40% of the US workforce is changing careers

40% is a huge number. Kind of crazy to think but makes sense.

I am sure you can list off the reasons that were given.

Heard it on a real estate podcast the wife had on this morning, thought it was interesting since that’s essentially why I am here and probably why most of us are here.

I started this journey almost 6 months ago and I am still overwhelmed but never had a “why” really. After hearing this conversation between 3 real estate agents on today’s market it got me questioning why I want to change careers.

Thought I would share and ask why do you want to change careers?

I started this journey almost 6 months ago and I am still overwhelmed …

Yeah, that sounds about right. Learning to code is overwhelming and humbling. And coding requires lifelong learning, so get used to it.

Thought I would share and ask why do you want to change careers?

I already made my change (thanks to FCC). But I think the most important reason needs to be:

  1. I think coding is fun.

That needs to be the main reason, or you’re just going to be miserable.

For me, I was working as a musician and music teacher, which was fun but was not a dependable source of income, and I needed that, so

  1. You can make a good living at it.

I would also add:

  1. It’s intellectually challenging and stimulating.

We wanted to move to Europe so:

  1. It can be a very portable career.

I think we also need to add:

  1. It’s a career with a great future.
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That’s interesting you are a musician and enjoy working as a professional programmer. Do you find you play more with this job as compared to your others?

I am also a musician, not at a professional level but love playing and probably will until I am not able to.

This is good advice. I think I need to look to enjoy it more than see it as a chore.

Sometimes it’s going to be a chore. But I think that you need to, at a root level, also have a love of it.

I loooooved being a jazz musician. It was awesome. But even with that, there were times when things were a drudge.

I just get nervous when I hear people (not you) saying, “I want to be a computer programmer because I heard it is easy to learn and it makes a lot of money. I actually hate it, but I want a good job.” That person is going to burn out and hate their life. And probably not be very successful.

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I am not a programmer, or am I even close but I sympathize with this and having a music discipline, I know I am preaching to the choir here. There is just a lot of time and effort involved and there is really no getting around it, and I am learning it is similar with learning all these new languages and what they are used for.

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Hi @woodumstead !

Well it looks like we have a thread of musicians here.
We should start a band. :laughing:

Exactly one year ago today, I started learning how to code.
I initially wanted to learn because I had some ideas of music websites I wanted to create.
But as I started learning more, I feel in love with it.

I enjoyed my time as a musician but I was ready for a change.
For me, I really enjoy thinking of problems I can solve with code.
And I also like challenging myself and working through problems.

It is overwhelming to learn all of this stuff.
The more I learn, the more I realize there is still so much to learn :laughing:

Just take it one day at a time and realize that everyone gets overwhelmed at times.

Thanks!

Not sure where this will take me but the more I learn the more I am interested.

I made a career change to software development several years ago. Besides having crappy pay and benefits, my previous jobs just didn’t challenge me intellectually as much as I needed. I was bored out of my mind. Also, I had to deal with people. The portability of the career was also a significant factor because at the time my spouse was in the military and I knew that I would have to relocate every 3 years.

Coding challenges me and I’m good at it. And it pays really well.

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