Am I being too hopeful?

Well, if you want it to go quicker you can do one simple thing - study more intensively. You know, for one person Front End could take a year and a month or two for another. You can hasten things by being more productive yourself. It’s not a university course which takes certain amount of time no matter what.

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25 is not too late.

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@JacksonBates I hope it isn’t… To be honest though I don’t think I’m a late bloomer. In all honesty I believe I’m… a failure. Late bloomers have legit reasons why they bloomed late. What’s my reason? Other than being a failure, I can see no other reason.

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@svmi3195 That’s exactly what I’m planning to do, and I’m already doing so. I’ve been making relatively quick progress in another web dev course I’m currently taking. Gonna start with FCC as soon as I’m done with the other course.

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Even I get this thought sometimes. When that happens i refer back to this Steve Jobs quote.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path; and that will make all the difference.”
Keep on learning!!

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@JacksonBates Thank you for the Late Bloomers visual. That was fantastic to see and not only gave me confidence but a big jolt of giddiness for a few minutes. You rock!

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So, before addressing anything about FCC specifically, the first step might honestly be to 1. change your mindset and 2. change your attitude. Coding is hard. It’s frustrating. Some days, it’s going to suck. If you don’t have the drive and the desire and the knowledge that you can do it, it’s going to be much, much worse. (The same can apply to most things in life, really.) If you consistently believe you can’t do it, you’re never going to get there.

One of the key traits in a successful developer is the ability to learn. If you’re convinced that you’re unable to learn, I don’t know how successful you’ll be in attempting to learn. It might be helpful to read up a little bit on a fixed vs. growth mindset, and the implications of having one over the other.

To address your original question. Speaking as someone in the US with no experience, personal or otherwise in the job markets outside of the US, unless you know someone somewhere, I think it’ll be an uphill battle trying to get a “high-paying” job only after doing the front-end curriculum–but again, it depends on what you do outside of that. If you only go through the curriculum, you’ll miss out on a lot of fundamental, key concepts of programming in JavaScript like object-oriented design, protoypes and inheritance, scope and closure, functional programming (this is big these days with React), and a whole host of other things. (Despite completing the entire front-end curriculum before my bootcamp started, I didn’t realize most of these were actually things until going through the early phase of my bootcamp. Nor did I know how fundamental they are to programming with JavaScript.)

You’re pretty much fighting an uphill battle in multiple ways: in the US, not having a college degree (regardless of what that degree is in) can hurt you. Add in that you’ll be a self-taught programmer. And that you said you were in a pretty remote location, which means that there probably aren’t a large number of jobs around you - and probably even fewer tech jobs. Which means that if you want to work as a developer, your best bet might be to work remotely as a developer. Getting a job as a developer is hard enough, but I’ve heard that getting a job as a remote developer is even harder.

I’m not saying it’s far-fetched for you to get a well-paying job that gives you fulfillment within a reasonable time frame. (I suppose it also depends on your definition of “reasonable time frame” as well - it shouldn’t take years upon years. It could only take months, depending on how hard you work and the opportunities available to you. The latter is important; you’ll have a lot more opportunities in a major metro area than you will in a rural area.) But, it’s going to be far from easy or quick - don’t expect a job to be handed to you 2 months in. It’s going to take a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of work, a lot of dedication, a lot of drive, and a fair amount of failure and rejection. But it’s definitely do-able.

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@bethqiang I realize that coding is hard since I’ve been coding for a few years, mainly as part of my studies (2-year diploma and finished last year), but I’m relatively new to web development. I got into it last year but didn’t continue for personal reasons (not because I didn’t like it), and now I’m continuing and I am enjoying every minute of it. It’s not that I believe I can’t do it, I think I’m actually doing pretty well so far, what I think I can’t do is find a job, because I don’t know, it just seems almost impossible to land a job. And honestly some of the replies here only reinforced this feeling, and to be perfectly honest your reply made it sound like it’s next to impossible. As I’ve said I appreciate honesty and I don’t want answers that would only make me feel good, but now I feel I’m pursuing an impossible task, and this feeling won’t benefit me in any way and might hurt.

In regards to being in a remote place, can’t I still apply for jobs in other cities and opt to relocate if I get the job? Or don’t they even consider me in the first place? I’m willing to relocate in favor of having a better job, that’s no problem for me. But I just can’t move now because I’m only qualified for low-paying jobs currently and I can’t make enough to be on my own.

