Like a number of other commenters mentioned, folks like me who were in STEM majors all had to learn how to code in some form or another, though I don't think I ever took any classes as such.
A popular joke then:
"what do mechanical engineers do when they graduate?"
"they learn to code and become programmers"
In my case, I had a part-time job in a lab writing programs in C++ to get various lab instruments to be remote controllable from a terminal and had to learn on the job how to do it. One of the professors in the lab gave me a copy of "Numerical Recipes in C" to help me with the C++ code I was writing. It didn't help at all!
I was also part of the generation that learned basic programming on a TRS-80 (aka "trash-80") in BASIC, then in HS some Pascal and FORTRAN in an informal computer club. My family never owned a home computer, but the school had a bunch of windowsOS machines curious students could play with.
Looking back now, it seems like I was really primed to be part of one of the first waves of professional programmers, and indeed a number of my friends did go that route. But by the time I graduated from university, I kind of hated coding! Recall that in the 90s there was no stack overflow, no google, no way to see how others might have solved the problem. If you couldn't figure out how to get something to work, you had to just grind away at it no matter how long it took.
At the time, I honestly thought whatever future there might be for professional programming I sure didn't want to be a part of it. And I also didn't think it would take over the world like it did. I left uni and I spent a number of years traveling abroad and teaching ESL before dusting off my coding skills and getting a series of coding jobs in various industries.
I am extraordinarily grateful that I learned "the hard way" how to code, but more than once I wish I had gotten my degree in CS instead of ME.
These days I compose electronic, ambient space music with synths, modular and otherwise, and sometimes acoustic bass and field recordings. In a previous life stage I played bass in jazz ensembles in and around Boston.
I experienced this when I lived abroad. I moved to a new country for work and didn't know anyone or speak the language well at that point. This was before the internet enabled instant communication around the world, and my new timezone was on the opposite side of the planet from my home country, so I couldn't make phone calls to family without making a plan.
In any case, for the first month or so before I started my job, I was totally alone in my apartment and didn't have any conversations in my native language (English) the whole time. I began to have imaginary conversations with loved ones, both in dreams and in waking life, very much like the kind you describe.
I am one who has always been introverted and ok being alone, but this was an extremely disorienting experience. I coped by keeping a journal. The upside was that I eventually developed an ability to not feel lonely even while alone for long periods.
It is absolutely true that adults can begin to learn piano (or any musical instrument) and reap rich rewards. And as you say the key is to set the right expectations and enjoy the sound, enjoy the process.
However, I don't agree that affordable to even high-end digital pianos will be able to approximate real acoustic pianos within 10 years in two primary areas: dynamics (being able to produce the full range of sounds from pianissimo to fortissimo) and haptic feedback (the subtle vibrations felt by the fingers and body when playing a real piano). Digital piano keybeds are getting better and better in these areas, but are just not close yet to a real piano sound and feel IMHO.
If anyone knows of any models of keyboards that prove me wrong, please share!
One of the reasons I got so much enjoyment from this book is that Swafford himself was a composer and described the works in great detail accordingly. The numerous anecdotes about Beethoven's life were fascinating of course too.
Does anyone know of similar biographies of other famous composers? Ones that tell stories of the composer's lives as well as give detailed analyses of their works?
A trick someone taught me to get into a lucid dream state is to 'touch your nose' while in a dream. The action itself is symbolic, so basically any simple command you can remember to do will open up your ability to consciously control your dream.
If you get into the habit of keeping track of your dreams by doing something like keeping a dream journal, sooner or later you'll be able to remember to 'touch your nose' and lucid-dream at will.
I enjoyed experimenting with it for a while several years ago; it can be pretty exhilarating. But ultimately I found I wasn't feeling rested after a night of living a dream life (oddly enough) so I discontinued the practice.
They should have more interviews with people who chose not to go for a PhD, and whether they feel they were successful in spite of (or because of) that choice.
I don't have the task of managing leads, but I think salesforce is the standard certainly beyond a certain size. Not sure if that is too big for your use case.
A mentor can be helpful to give you direction on where to focus your auto-didactic abilities.
I switched careers into software development several years ago thanks to the mentoring of several individuals.
Going to meetups in your area is one of the first places to look, and taking online or in-person courses are also helpful to find other like-minded people.
One thing to consider is that there need not be a formal "mentor-protege" relationship; you can get a lot of great one-off type advice from all kinds of people you come across.
A lot of these offices seem to have devs stacked together along the same long tables.
The overall aesthetic of these spaces looks great, but I can't help but feel they are more designed/suited for lots of verbal collaboration and not for quiet, solo work, (both of which I'd argue are important).
Can anyone who works at any of these places comment on the atmosphere?
Like a number of other commenters mentioned, folks like me who were in STEM majors all had to learn how to code in some form or another, though I don't think I ever took any classes as such. A popular joke then: "what do mechanical engineers do when they graduate?" "they learn to code and become programmers"
In my case, I had a part-time job in a lab writing programs in C++ to get various lab instruments to be remote controllable from a terminal and had to learn on the job how to do it. One of the professors in the lab gave me a copy of "Numerical Recipes in C" to help me with the C++ code I was writing. It didn't help at all!
I was also part of the generation that learned basic programming on a TRS-80 (aka "trash-80") in BASIC, then in HS some Pascal and FORTRAN in an informal computer club. My family never owned a home computer, but the school had a bunch of windowsOS machines curious students could play with.
Looking back now, it seems like I was really primed to be part of one of the first waves of professional programmers, and indeed a number of my friends did go that route. But by the time I graduated from university, I kind of hated coding! Recall that in the 90s there was no stack overflow, no google, no way to see how others might have solved the problem. If you couldn't figure out how to get something to work, you had to just grind away at it no matter how long it took.
At the time, I honestly thought whatever future there might be for professional programming I sure didn't want to be a part of it. And I also didn't think it would take over the world like it did. I left uni and I spent a number of years traveling abroad and teaching ESL before dusting off my coding skills and getting a series of coding jobs in various industries.
I am extraordinarily grateful that I learned "the hard way" how to code, but more than once I wish I had gotten my degree in CS instead of ME.