Your Graduating College Now What?

In the 1967 film "The Graduation" the best advice given to those graduating college back then was..



Anyone taking that advice probably did quite well. Now however some 48 years later the best advice for graduates is to take up "coding" after graduation.

According to 'Bloomberg' if You Want a Job, Go to Code School . "Six months after finishing, 59 percent report a salary increase, averaging $23,000 annually, according to SwitchUp, another rating site."

This makes sense to me. It's all fine an dandy to know all about accounting, engineering and so forth, but developing apps based on what a student learned seems like a plus. The days of writing down stuff on pen and paper have long since passed. Today's companies utilize software... expensive software!


I'm certain employers will be far more interested in hiring someone who can develop software to fulfill their specific needs. Oft the case there may not be software available for their unique products. Take for example an engineering student hired to work on a new kind of robotic manufacturing piece of equipment. It will need to be driven by a set of instructions specific to it's own mechanical configurations and limitations. Therefore it's not only important that a employee be able to mechanically design a piece of equipment, but have the ability to understand what a set of instructions can and cannot do in order to make it work.

Overall it's important for a company to develop unique algorithms (software apps) enabling them to have the edge over competitors. The days of companies shopping for already marketed software are over for four reasons. Number one is, it's expensive. Number two proprietary applications are unavailable on the open market giving them a distinct advantage. The third is they hold the patents. Thus cannot be held hostage or become involved in a bidding war when their purchased software contracts expire. The number five is a matter of security.

The world has really changed. No longer can cars, planes, trains, refrigerators, washers/dryers or just about everything we manufacture function without coded embedded electronic boards. The same goes in practically every other business as well. From flash trading on wall street, banking, retail, marketing/sales to anything else you can think of.

So by all means I think the advice given in this 'Bloomberg' article is just as meaningful as was the advice given to young graduates nearly five decades ago. Back when the future was in plastics.

Further ReadingWhy Coding Is Your Child’s Key to Unlocking the Future
Web application designers not 'asked' to code, it's being demanded of them
Designers And Developers: No Longer A House Divided
Why Kids Should Learn to Code
12 Weeks To A 6-Figure Job (Coder Boot Camps)