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10 Programmer Stereotypes That Are Just Plain Wrong - Savvy Programmer

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Do you know who a programmer is or what they do? Many people like myself like the idea of computer programming and working on the internet. These fantasies about working as a programmer began to diminish as I dug more into the career.

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Generally, people think that programmers are antisocial nerds or gamers that like to live in isolation. When envisioning what a programmer looks like, they typically think of a man wearing a hoodie, sweatpants, or other more casual clothes. Typically, programmers are seen as very intelligent, especially about computers and technology.

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Original Reasoning for Career and Response to Preconceptions

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Original Reasoning for Career and Response to Preconceptions

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I feel like society’s perception of programmers may have a reason for why I wanted to go into this field. Of course, a lot of it was my general love and passion for technology and coding, but I feel like wanting to be seen as smart and being a part of a career with other ‘antisocial’ and ‘shy’ people seemed appealing. I’m very antisocial and like to play video games, so being at a job all day with people that have the same interests sounds nice. I do disagree with some of the common perceptions though. One thing that everyone seems to think is that you must know everything about a computer to be a programmer. Thankfully, especially with how little I know about hardware and various other parts of computers, one only really needs to know the programming languages used in coding. Also, I feel like the idea that being a programmer makes you smart isn’t fully true. Programming requires a lot of practice to learn syntax and problem solving, not just an innate skill for it or endless studying in school. To become a programmer just means developing a skill through practice, making it available to anyone who tries hard enough in my eyes.

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Using libguides, I found out that the main library has several recent books about programming languages, software development, and other computer science topics available. They are available through physical copies and through ebooks and are able to be searched for by topic on the library’s website.

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From “Candid Career” I learned that the job can really vary depending on where you work. Some jobs are focused on building whole new programs, web pages, and other software, while some are more smaller jobs where you fix other people’s code and fix bugs that are submitted over time.

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From “What Can I Do With This Major?” I learned just how many different companies and businesses need programmers. With technology growing and being used in every career, most jobs need a computer scientist or programmer to run websites. This includes jobs from tech companies, to retail, to even the government.

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Using the MSU library's website’s other resources, I also learned more about the different positions as a game developer. There are, of course, the game programmers, but there are also people like the game designer, artist, and producer. Also, amongst the programmers themselves, there are also several subsections and teams. These people will work on different parts of the game that will then, at the end, all come together.

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Interview - Overview of Interview and Job

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Interview - Overview of Interview and Job

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I interviewed my friend’s dad for this assignment, who works in product development for a programming company. His day would consist of first reporting what his team got done the previous day and then moving on to start working on their project with the other members of his team. Each team works on a different project, each of which are requested by customers who called in and asked for something to be made. Most of his days would consist of coding and talking with his teammates. He would work at home, using Slack or Microsoft Teams to contact people and collaborate on portions of the code. He said it was a very stress-free job when he just got to be able to program. He liked being able to get into the zone and complete whole sections of code at a time. He said that he really disliked and felt stressed when he was interrupted from doing this, though. If a coworker needed help, he’d lose his place and get out of the zone, making it hard to make a full project. So, busy days where you have to work as a team would result in a very stressful work environment in his opinion.

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As one of the portions of the discussion, AI was brought up. To my surprise, he actually said that he’s not really concerned with AI taking over the job landscape any time soon. He said that they currently use AI for small fixes and changes within code, like suggesting how to make a line or complete a small task. He said that it works well and contributes a lot for those small tasks, but if you try to use it for anything big, it tends to fail. AI tends to just pull from everywhere on the internet, which makes it difficult to use it for these specific large tasks that you need to complete. One fascinating thing that he mentioned for why AI won’t take over jobs is that AI can create a line of code, but only a human can debug that AI code to make it work. AI may create a good starting point, but, to get it to work, a human needs to understand the programming language to be able to fix the errors that the AI makes.

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Finding out how a programming company actually functions is very beneficial. Just knowing that I will be able to possibly work from home and code for long stretches sounds very enjoyable to me. Problem solving is a key component of programming according to him. Being able to problem solve is necessary in fixing bugs and problems in the code. He described it as a sort of puzzle to be completed, which sounds like a good way to put it. Another thing that he enjoyed was the ability to make a product that you can see being used. He would work on websites and databases and other huge projects that would help other people. Knowing that his job has an actual effect on others and being able to visit those websites when it was done was really satisfying to him and made him feel proud of himself. I like to help others and improve their lives, so I really think that this kind of career would be really fulfilling to me. Another thing that I’m glad he talked about was AI. I was starting to get worried about going into this career because of the introduction of AI into society. I was worried that I was going to put a bunch of effort into getting this job, just to be replaced by automation with AI. Knowing that the job actually seems stable in terms of a future with AI, is very promising and makes me even more confident that I want to get into this career.

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This project reminds me of curiosity due to our exploration more in depth into what we don’t know. The majority of this project has been researching further into one’s career or major choice. We need to be curious and look into what we want to be later on in life. We have to be curious to see if this is truly the job we want to get into or not. Curiosity means trying new things and seeing what it’s like. Curiosity leads to discovery and finding out what we think about different things. This project provokes our curiosity and gets us to learn more about our future and what we will be doing.

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AI is actually very important in my career. Currently, it’s used for several areas from helping to guide lines of code, to generating output for several programs, to being the focal point of the program itself. Through my interview, I learned that people actually believe AI is more of a problem in this field than it actually is. Apparently AI isn’t good at making huge programs, so it's unlikely to take jobs in this field anytime soon. While AI can be used to make small snippets of code, humans are the only ones that can reason how the code will fit in the bigger picture. AI may become a problem and take jobs at some point, but it would most likely be far into the future.

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I believe that “Metal Crusher” from Undertale would be a good walk on song for this career. It’s a chiptune song that’s very robotic, which I think represents the computers and technology required for this career.

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I want to be a programmer, and this project helped reinforce that. I’ve always had an interest in programming and have gotten practice with it through different school clubs. I value doing something that I’m passionate about, not something that is just busy work or only for money. I want to be a programmer and I find the problem solving aspect of it really enjoyable. From the interview, I found out what a day in the life of a programmer is like. Being a programmer seems really relaxed and fulfilling. I want to be able to create something that helps other people, which is exactly what a programmer does. This career would give me fulfillment while also allowing me to do something that I’m passionate about, which makes it the best job for me.