Quote:Original post by M4573R
then I will put on there that I am a student.

Very creative.

Quote:Original post by way2lazy2care
I am also a student, and since you are one I wouldn't say being a generalist programmer is bad. As an entry level programmer or intern you probably won't be doing anything other than generalist work when you start anyway.

I think Darius Kazemi mentions some good business card stuff in one of his networking tutorials.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I see things from inside of the industry (but it could be simply that this is the way I work where I work, and not anywhere else), Generalist programmers aren't entry-level jobs.
As a matter of fact, they are pretty much the last step before jobs such as techno, etc.
If someone was to be hired here, they wouldn't be generalists for a fair amount of while. Besides, generalists also get their specialities... Just wondering if I'm correct on that structure.

Oh and for the card, I'd put something simple and fancy. Two coloured lines? why not...

I understand your interpretation. Where I work, generalists are accomplished programmers that have acquired variety of knowledges from diverse mandates. For example, someone who has worked on AI, Combat, graphical, etc, eventually becomes the "all-purpose" guy or general "gameplay-go-to-guy" whereas the new guys will be seen performing very specific areas of interest, normally based on what they did prior to coming into the industry. Say, the guy was hired because he was particularly good with HUD programming? He will be hired as such, and slowly work his way into different mandates.

When enough mandates have been accomplished, he would become generalist so to speak... Of course, there is also the possibility to come back to a proficiency later (techno guy for example) but most of them will be entitled generalists. They may, for a moment in the project, work on a certain specific aspect (combat team, gameplay team, etc) but in the end, they will do a lot of patching up here and there.

I guess it can also depend on CPI choices too.

Entry level job would be, of course, interns.
The most efficient interns often get a job in the industry.
They are usually given small specific mandates on "smaller" project.
HOWEVER, not on the SMALLEST projects (bear in mind that smaller teams means a lot more responsabilities).

So to answer your question, where I work, an entry-level job after being an intern, would be that of a relatively small mandate on a middle-sized project where you have the luxury of having a team lead that is not too busy to verify your code. (Progress can be monitored).

Growing responsabilities would mean going into smaller scale projects but with more responsabilities (possibly no lead, or a lead too busy to monitor) and growing generalist would be done after acquiring a series of small mandates, thus acquired versatile experience. In the end, this experience could be used in becoming a specialist so to speak (AI, Combat, Graphical, etc).

This, however, is but the state of where I work. It may work differently elsewhere, and it may be the minority, but this structure exists nonetheless :)