In East
Africa most of the colleges and Universities prefers to take students for internship
in some companies as part of their knowledge enhancement and developing
experience in the industry to me there is nothing wrong with that. The
questions that pop up in minds is that do really this field works help them
effectively and practically in real life scenarios.
When I was
in my first year college I did my first project entitled “Generating day of a
week from date using Gregorian calendars” it was like a simple game of coding
involving mathematical operations and logical reasoning. From this project is where
I developed the interest in programming languages at this time is where I learn
C-language in details, it was the time I heard about switch case statements,
looping statements and some additional header files like math.h and others. Doing
a project effectively is the only way a student can master the subject and not
the other way around since when the logic stucks someone has to reason again
and again and finding alternatives to solve the problems until he overcome the
situation.
Most of the
students in Tanzania hate programming since they don’t want to dedicate their
time in developing real time applications even simple applications for example “java
login system”. Behavior of developing small applications will give you passion
on coding and prepares you to work in real word. I remember telling my teacher I
want to develop software with user-friendly interface because I use to hate the
black screen output of the c-language. She told me take your time and practice
Visual Basic and Java. I learned visual basic and Java but still I couldn’t be
able to develop applications then she told me to go online and search for
project and see what others are doing. I searched and come up with the solution
that I need to understand the IDE’s from there I practiced Visual Studio
interface by watching Youtube tutorials and practicing developing small
applications using the Visual Studio interface at the same time I worked with
Netbeans and Eclipse to develop small time Java applications like ‘login
systems’ and others. After doing several projects I was the master in the field
knowing to debug each and every error popping up, I became creative and start
to develop database applications. I was able to link from end and back end of
several IDE’s to several databases. I was able to link visual studio to Sun-microsystems
oracle, SQL server, MySQL and other databases and do the same thing with
Netbeans linking to Derby, JDB, Oracle and MySQL.
My advice to you today, start
practicing developing projects by yourself at home, start developing small time
applications as soon as you master those applications give yourself a title and
go for the bigger one using a language of your choice, your own IDE and
database of your own. You can look for example online and use YouTube to troubleshoot
your problems whenever you stuck.
Finally you have to realize working
practically yourself is the only way to master and develop your skills but
remember if the chance come and you have to do a field research don’t hesitate
to do.
Try To do
this task:
Develop system called “Crime management System” using VB.net as the
interfacing language connects to MS-Access database the application should be
able to:
-
Display
prisoner’s details like name, age, cell number, reason of arrest, case number
and so on.
-
Display
Officer’s Details
-
Advanced
login system using small database or conditional statements
-
Alarm
system
-
Writing
Pad
-
Software
Map
-
Update
link
-
Help
-
And
build executable file with extension .exe so that the system can be distributed
to your friends.
Note: You
can do the same thing using Java and Netbeans as your IDE and connect to any
database you want in case you stuck you can consult me directly through my
email or phone number.
By Jumanne Mtambalike