I’m sorry if the question may be out of place or anything…
Basically I had made a thread about my plan to start applying after finishing the front end certificate, and seeing the posts about people who found jobs made me optimistic. But, some of the replies on that thread said that those people usually have some prior experience.
I’ll be putting a lot of effort into web development in the upcoming months, and I don’t want it to be in vain. I would ideally like to find a job after finishing the front end section, but again the replies I mentioned above made me feel that perhaps I’m over optimistic. Is it really so? I’ve never really had a career, so far my “career” life has been random minimum wage jobs, and I badly want to change this, but I don’t wish to get disappointed at the end.
If you mean that you might not find a job right away at a snap of your fingers once you’ve received your Front-End Certificate, then yes, it will be in vain. But that would be a very silly definition, wouldn’t it?
Put in the work, keep at it, build your portfolio (not just for FCC of course, go back to it and make it better, learn and practice everything you learn).
You will find a job. No one can answer for sure about the expectations of EVERY employer in the world.
Get your certificate. Apply for jobs AND continue learning and practising and updating your github etc. And continue applying. You won’t be disappointed, you are learning actual skills. But first, get your certificate
Even that alone will open your eyes on a lot of things, including your expectations and your definition of what is worth doing and what isn’t. In my humble opinion, it’s more than worth it.
Taking the FCC courses to improve your chances of employment is welcome, but there is no guarantee you will get a job immediately you earn your first FCC certificate.
The thing with programming is, you never arrive . it’s a life time journey of commitment, hard work and em…more hard work.
There is also nothing like being too hopeful!! you will need it. Being more optimistic never killed anyone. you should look around the thread more often, FCC users are already posting job openings and sharing success stories. so buckle up, read like crazy! and opportunity will find you.
No, I definitely wasn’t referring to finding a job at the snap of my fingers, lol. I’m really interested in web development and ready to put in the work.
I really hope I won’t get disappointed. I really so badly want this and want to change my life.
I had a look at your other thread to see what was worrying you.
People are being realistic, which is good. Otherwise you just hit a wall and never get up. So keep at it. (A friend studied something, got a job right away. Great? Nope. The job is boring.)
There you go then ! I understand your worries, but right now they’re not helping you achieving that goal, are they? Instead we’re both writing on the forums instead of coding, reading, learning.
Like most things in life, if you’re only doing it because of the end result then you probably shouldn’t do it. You should do it because you enjoy doing it. You’ll find it hard to stay motivated and life doesn’t always give you what you planned.
As I’ve already said, I do enjoy it a lot and the reason I’ve decided to learn web development in the first place is that I’ve always been interested in it. I’ve been putting hours at a time into it and still sometimes have to force myself to stop. I’m definitely not doing it for the end result, but I think you’d agree that you wouldn’t want to keep doing low wage jobs that you don’t like all your life.
I am a personal example of someone who has changed my own life through hard work. I have many family members who struggle throughout their lives with minimum wage jobs. Trust me, you will be glad you did this. I am not doing Free Code Camp to get a job, but rather to enhance some lacking programming skills. I think what others are trying to say is this; When you get the front-end certificate, certainly apply for jobs, but don’t quit learning. Eventually, it will pan out for you. Don’t give up! One thing you might consider is taking a community college course in web development near you. If that is possible, they have access to information about internships and jobs that might assist you in getting a position. Don’t give up! We are in your corner.
But sometimes it can be difficult to keep going, to stay motivated and hopeful. So, while I totally agree that you should continue…everything, doing so will require you to be resilient.
Bouncing back from failure, be it an FCC challenge that took days instead of minutes ( we’ve all been there ) or rejection from a job interview ( ditto ) is much easier with a resilience mindset.
Disappointed in “what” end? There is no “end”. It’s not as if you are going to go a certain distance, get rejected…and that’s it. Learning isn’t a path to a door, it’s a never-ending journey. Figure out what you are good at, work on what you are not and just keep at it.
Just as an anecdote, I have a friend that didn’t even finish the first certificate and FCC was his only training. He interviewed well, completed a take home assignment (HTML email from a template) and got a junior role at an agency. He was started off on reasonably simple HTML jobs, but now (maybe 3 months later) he is working on his first React project!
I appreciate honesty and I want only honest answers, but I must admit that some of the replies are a bit disheartening. I’m not directing this to the authors of the replies, but rather to the honesty in those replies, it is truly a bit discouraging to hear this. I mean I badly want a job that pays well and that I like and can have a sense of accomplishment at, and I don’t want it to take forever to get there, but in all honesty it seems this is far-fetched.
