Whats its like being a student and part time programmer

What I am studying

So yeah I am a student at Saxion in the Netherlands doing the bachelor Applied Computer Science.

More information about the program can be found here: https://www.saxion.nl/opleidingen/en/fulltime/bachelor/hbo-ict.

The program takes 4 years if you get all 240 credits in those years. And the total cost for the tuition is about 8.400 euros.

Why I am also a part time programmer

During my studies I noticed that the content of the study was not that changeling for me and after thinking about how I was going to pay for my studies, the move to go search for a job was an easy one. The funny part of being a IT student is that the jobs actually come to you and this is exactly what happened to me with my current job. The CEO of this company reached out to me via LinkedIn which is one of the channels I am active on. During the next 2 months we met up twice and after signing a contract I was a real programmer!

So okay, I have a job but what do you actually do as a programmer So yeah I had some programming job experience during summer jobs and at internships, but not actually being a real programmer. So what does a normal day look like:

09:00 Day Start

09:15 Coffee / Read Issues on Gitlab

09:30 Discuss with other programmers what I am going to do.

09:45 Start writing code.

12:00 Lunch

13:00 Continue working on code.

16:00 Read reddit/twitter.

16:30 Write up what I have done / what I am planning to do.

17:00 Go home / stop working.

Tech stack

Currently I am mostly writing PHP, it is a language that I have come to love over the years and it has never failed me. Frontends of course are build using HTML and CSS and JS but can come in multiple flavours. I have written frontends entirely server rendered and entirely frontend rendered. I prefer a mix to be honest which is a hard balance to have. I write my PHP using the Laravel framework. It is an easy to use framework that lets you focus on building your application instead of focusing on how you’re going to write your code.

Would I advise other students to do what I am doing?

Yes. But only if your grades are not being challenged by it. And that’s not easy to do. Finding the balance between giving your employer the hours it wants versus the time you need for studying is something that you and your employer will have to find together.