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Wow! That's certainly a major shift in career direction! Without knowing
about your background (education, computer experience, etc.), it's a bit
difficult to direct you specifically. But typically,
when hiring programmers, employers look for people with the necessary
programming skills who can think logically and pay close attention to
detail. The job calls for patience, persistence, and the ability to work on
exacting analytical work, especially under pressure. Ingenuity and
imagination are also particularly important, when programmers design
solutions and test their work for potential failures. The ability to work
with abstract concepts and to do technical analysis is especially important
for systems programmers, because they work with the software that controls
the computer's operation. Since programmers are expected to work in teams
and interact directly with users, employers want programmers who are able to
communicate with nontechnical personnel.
Statistics show that over 46% of all employers who hire development staff
are looking for a 4 year college degree in a computer-related field as well
as some "real" experience. If you don't have a degree in the field nor any
experience, you may have to start by taking some college level courses on
programming, computer basics, design theory, etc. Often you can find night
courses at a local junior college that could prove helpful. If you have a
degree and/or computer/programming experience, you might want to look into
taking some Oracle courses (Introduction to Oracle, Oracle Developer Forms,
Oracle JDeveloper etc). Contact Oracle directly to discuss your situation
with an education consultant to receive advice direct from the source.
There are lots of good books out there for you to review. You might want to
just drop by your local book store and look through the Oracle section to
see what catches your eye. If you've never used Oracle before, a good
beginner book (Oracle - A Beginners Guide for instance) could give you a
good overview of Oracle in general.
The biggest thing you need to do as you move forward is get some experience
actually writing code and working with the database. After you've acquired
enough skills to feel comfortable, you may want to see if you can find an
internship type position to work to get real experience and learn from
experienced folks 'on the job'.
All the best!
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