Hello, all! My son is applying to different colleges and is interested
in a possible career using the Ruby on Rails. Any suggestions as to
programs or colleges that would be a benefit? He would like to start
at the community college level and work his way up.
Thanks!
Most large academic institutions don’t
take ruby very seriously. The closest is perl.
Common ones would be java and perhaps .Net (shrugs).
get some basic understanding of programming,
a good book on ruby and google for rails tutorials.
The railsguides online and Ryan B.’ webcasts are great!
Hope this helps 
Gordon
On 24 March 2010 22:29, Gramma44 [email protected] wrote:
Hello, all! My son is applying to different colleges and is interested
in a possible career using the Ruby on Rails. Any suggestions as to
programs or colleges that would be a benefit? He would like to start
at the community college level and work his way up.
I think that to aim from the start at a career in Rails would not be a
good idea. He will increase his chances of a good job if he has a
broad education in computer science. Find a course that covers the
basic principles of computer science, software and web design and
works up. If you can find one that includes Ruby and Rails then that
is a bonus.
Colin
Absolutely. Ruby is just one language. It’s a great one, but that
can’t be the focus of your education. Most schools won’t teach Ruby,
but if he wants to work in it he has several options while he’s at
school:
- work on his own side projects – he should do this anyway, in many
languages, not just Ruby. - join or start a RUG (Ruby U. Group) at his school
- contribute to an open source Ruby project
Companies value personal experience as much, possibly more, than they
value the projects you do in school.
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:29 PM, Gramma44 [email protected]
wrote:
Hello, all! My son is applying to different colleges and is interested
in a possible career using the Ruby on Rails. Any suggestions as to
programs or colleges that would be a benefit? He would like to start
at the community college level and work his way up.
Thanks!
Gramma44, I received a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from
the
University
of Illinois and their goal is to teach theory and concepts first. Then
use
a language(s) to
enforce these concepts second. For example, the University of Illinois
currently uses Java
programming language to enforce these concepts in the introductory and
data-structures
courses. Also, my school would allow one to apply for independent study
section by submitting
a project proposal to a professor and if it’s accepted, then one would
have
choice of programming
language.
Next, this theory and concepts can be applied to any programming
language
and you’ll be able to
better market yourself when it comes time to look for a job.
Furthermore,
many companies will
most likely require a degree in Computer Science for a software
engineering
position. Also, this is
usually the first thing they look for when looking at a resume.
In short, my recommendation for your son would be to get a degree in
Computer Science and supplement
this with private course(s) and self study in Ruby and/or Rails. The
private courses are recognized as well by
potential employers especially when they have sent some of their own
employee(s) to the same course.
For example, a lot of companies that do Ruby and Rails development
recognize
Pragmatic Studio and
others that provide similar services.
Good luck,
-Conrad
–
I live in Chicago, IL - I am attending DePaul University as a grad
student. They have a Ruby on Rails certification program that does
give some academic credit if your son is pursuing a full blown degree.
It was designed as a free-standing program, so it would certainly
qualify as “community college plus” if you will.
DePaul is also very focused on preparing people for the job market -
at least in my experience. Ruby on Rails is still not perceived as
‘enterprise-y’ like for example, C# or Java in the minds of corporate
America, so DePaul doesn’t use Ruby as part of their formal degree
curricula (yet), but they are very flexible about applying courses
from one area to another. So, your son could take the certificate,
apply for full time student status, then petition the dean to waive a
programming language requirement - he would still have to take the
same credit hours, but would have more options, as he would have
knocked one out with Ruby.
Otherwise, why not have him learn RoR and just start a business? Send
him to 37signals.com to see the poster-children for that approach.
SR