The question that comes up in Unit 4, every year, in some form: is this worth doing if I am not going to be a programmer? The useful answer is that “programmer” is one job in a field with dozens, that most of them involve talking to people at least as much as typing, and that the thing you just did — find somebody’s problem, build something modest, hand it over — is what the work actually looks like.
There is more than one door
| Pathway | What it looks like | Fits you if |
|---|---|---|
| University | three to five years, degrees in computer science, software engineering, or a mix of computing and another subject | you like the theory as much as the building, and want research or specialised work open to you |
| College | two to three years, diplomas and advanced diplomas in programming, networking, IT support, game development, data | you want to be working with the tools quickly, with lots of hands-on hours |
| Certification alongside work | industry certifications in networking, cloud platforms, security, often started while employed | you are already working somewhere with computers and want to move sideways into the technical side |
| Self-taught, portfolio-first | learning from documentation and projects, evidence in the form of things you built | you finish things without being asked; the portfolio does the talking, and it has to be real |
None of these is the serious one. They differ in cost, length, and how soon you are hands-on, and people move between them their whole careers — a college diploma that becomes a degree later, a self-taught developer who takes a certification because a job needs it. Ask what a particular path opens and what it costs, not which is best.
Some computing work also sits close to the trades: network cabling, hardware service, industrial control and automation. Those roles reach you through college programs, employer training, and apprenticeship-style placements rather than a computer science degree, and they are real technical careers.
How to research it properly
Anybody can tell you the field is growing. Do better than that, because it is easy to check:
- Read current job postings for a role that interests you — not the salary line, the requirements line. It tells you what employers are actually asking for this year.
- Compare three postsecondary programs on the things that differ: entrance requirements, length, cost, whether there is a co-op term, what graduates say they do now.
- Use Statistics Canada and provincial labour market information for trends rather than a headline, and notice whether a number describes Ontario, Canada, or somewhere else entirely.
- Look outside the obvious employers. Hospitals, farms, insurance companies, museums, city governments, and film studios all employ people who write software.
- Ask somebody doing the job. One twenty-minute conversation beats a week of reading, and most people say yes when a student asks.
Report what you find in whatever form communicates best — a short presentation, a page, a video. Being able to explain a technical pathway to somebody else is itself part of the course.
Experience before a credential
Every path above is easier with evidence attached, and evidence is available to you now:
- A co-op placement or a job-shadowing day puts you inside the work for long enough to learn whether you like it.
- Career fairs and open houses are worth attending with three prepared questions rather than a bag for the free pens.
- Volunteer building — the thing you did in The Community App — is genuine experience. A program a local organisation actually uses, with a person who will vouch for it, is a stronger portfolio piece than a tutorial project.
- Keep the artefacts as you go. Your Code Journal and Final Reflection are the raw material of a portfolio, and they are much harder to reconstruct a year later.
If a path feels closed to people like you, look for the groups that exist for exactly that reason — mentoring programs, student chapters, and networks for women and other under-represented people in computing, along with the professional and industry associations attached to particular kinds of work. They exist in Ontario, they are usually free to students, and their whole purpose is to make the first door easier to open.
The skills nobody lists first
The Ontario Skills Passport describes the Essential Skills and work habits that employers actually name, and the computing versions are not surprising once you have finished a project for somebody else: reading technical text, writing clearly, numeracy, thinking and problem solving, working with others, and continuous learning — alongside work habits like reliability, organisation, initiative, and customer service. Read that list again next to your project. The hardest parts of the term were the specification, the client conversation, and the handover, which is exactly what that list predicts.
Nothing on it is fixed at birth, and all of it is visible in how you work this semester. That is the honest reason How Marks Work rewards a finished, usable, documented program over a clever one nobody asked for.
Curriculum connection
D3.1
research and describe career choices and trends in computer science, at the local, national, and international levels;
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D3.2
identify and report on opportunities for experiential learning (e.g., co-op programs, job shadowing, career fairs) in the field of computer science;
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D3.3
research and report on postsecondary educational programs leading to careers in information systems and computer science (e.g., institutions offering relevant programs, industry certifications, courses of study, entrance requirements, length of programs, costs);
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D3.4
identify groups and programs that are available to support students who are interested in pursuing non-traditional career choices related to information systems and computer science (e.g., mentoring programs, virtual networking/support groups, specialized postsecondary programs, relevant trade/industry associations);
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D3.5
describe the Essential Skills and work habits that are important for success in computer studies, as identified in the Ontario Skills Passport.
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