I graduated from Southern Methodist University in 2001 with a bachelors degree in Management Information Systems. During my studies, I took classes in HTML, Javascript, Visual Basic 6 and Java. I interviewed with different companies but was unable to secure a full-time job in IT. So I decided to help my parents with their small furniture store in Dallas, TX.
While working at the furniture store, I learned so much about running a business. I learned about marketing, sales, accounting, managing people, and of course about IT. However, my desire was to work as a software developer. So I decided to learn .Net framework and specifically asp.net.
At the beginning I read many articles online about this new framework created by microsoft. .Net framework was the buzz word and I knew I had to learn it to secure a job as a software developer.
It was time to take action and start writing code. The online articles helped me a lot to understand the basics but I needed a mentor, a guide to write my first .net application. To accomplish that task, I bought this book:
Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 with Visual C# .NET 2003 by Wrox.
With the help of this book, I was able to setup my development environment and create my first asp.net site for the furniture store.
I highly recommend the books by Wrox specially the beginning series because they walk you step by step in learning a new programming language or framework.
I hope this article inspires other developers to start learning and creating projects.