Where to apply for an apprenticeship as a programmer in St. Petersburg \ where to go for a beginner Python programmer?

Question

IT education

In general, I understand that the question is not very specialized, so I immediately apologize. I am 21 years old, I live in a small town of our vast, with a population of 150 thousand people. The profession of a programmer was heard here only in the understanding of a system administrator. That is, of course, it is needed somewhere, but basically these are all sorts of small sites - business cards in PHP, and a couple of vacancies in production. It just so happened that I wanted to learn to be a programmer, but I could not afford to go to study in another city for financial reasons. As a result, he entered a local college, where he mastered Delphi using the old programs (which he mastered on his own at a level sufficient to satisfy his curiosity at school), and quietly taught Python \ Django \ JS-jQuery \ CSS, etc. I already asked a similar question last year, it is described in more detail,habrahabr.ru/qa/21182/
Now the situation has changed somewhat. There is a desire to get a higher education (and most interesting, and will not be superfluous). At the full-time department, I can’t afford it, again for financial reasons, but here I’m quite pulling the credit. Peter was chosen as the city, because. at the moment there is a certain number of acquaintances / relatives / friends, and it will be tritely convenient for me. So far, I plan to enter the university and come to the sessions. In the future, it is possible to eventually look for a job in Peter Python as a programmer, and stay. According to my estimates, it makes no sense to do this right away, in view of my young age, lack of higher education, and work experience in labor (so far, for about half a year I have been working as a system administrator for a local private trader, with a small VoIP system, but still not formalized).
And in general, based on such realities, Habr, tell me a university with a sane correspondence system in St. Petersburg (preferably not with a cosmic cost), with an IT direction. In the future, we plan to develop small Web applications, but now almost everything is interesting, with the exception of some wild low-level code).

Answer 1

IMHO, for a programmer, a diploma is not such a necessary thing, it’s better to spend this time on self-study, you can freelance and slowly gain experience. When applying for a job, everyone will care what kind of diploma you have and what you have graduated from, they will look at the portfolio, experience and knowledge.

Answer 2

If you just need a diploma, then go to any university, no matter which one (there are quite a lot of them in St. Petersburg). If you want to gain knowledge, go to full-time study, or study what interests you yourself (languages, technologies, some theory). Here is an example:
In 2009 I graduated from the college (branch) of the University of Telecommunications. prof. M.A. Bonch-Bruevich (SPbSUT), with honors. I went to college only so that later I could get a higher education faster (according to a shortened program - it seemed to be less than 3 years). But just in that year, something changed, the reduced education was canceled, I didn’t want to study for 5 years at the point, as a result I had to take the exam and enter the part-time program.
Entered St. Petersburg State University, faculty of PM PU (applied mathematics and computer science), free of charge. I was delighted, I thought that they would teach me something cool there, well, or inspire me somehow. Yeah, to hell with it - 90% of teachers generally don’t care about correspondence students, another 5% tell some kind of garbage that hasn’t been used for 40 years already. They just don’t put the best teachers on an apprenticeship, usually - that’s probably why. As a result, after the first year, I did absolutely nothing for my studies during the year, I know absolutely nothing that is required to know in the fourth year. They will kick me out - well, okay, it’s unpleasant, of course, that 4 years have already been spent, but, in fact, it’s better for me to study something myself these 2 months a year, on the same coursera (which I have been doing for the last year). There are many more benefits :)

Answer 3

Also this year I choose the university in St. Petersburg. I am primarily concerned about translation / restoration (4th year), but it seems to be suitable for you. Specialty - "Information systems and technologies" (with variations). Here is what is specifically for distance learning:
1. University of Telecommunications. prof. M.A. Bonch-Bruevich (SPbSUT) .
2. Polytechnic University (SPbSPU) . Zachka website .
3. University of Aerospace Instrumentation (GUAP) .
There is also LETI and Technolozhka .
The cost of education is approximately the same in all universities - from 23k to 30k (polytechnic is the most expensive).
I wrote to all universities by email, only 3 from the list answered, and only these 3 are in the ranking of universities (everything is better than nothing) - accordingly, I choose between them. Priority in the order of the list :) So far I haven’t decided exactly, the difference will be only in small differences in specialties (this is important for translation). In principle, education is not important (no one really counts on this at the correspondence course), you only need a diploma. If someone from St. Petersburg tells me about these universities, I will be glad.
At work, it seems to me that it is wrong and inconvenient to come only to sessions. Try to look for an intern / junior, they can take it without experience, the main thing is to show yourself and the code :) Education, as already written, practically does not play a role (the employer is more concerned about whether you will take time off from sessions / training than having a diploma). In general, do not be afraid to ask for interviews, in the worst case, you will only find out exactly what knowledge is missing - and you can pull it up :)

Answer 4

Tap it turned out that I was hired, and then they only asked if I had an education. In state offices, such a number will definitely not work. He himself went to study for a part-time job, a system programmer. As a result - 1 semester, a mountain of mathematics (good), economics, psychology, philosophy, and more than mathematics, several programming lessons, Pascal ala hello world, then an exam on this. The only cool subject was - operating systems, I would love to learn from this teacher. As a result, I looked at this training option and took the documents. In the second year, my former classmates study the same hello world in Pascal.
I ended up with a college degree, computer software and automated systems.