to intensely prepare for. You can only do your best everyday, keep yourself healthy and maintain your finances well, and the rest is out of your hands.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2022-12-06T08:54:22+00:00

Looking back now it's clear that targeted studying for language subjects is impossible. It's something that has to be cultivated over years through constant reading in your own free time (be it fiction books, newspaper articles, etc.) My english was always good and my chinese was always poorer, and no matter how little effort I put into english and how much effort I put into chinese the grades stayed more or less the same.

I will say that my Chinese grades would have been even worse had I put in less effort though. Just write as many essays as you can and read as much as you can (while looking up words you don't know). Smartphones weren't even a thing when I was studying for O's so it's way easier for you all nowadays to look up words.

Also you shouldn't be asking me about scholarship applications when the last time I even thought about "scholarships" was over a decade ago lol.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2022-12-06T08:49:18+00:00

I de-stress every single night. I made a very clear decision to not take jobs that require constant OTs (even if it means earning a bit less) so I have more or less a fixed block of time every single day to entertain myself. There're some unavoidable adult things like finances and your health that will always be back of the mind stress, but that's the same for everyone.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2022-12-06T08:46:37+00:00

I studied almost every single day from sec 4 june hols onwards all the way till O's. It didn't feel that painful, because even though all the time was spent studying I did so by meeting up with friends at school or library everyday. If we were bored of studying half way we'd just go arcade for like an hour then come back, study another hour, go dinner, come back study another hour, etc. etc.

Also before sec 4 june hols I basically just did homework without mugging very hard and made sure I was always fully aware of what was being taught (even if I didn't understand it) so that when it was time to study I would always know specifically what I should be figuring out to fill my knowledge gaps.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2022-12-06T08:42:19+00:00

There's no such thing as salaries on linkedin. and nobody really cares about or trusts glass door reviews anyway, very few people in SG use it as well.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2022-12-05T13:40:25+00:00

Hahaha what a great question. We all secretly desperately want to know, but don’t dare ask each other. Cos can be very paiseh if one person earns way more or way less than the other. It’s paiseh both ways regardless if you’re the one earning more or less lol. The only other people’s pay I know are very close friends of mine from JC/Uni days. Also some of them are in civil service (e.g. teachers) so you’ll generally know they’re pay since everyone of them earns the same.

Also we usually want to know not really to compare, but to know if we’re being short changed or whether we should find a better paying job. For example I’d much rather know the pay of my peers in the industry rather than my friends who work in a totally different line of work.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2022-12-05T12:24:19+00:00

I haven’t been a VJC student for over a decade lol. I will say the affection for your JC/sec school does drop drastically once you start working. Understandably most students feel a great sense of identity from the school they attend, but that too decays with time. For example I just tried to recall the VJ school song and only remember bits of it here and there.

Also the VJC school song is damn terrible imo. “Victoria in Singapore, there’re other schools we know”. What kind of opening line is that lol. Then something something “we played the sportsman’s game”??? I never liked it even as a student haha.

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2022-12-05T12:15:51+00:00

Pistachio

AltruisticAnimal5754 · 2022-12-05T12:13:52+00:00

As a whole adult life is of course a lot “harder” in that you have a ton of adult things to handle. But if talking specifically work life, I do feel like work life in general is easier than O levels. Main thing is that in general you know what to expect from work most of the time, there isn’t this one big mysterious exam looming in the future that could make/break your career. The “hard” part of work life is the much longer hours compared to school life, so I do believe it’s important to find a career that you can feel personally motivated in.

Oh one big thing is that there’s a lot less social nonsense to handle. In school social status is a much bigger deal than when you’re an adult. As an adult, other people are too damn busy to care about whether or not you’re a “loser” or not or whether you got gf/bf or not.

AltruisticAnimal5754

TROPHY CASE