@dperygin And how long did it take you to get your first job? There really isn’t a community college course in web development near me, I live in a kinda remote place, so online is my best resource. Unless of course I decide to move, which I’ve tried but it proved too difficult working for minimum wage.
@BenGitter But what about exclusively front end positions? Not all positions are full stack, and I’m seeing a lot of job postings for front end…
@JacksonBates Well, I hope this would be the case for me, but it seems it’s a rather rare case.
Warning: I don’t have a job and haven’t even completed the frontend entirely.
I agree that the backend section might not be needed for a frontend developer. When you have finished the frontend section you will have a solid understanding of HTML, CSS, and JS. But it seems like most jobs expect you to have experience with React, testing, webpack, GitHub, responsive websites (no Boostrap) etc.
So especially when you completed the frontend racing through the projects and only using Codepen, Boostrap, etc, I don’t believe you are job ready.
But, once you have completed the frontend you have gotten to a stage where it becomes easier to learn new technologies. I suggest, you start looking for job offers and see if you would be able to fulfill the job requirements.I suppose that should give you a sense of what should be able to do and you can focus on that.
There is no harm in starting to apply for a job fairly quickly, while still continuing to learn. But you shouldn’t be demotivated by not getting a job directly, nor by reading all the replies here I believe that with hard work and a fair bit of realism, you will certainly be able to get a job.
The trick is to be patient but persistent. When I arrived here in America 5 months ago, I was optimistic that my previous work experience would give me an advantage when it comes to job searching. I applied and applied for weeks and I would even wait longer than that for any kind of response at all.
Then I realized that my work experience is small and won’t even give me a competitive boost in the American corporate world. That’s when I decided I would learn new things just to have a competitive edge and that’s when I joined FCC. Now mind you, I’m still finishing up my front end certification and I still think I don’t know enough.
I still don’t have a job but I’ve had a number of interviews in the past five months and all have rejected me. It hurts but it still counts as experience. I have an interview coming up and I feel alot more confident than ever before.
Its okay to be optimistic but also keep learning and practicing. I would add that you should definitely apply for jobs. whether you get accepted or rejected, it is still a very valuable experience. Telling your interviewers that you’re currently taking up coding courses at a code camp is helpful as well. It tells them that you are continuously learning and studying.
@P1xt Well that’s encouraging. Thanks. I would like to point out though that the reason I’ve only worked one day on the FCC curriculum so far is that I’m currently doing another online web development course, and I’m almost done with the front end part there. I’m actually waiting to finish the other course so I could start FCC with some knowledge already and with more confidence. I was going to start FCC and do both at the same time, but after doing one day here, I figured it’s better if I finish the other course first. Not because I found it too difficult here or anything, I actually enjoyed it, but I figured it’s better if I focus on one thing at a time.
Thank you so much for the advice! I’ll keep it in mind and revisit it every time I feel discouraged.
To answer your question, I am 47 years old, and have been working at my first “real” job for 4 years. I am a college professor. I went back to school in 2002 after a divorce. It took me 7 years to get my PhD. Then I had to stay home a while with a sick child. (I screen printed t-shirts for a while.) Finally, I was able to get a job in my field. My field is computational chemistry, but even though I have been programming since I was 14 (on an old commodore 64), I didn’t do any real object oriented stuff until recently. I am using Free Code Camp as a curriculum to learn that. You don’t need to attend college to get a job in web design. I was just thinking it might help you to get out and make some connections and be encouraged by other people. Just do the best you can do with what you have right now. You’ll make it eventually.
@dperygin I’m not sure I fully get it. So you work as a college professor now or your were one and are working in development now?
Still, it’s inspiring to hear from older people who didn’t give up and worked to improve their life. And I tend to think it’s already too late for me at 25. To be honest I do think it’s too late to have never had a real job, a career, compared to all those younger people who are a few years into their rewarding careers.
I hope it doesn’t take forever to get there, I badly want to improve my life, because I’m sick of being taken advantage of and of making pizzas for my boss who makes at least 5 times as much as he pays me. Though to be honest it’s not the worst job ever, I’m getting promoted soon, but even then I would still be making a fraction of what he makes and a fraction of what I should be making at this age if I was already doing a career job.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I won’t be attending a physical school. Instead I will be studying at the open university, and the courses are online. For two reasons, the first of which is that the open university doesn’t have any requirements for applying, because to be honest I was depressed during high school and did poorly due to this, thus I don’t meet the requirements for physical universities and I don’t wish to waste years now just for this. The second reason is that I will have to be working in order to be able to afford it, and studying at the open university allows you to manage your schedule according to your own time, a major advantage.
I believe that with hard work and a fair bit of realism, you will certainly be able to get a job.