I also want to add that in addition to the front end curriculum, I will be doing other projects on the side. I have a few ideas already and I’m working on a small personal project at the moment, and in addition just started working on a website for a web developer friend who doesn’t have the time to do it himself, so he asked me to do it and said he might have other projects later (he’s doing it for a relative though so he isn’t getting paid, which means I’m not getting paid either but what I value is the experience, and it’s one additional project I can put on my portfolio). Note that I already have some front end skills from another online course I’m currently doing.

I guess at this point I just want to know if it’s even realistic to think I can get a job as a web developer and improve my life, or if I should stop hoping and accept that I’m stuck in my minimum wage position. I know you said it’s do-able, but it sounds like it’s barely do-able and almost impossible.

I just want to make it very clear that I’m in no way trying to offend anyone with this post because often my posts on forums are misunderstood. I appreciate having this community and again I’m sorry if anything I’ve said offended anyone, it wasn’t intended. I’m only saying what I honestly feel, nothing more.

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The Internet isn’t going anywhere, it’s actually evolving pretty fast. And, of course, each small company, shop, non-profit organization will want to have a web-page. Plus various services delivered to people via Internet. So web developers are needed and will be needed. I am sure that eventually you will find a job, but not necessary just after you finish Front-End section.

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Think positive. Good things will come.

Somthing similar happened with me even though it is a different topic and situation but anyway. . . when I was younger I’ve always wanted to work on vehicles, especially huge construction vehicles. (Think giant bulldozers and cranes) After high school I went to a local trade school. This school did nothing but take my money. After graduating I went to work for a small mom and pop automotive repair shop. I didn’t get paid well at all. Like 50 cents over minimum wage at that time. ($8.50 :frowning: )

Everyone told me “ahh you won’t be able to work on those big trucks blah blah blah” a few years later I got the job I’ve always wanted. Making over 6 figures with phenomenal health benefits and company discounts and perks.

tl;dr don’t give up because you have negative feelings about it. If this is something you want to do then think positive and keep at it. Good things will come. Trust me.

(Sorry if this post doesn’t make any sense but I was driving into work and I was stuck behind a traffic light trying to rush through it)

No one in the 20-30something replies you’ve gotten have said that it’ll be impossible or near impossible; we’ve just said that it’s going to be hard. Maybe even really hard. But absolutely, 110% do-able if you’re willing to put in the work.

We don’t want to give you false hope or paint a rosier picture than it actually is. And you’re going to fail and be rejected at some point in the process–that’s just the nature of job hunting these days. Doesn’t mean that you’ll always fail and be rejected, but the people who have gotten jobs from the Free Code Camp community have experienced a lot of rejection as well. (Here and here are two of the more recent Medium posts I’ve read, and there are many others out there.) (Also note that both of these people went to bootcamps, and arguably have a little bit more of an advantage over the FCCer who’s doing everything on their own.)

Yes, you can still apply for jobs in other cities and opt to relocate. That being said, there are some cities that have cultures where companies give people who already live there preference–and, it’s cheaper and less risk for the company, too. Again, not saying it’s impossible. It’ll just make it harder.

This all sounds fantastic and on the right track.

In addition to working on projects and learning how to code, I’d also suggest learning the more conceptual side of programming–not just what things work when, but how and why as well. Books like Eloquent JavaScript and You Don’t Know JS (both free online) both have helped me personally and many others as well, and also looking into things like data structures and algorithms and Big O notation that FCC doesn’t touch on much (if at all?) but will show up a decent amount in interviews.

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Well thanks for not giving me false hope, I truly appreciate this. I definitely don’t want the answer that would make me feel good, I want the honest answer that would make me realize the amount of effort I need to put in. I’m glad it’s do-able, and of course it’s going to be hard, if it wasn’t, I guess everyone would be a web developer. Actually, now that I think of it, I might appreciate it more if I do land a job when it took so much effort to get there.

I fully realize I will get rejected. Initially I’m just hoping for some job interviews, to get a feel of what they are (never been in one so far) and get some experience with them, and to also give me hope that one of those interviews might lead to a job. Isn’t it possible though to learn the stuff those people in the posts you linked have learned by reading books, doing other courses, checking out resources… etc instead of having to go to a bootcamp? I don’t really have access to bootcamps, just normal training courses (I prefer the ones that are online), and even if I did, there’s no way I’d be able to take part in one.

I will make sure to read the books you mentioned, already bookmarked them. If you have any more suggestions for good web development books or resources, I would appreciate it if you could share them. We actually had an entire course about data structures and Big O notation back in college (as I’ve said I studied software engineering for a 2 year diploma), so it’s something I’m familiar with already, though in all honesty I don’t believe the course we had was too advanced, so it might still be worth it to learn those things again.

