Chapter 3. School Versus Job

“Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.”

—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)

School is very different from professional work. Some people stumble in their early professional careers by failing to transition from the school environment they’ve been immersed in for nearly twenty years into the brave new world of software professionalism. Students operate in a world of highly constrained, well-defined workloads (though it certainly doesn’t feel that way when you’re a student). As a student your scope is limited to a set of courses that are intended to address your professional needs upon graduation. In short, school is about learning. Professional life is more about getting things done, being both productive and innovative in a way that jells with the people you work with. It’s not uncommon for junior staff to treat the workplace as though it were simply the next phase of school. Few things could be more disastrous.