Recently, I had the opportunity to read a book called My Job Went To India, And All I Got Was This Lousy Book written by Chad Fowler. While Fowler made many wonderful suggestions, I think the clearest overarching message that he conveyed was that of protecting investments. In the business world, when a company puts ridiculous amounts of money into a new and important project, they don't do it for kicks and giggles. They do it because they expect their investment of time and talent into the project to eventually reap long lasting benefits not only now, but in the company's future. In order to make this work, they have to protect their investment - meaning, they have to put in additional effort in order to assure that their past investment will continue to serve the company in the future.
The same is true for those of us who aspire to be computer geeks and programmers. We have chosen to invest in the field of computer technology, and this is not an investment that we made lightly. First off, we have invested a considerable amount of time and money into obtaining a bachelor's degree. But just obtaining a degree is not enough - our degree, in essence, is not self protecting. Just having a degree does not automatically guarantee that we will always have a job. Instead, we have to protect the investment that we made in obtaining our bachelor's degree.
So how, one may ask, does a computer scientist protect his degree? One of the most prominent solutions that Fowler offers is that of not getting complacent. If one is complacent, they will never see the need to improve past their original CS degree. However, if one stays humble, they will soon realize that there are many ways in which they can make themselves better. They could deepen their knowledge of a coding language by exploring it's intricacies, or relearn the basic rules of English grammar so as to communicate better with their co-employees at work. Whatever it is a programmer chooses to do, it should be the thing that will most help them to protect the investment they made into their CS degree.
Something to think about is doing open source or personal projects outside of work or school. Some of the more successful programmers are those that not only excel at their job, but that also excel in applying their knowledge outside of work or school. So, go learn how to program an android app, or an iOS app. Try something new. Learn new technologies. These are all ways to aid us in becoming better computer scientists.
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