Best route to take become a full stack web dev

Hi guys,

Let me tell you a little bit about myself, my name is Luke and I am from Manchester.

I am currently an electrician (self employed) and it’s ok, but I really want a career that allows me to work remotely so, I decided I want to become a web developer. (currently trying to train myself)

I am currently reading Jon Duckett’s books and I am signed up to (freecode camp) while also doing a udemy full stack course. But I feel like it just isn’t going in.

So I looked for a training company to see if I could get some form of recognised certificate and trained up, I stumbled upon (the training room) but they want £2850 for 4 certificates in html5, css3, javascript associate, and React. Certs awording body is (CIW) is this recognised? Has anyone used this company, and is it worth it? or is it just a con!.
Should I just continue with free code camp and solo learn, also the udemy courses, and the books. And build my knowledge myself.

I’m kind of lost as to what actual direction to take any help/advice would be appreciated.

Hi Luke

I’ve not used them but when I was looking for jobs in Manchester last year, a lot of recruitment sites were spammed with ‘Trainee [insert any/every IT role here]’ listings by The Training Room. Add this to what you’ve said, sounds a bit dodgy.

I’m self learning around my current job too (CS50 and FCC), my understanding is that formal certificates don’t really matter in web development - it’s more about your experience, which you can demonstrate through a portfolio/projects/github. You’ll find huge amounts of resources on this forum and elsewhere, I found the P1xt guides to be a good starting point.

Another option is bootcamp, I think northcoders look pretty good but is quite pricey at £6k.

I’m currently debating whether to carry on the slow and steady self learning route or whether to invest in a bootcamp… not an easy choice!

Best of luck on your journey.

You want to be a full stack web dev, then go try to be one.
Go try to build a full stack app right now and see how far you get. It doesn’t matter what the app is about, its all about how you build it and what you find out about yourself. If you start, and instantly get stuck, then that’s the first thing you go out and learn, and find answers for.

As @PorkPiePanda said, formal certificates don’t matter. If I was a hiring manager for a full stack web dev would I hire the person who took 5 full stack dev courses, but has an empty portfolio? Or the person who has build 2 full stack web app by themselves?

Courses, training, certificates are all fine, but they don’t teach you anything per say. They will tell you what you can learn, and how it can be used, but you don’t gain any experience form doing them. The only way to get experience is to go out and get it.

Luckily, all you need is time, grit and an internet connection. Most tools are free, and there’s tons of free resources to help you when you get stuck. The only thing you need to provide is time and git. You need time to spend on learning as you go, finding solutions to problems you run into, and expanding how much you know. You need grit to stick with it even when the going gets rough. Odds are you will get stuck, but the only way you “lose” is if you really give up. :smile:

You can start with your own project, or FreeCodeCamps, it isn’t the course/project that matters, it the act of doing it that does :smile:

Good luck and keep building :smile:

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Certificates are worth precisely nothing, nada, zilch. Not in web dev land. The only certificates with any clout in the industry are in the fields of devops, networking, security and databases, such those by AWS, CompTIA, Microsoft etc.

If this sounds like bad news, it actually isn’t. Web development is a well-paid professional career that you can get into without any kind of formal certification process. That’s almost unique.

All you need is well-presented portfolio of web apps, the source code in a public repo on GitHub, and a plan to make it happen.