What skill set is really valued in the industry?

[Ronnie.1]

I am a second year student of a Bachelor's in Information Technology, and I want to do my graduate school in the United States. In my short time (since tenth grade, that's 5 years) of beginning CS as my major subject wherever I have studied, I have learnt Java in depth, C++ superficially and C even more superficially, while also learning pretty much thoroughly, Visual Basic and the beginnings of SQL.

I have studied all these (except Java and VB) only because they were in the syllabus, not because I particularly liked them. I enjoyed programming in Java and VB, which is why I have persisted with them.

I would like to know, taking into account the software industry, which languages are the most useful to learn. What skill set will ensure that I am a reasonably marketable and attractive prospect for a job?

 

[Kharn]

Kmote is a professional Java developer, and in the part of the UK I live in there is a big call for .net and java programmers but most of them are in the web developer sphere of programming and the number of web design companies in the Liverpool area is artificially high (and I would also say globaly) so I would personally stay away from the web developer side of the industry and look into something like Kmote dose and that is application development rather than web app.

 

[kmote]

A strong grounding in database technologies and SQL is essential. Web developers are in demand and I think that even if you don't go down the route of a full blown web developer, you should how it all hangs together. Really though you could get a good idea of what employers are after by reading job ads and see what they are asking.