A million times yes. People choose to go to bootcamps for a variety of reasons. I personally 110% knew that I could do everything on my own and eventually succeed, but I wanted the structure and the rigor and the environment and the instructors and the classmates and the hiring network that a good bootcamp provides. I received multiple scholarship offers that made the cost negligible, so it became an easy decision for me after some time.

Not to push you one way or another - but if you did want to attend a bootcamp, you could do it remotely and not having to pay tens of thousands of dollars upfront. A lot of programs can be done online these days, some programs have a deferred tuition model, and some schools are very generous with scholarships. It’s definitely not for everyone, but if you wanted to attend one, I wouldn’t rule it out. (If not, no hard feelings! Just wanted to keep the option open if you wanted it.)

I haven’t had time to aggregate all of my learning resources yet (they’re all in folders in Chrome bookmarks at the moment) but I do hope to do that sometime in the coming weeks. In the meantime, @P1xt is a fairly active member around the forum and he’s had some absolutely magnificent posts. This and this might help specifically in terms of what you’re looking for, but I’d definitely recommend going through all of his posts sometime - lots of great gems and nuggets of wisdom to be found. IIRC, he also did a very thorough critique of someone’s portfolio not too long ago - in my opinion, it would definitely be worth it to find that and see how you can apply his advice to your journey.

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This. Was. Amazing. :clap:

@P1xt Thank you so much for the advice and for the detailed resources. I really really appreciate it. I don’t really just want to finish the bare minimum, I want to become a really skilled web developer. It’s something I fell in love with and I’m willing to put in the effort,

I do have time to do my job plus study programming, and while I don’t believe it’s any less of a success if it takes two years, by then I’d be 27, and I’m afraid employers would start to question why a 27 year old guy has only ever done minimum wage jobs. Plus, I’m considering to apply to university for Computer Science soon, but I’m going to take fewer courses per semester so that I can still put in time for web development, while still working of course. Do you think it’s realistic or will the degree leave me no time for continuing my web development studies? I would ideally like to continue learning web development even as I’m doing the degree and hopefully find a job while still doing the degree.

Thank you so much again. Your reply was very informative and very encouraging indeed. :slight_smile:

@bethqiang Are there any online bootcamps you would recommend? And do I have to be in the same country as the bootcamp in order to participate? I don’t believe there are any bootcamps in my country, and even if there were, there’s no way I can afford to quit my job and have to move for the bootcamp.

Thanks for the links to @P1xt’s posts. I did check out some of his posts, and he replied to this post with an amazing list of resources. Will make sure to check out his other posts sometime.

I have been sick and stuck into bed for almost 4 years. I get what you mean by “change your life”. You want this job/learning experience to completely overhaul whatever happened before, and I get that feeling, trust me. But I have to say this: It will not change your history. It will not make all the pain or whatever you felt before go away overnight. Time is the only thing that has the power to heal all the wounds in life. But I guarantee you this: this learning experience will open many doors for you. This will enable you to start another journey of your life. It will help you knock on so many opportunities that you have never even dare to imagine before. Even let’s say that you fail at some of your job interviews, so what? Isn’t it cool that you CAN actually walk into a company and present yourself as a developer??? I think it is dope as fuck. I can only dream this to come true. And yet, I am here. Knocking at your front door and present myself as a dev. With new journey awaits, keep your chin up. And believe that no matter what this roads might lead you, it’s gonna be better, (actually a lot better) than what you’ve experienced last. At least that’s how I feel. This site/learning opportunity does not guarantee a million dollar check on my table. But god damn it is the best thing that have happened to me yet. It gives me a chance to rewrite my life.

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It really, really depends on what you’re looking for. Some programs are a “10-hours-per-week-meet-with-a-mentor-once-a-week” kind of thing, and some (like the one I’m in right now) are 60+ hours per week, life-consuming things.

I’ll be honest, most of the scholarships I’ve come across are for the immersive programs (the 60+ hours per week). That doesn’t mean scholarships for part-time programs don’t exist, it just means you’ll have to your own research.

Depending on the program, you don’t have to be in the same country. If you want to go the immersive route, it’ll probably take place during US day hours, but we did have someone in our cohort from Portugal for a little while before he needed to leave due to personal reasons. I also have heard of a few programs in the England area, if that’s more convenient for your timezone. I know very little about them, though.

If you’re really interested in joining a bootcamp, I’d say first do some of your own research to figure out what you want out of a program. I’m definitely biased towards a certain subset of them, but I don’t want to sway you in any direction before you’ve had a chance to discover at least some of what you want on your own. Once you’ve done that, I’d be happy to chat about the topic further!