As a computer scientist, the one thing you should understand early on as the best way to build up your resume without experience is self learning. I say that to mean learn as many computer languages and coding techniques as you can and learn them well on your own. How do you do this?

1. Build up a personal library

• Begin to buy books on different languages and then start doing the examples and challenges in the book during your free time.
• Buy books on languages you don’t know and might be interested in and then read them seriously.
• If you’re into software development, buy a book on databases or web development. That will give you insight into how similar computer languages are and it could possibly spark an interest into something new.

2. Start a collection of video tutorials

• Video tutorials are a great tool for learning new computer languages. They allow you to follow along with a teacher, almost like in a class, and see how the languages is practically used
• Just like with the book start buying video tutorials on different computer languages. Lynda.com is a great source for video tutorials
• If you don’t have the money for that search the web for video tutorials and webinar (web seminar) like on youtube.

3. Begin researching different computer languages on-line

• There are plenty of useful references on almost any computer language you can think of on-line, all you have to do is Google them.
• Many colleges offer open courseware site such as MIT which allow you take their course for free at your own pace. Here is a link to their courses: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/index.htm#grad

If you take advantage of these tool and references you can learn a lot in a short period of time. The key is thought; once you acquire these things you need to dedicate time to learning the material. Weather it is a hour per day or 5 hours per week you will be amaze at how much you can learn in a short period of time and how much “meat” you can add to your resume. If there are any computer languages you are interested in learning but having a hard time find information feel free to e-mail me at me_conwell@compscistff.com.