What was your degree and is it relevant to your job?

Building Management, which is building and work in architecture so pretty relevant.

More to do with how things are built rather than how things are designed so probably more relevant to what I do.
 
Matt said:
Agree - I think I got lucky in that I was getting involved in software development before it became as mainstream, so was able to just get involved, get a job, and progress from there

These days it is very competitive so you often need a degree to help you get through the initial CV analysis
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The reason I did the mathematics part was because of my career adviser at school. They advised me that it was a fallback option. In case the relatively new Computer Science degree was not useful.

Just about the only bit of maths I use actively now is Pythagoras' theorem. To determine which ball is closer to the hole on a putting green.
 
sadgit said:
I got a "pass" in Software Engineering. I hated college and University. Went to Longlands and Teesside. I've not sat an exam ever since. IT Manager now but used to be a COBAL Programmer, back in the day, for a short time till I realised I hated programming :D
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Seals through hoops, sadgit.

Only a cobol programmer would get that one.
 
spanishman said:
The reason I did the mathematics part was because of my career adviser at school. They advised me that it was a fallback option. In case the relatively new Computer Science degree was not useful.

Just about the only bit of maths I use actively now is Pythagoras' theorem. To determine which ball is closer to the hole on a putting green.
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You do a fair bot of maths in computer science. I remember thinking I would never use calculus ever again. Then I worked at ICI and used it daily, what a rush :D .

Your careers adviser need sacking, btw.
 
Never actually finished mine. I went thinking it would help me get a job in that field, on my work placement year, got a job and decided to stick with it. I was one of the last to get a grant for Uni so leaving didn't cost me anything financially. The highlight of going was that I met my future wife.
 
Laughing said:
Seals through hoops, sadgit.

Only a cobol programmer would get that one.
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I didn't get it. I was a Pascal man myself.

The last line of code I wrote in a professional capacity was in 1987.

I then went on to running projects and programmes on networks that delivered financial information and news in real time around the world.

Plus I did a couple of years managing a 30+ team of software developers. I really did not enjoy that job. Apart from the network design intro training courses I chose to run for new joiners. They were fun.
 
spanishman said:
I didn't get it. I was a Pascal man myself.

The last line of code I wrote in a professional capacity was in 1987.

I then went on to running projects and programmes on networks that delivered financial information and news in real time around the world.

Plus I did a couple of years managing a 30+ team of software developers. I really did not enjoy that job. Apart from the network design intro training courses I chose to run for new joiners. They were fun.
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I didn't get it either, and I was a COBOL programmer once, albeit not a very good one - hated it, too much like hard work. Am much better at browsing internet forums.
 
Law, and whilst I've never worked in that sector, it got me on the ladder so to speak.

Knew quite early into the degree that I didn't fancy it as a living, probably should have swapped out in hindsight.
 
Can't actually remember the name of it (they changed it half way through) but effectively IT and Sociology, looking at the impact technology can have one society and vice versa.

I'm now a Management Consultant and a lot of what I do is looking at the human effects of technology, and so although I use nothing I learnt, it did provide a solid foundation for what I do now.
 
Everyone is involved in computers, what happened to shipbuilders, steel making and other iron fighting trades that the North East was built on? ;)

I left school in the summer of 1978 and started my apprenticeship in the September at Smith's Dock. Although I took my exams at school, I never went back to collect my exam results, I just wasn't interested. We completed four years at Longlands College and I passed all my City and Guilds with credits. I stayed at the Dock until it closed and then travelled with work to all major sites in the UK and a few abroad.

During my contracting days, I missed so much of my eldest son growing up that I decided to take a low paid job at Caterpillar so I could be at home when my youngest was born. During this time I had an accident at work and had to have two operations on my lower spine. I had been off work for two years recuperating and was advised not to return to welding and had to seek employment in another field.

You can imagine this shook me to the bone and I didn't know where to start looking or thinking what I could do. Previously, I had never been out of work longer than a few months when the Dock first closed and was taking badly to not working and being stuck inside all day. Looking back, I would say depression had started to set in.

In the Gazette, I saw an advert for a Youth Work course and went and enrolled in this. It was more to get me out and meet people again. I completed the course and was working a few hours for R & C council and decided I wanted something to back up the Youth Work. Redcar and Cleveland College had just delivered a flyer and was advertising an Introduction to Counselling Course. I again enrolled in this and excelled at it, with the course tutor pushing me to go on and on each year and finally pushing me to go to university where I completed my degree in Counselling.

Whilst at R & C College, I needed 40 hours counselling others to complete my course and volunteered for the Connexions Mentoring Service. I soon gained a good reputation with these and when they started the Kick Start Programme, I was offered a job with them and was still allowed to attend Uni and finally completing my degree in counselling. I progressed through Connexions Service, becoming an advisor working with young offenders and returned back to Uni completing a second degree.

I soon found out I didn't like the counselling side of the work and was more suited to working with young people and their families. I was going into schools in the East Clevland area to support the students I worked with and improved the attendance of the majority of students on my caseload.

It was during this time I was approached by a Head Teacher and asked if I would come in and speak to him about them setting up a Behavioural Unit in the school. One thing led to another and I spent 13 years heading up the unit until I took early retirement.



Edit: I meant to add, that if you told me in 1978 I would work in a school, I would have told you to go and get your bumps felt and I feel most of my teachers would have said the same.
 
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afcb_acklam said:
I didn't get it either, and I was a COBOL programmer once, albeit not a very good one - hated it, too much like hard work. Am much better at browsing internet forums.
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I don't get it either. I spent a year converting code from an IBM system 36 to a VAX/Cobal. Jesus that was dull as hell. I wished I had done Animal Management or something similar, it just wasn't the thing back in the 80s

Everyone I knew at the time went and did a YTS with either British Steel or ICI, I was the only one who ended up as a student for 10 years. 30k later I graduated. Utter baollocks.
 
Started life as Mechanic (city and guilds), went into mechanical fitting heavy engineering contracting, then mechanical maintenance, then added electrical 16th edition and Part P also Electrical Testing 2391. Worked for myself for a little while.
Became group engineering and maintenance manager for North East ,Yorkshire, Humberside, North West, Merseyside, Eire, Northern Ireland. I've been doing this for coming up 14 years, just returned back to work 3 weeks ago, and just missed redundancy last week.
 
afcb_acklam said:
I didn't get it either, and I was a COBOL programmer once, albeit not a very good one - hated it, too much like hard work. Am much better at browsing internet forums.
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It's a cobol directive to run the dataset seals through the function hoops. COBOL programmers would often name their datasets and functions so that a through b had some meaning above the compiler directive.

I never said it was a good joke.

My favourite geek joke is:

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, thoughs that understand binary and those that don't
 
mercury_redstone7 said:
Started life as Mechanic (city and guilds), went into mechanical fitting heavy engineering contracting, then mechanical maintenance, then added electrical 16th edition and Part P also Electrical Testing 2391. Worked for myself for a little while.
Became group engineering and maintenance manager for North East ,Yorkshire, Humberside, North West, Merseyside, Eire, Northern Ireland. I've been doing this for coming up 14 years, just returned back to work 3 weeks ago, and just missed redundancy last week.
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A car mechanic was all I ever wanted to be. Not much of it around when I left school in 1981.
 
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