My country has these degrees called higher vocational degree. They are supposed to be on the same level as a bachelors degree. They span 2 years and a lot of it is internships. They teach a lot more applied knowledge and are in conjuntion with the industry (they don’t recieve funding if there isn’t a need and they aren’t allowed to continue unless 90% of the graduates are employed in the field 2 years after graduation).
I have tried getting a job in development for a long long long time but always fail because the recuriters tell me that I the right papers or I need more experience or that the gap in my cv from years ago makes me unhireable. I think getting a degree will open a lot more doors. The problem is that I will be over 35 when I graduate and I keep hearing that development is a young mans game. What do you think?
I can see a mistake in your title. 
Ok now seriously…
Can you build a website that looks good both on mobile and desktop?
Can you connect/create an API, login form?
Can you program a robot?
Can you put up a secure server and host your own page?
What about databases?
People are looking for skills and ability to communicate.
If you can show you have them you are employable.
If you can’t - you are not.
That means “We think your skills are not good enough for us to risk employing you”.
Also, if you have skills you can try freelancing. You are your own boss in that case.
Young people have more energy and know less about… things. They are easier to manage. There are many that started coding later than you, read some threads on the forum.
If I am reading this correctly, what you asking are these age-old questions
- Formal education or not
- Am I too old or not
I could share some perspectives if I were you,
-
Yes. I will go for the 2 years program, and here are my reasonings
- The biggest reason is that you have been preparing for a “long long time” and you have no success. Obviously, something is way off with your past self-learning route. You need to have a reality check with your local job market, an effective learning roadmap, disciplined learning environment, and opportunities to network with people with the same goal and interests. This is what a good program could offer
- With “paper” being one of the gatekeepers, you could get this out of your way
- No need to explain your gap as a new grad, knocking out another gatekeeper
-
Maybe. For some, it’s not, for some it is.
If you have a family to support, kids to take care of, working 50 hours per week and you can’t get any supports from friends and family, with a schedule that only contributes 10 hours to learn and practice software development. I’m sorry to say that it’s going to be extremely difficult and most people give up before they reach the end of the tunnel.
If you can consistently invest quality time into doing this, age is not something that stops you from entering this industry. This is a skill-based career where the demand will consistently outgrow any other industry. In the future, every industry will be integrating with software one way or other in every single corner of planet earth. There could be some companies or culture that has age discrimination, but there are far more open doors than closed door.
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