The Future!

Hello there!

It’s been a very long time since my last post when I was telling people to say no. Did you read it? “NO” Oh… you can say yes this time!

Okay, recently I’ve been thinking about my future – well I’m always thinking about my future, but this time it was serious. I’m currently waiting on 3/5 Universities to reply to my offer to study History. I’ve had 2 offers from the University of Warwick and the University of Birmingham but I’ve been reconsidering my choice.

Last summer I began teaching myself computer programming, using Java in a program called ‘Processing’. I got the ‘bug’ straight away once I saw the potential for ideas I had. I began working on a 2D Zombie game for PC (like Boxhead) but when Christmas hit I stopped because my school work was mounting. This year I have made a 6 Nations application (that’s all I’m revealing) which I am still working on fixing bugs and trying to implement more features.

So I began to think about my University choice. Should I be doing History or Computer Science/Software Engineering? I’ve been researching and for a start some C.S courses want Science/Maths related A Levels, well I have none so that was a no-no. Then I thought about what future I could look forward to if I did do C.S over History.

Now the pay for programmers is pretty good, it’s over the national average and would get me by. But programming jobs are being ‘shipped’ abroad – and this was a major put-off for me. What if there just weren’t any jobs available when I start applying for them?

And apparently the working conditions and status isn’t a positive one for programmers. They are at the bottom of the hierarchy and don’t get treated in the sam way as the managers and directors in a company. With a History degree, I’m going to be more likely to get a directorial position with a higher salary.

So I’ve made my decision. I’m going to go ahead with my History course, it’s a broad subject in which I will learn lots of skills that I can carry on into the workplace. However I’m not going to stop programming, oh no, indeed I am going to join a computer society at University. I’m going to meet new people that are interested in computers and programming, and I will develop skills ‘on the side’ to my History degree. Because I have ideas, ideas that I hope to pursue and create on the screen.

Ideas that could change networking (no more info 😛 ) for the better.

Yours