There are plenty of self taught developers who switched from all types of careers including car mechanics. As long as you take the time to learn the skills and demonstrate that to an employer, then the job will take a chance on you and hire you.
The majority of the projects you build early on will be just for practice and that is totally fine. For now just focus on building up a good starting foundation to grow from and build small projects along the way.
Once you feel comfortable with the fundamentals and start pushing yourself to build more complex projects that take time to build, those will be the projects that you will want to show off to employers.
If you don’t like using twitter then you don’t have to.
That is just one way to get involved with the tech community and build up a network.
As for your employer catching wind of it, as long as you don’t have any posts that could signal reg flag type behavior, then you will be fine.
Github is for doing projects with other members. They call it crowdfunding, for free work to help others sometimes with their projects. It also is great for practice and networking.
Linkdin, also is great. The one thing I love about it is the recruit help. I found out from people who went to school for software engineering. This is a great thing about what we are learning to do. We have the opportunity to be able to have these people find us jobs.
Thank you so much for your tips and insight. I am working my way through the Responsive Web Design course after having taking HTML, CSS and PHP classes on Sololearn.
What prompted me to start using a resource such as freeCodeCamp was that I felt that I needed much more practice with what I had just learned elsewhere. So far so good. I find this site to really helpful.
I have just left the teaching industry and I am in the process of moving into to the tech field. My ultimate goal is to work in web development. I think that the more practice that I have the more that I will able to determine my specific area of interest.
My one small fear is that I will burn out before I get started, because taking these classes can be so isolating. Do you have any tips?
Maybe I could partake in physical ‘meetups’. This could help professionally and socially. Having a mentor could help too. When I was training to become a teacher, I found this to be invaluable. Also, maybe you tell me about your workflow that could really help. One of your tips that I will start using right away is the one about having a Twitter presence. I will add this to my daily workflow.
Make sure to stick to a consistent learning schedule that is reasonable with your work/life responsibilities. The biggest mistake people make is that they try to do to much in a short period of time because they really want to land their first job.
It is better to develop a consistent schedule of learning 1-2 hours a day then try to do 6 or 8+ hours a day and not be able to keep up with that and then get burned out. Everyone’s timetable is different. Some people have more time in the day to dedicate to studying while others have limited time. Just make sure to create a consistent schedule that works for you and take breaks while you are studying.
As for the isolating part, I would suggest participating in online programming groups and forums like this one. Answer questions and get involved with the conversations online. That will help with the networking aspect I talked about in earlier post in this thread. You will also quickly learn that roadblocks you face while learning also happen to plenty of new developers.
Meetups, whether it is digital or in person, are a great way to network.
As for mentorship, I believe that it works best when you build relationships with people over time and it naturally progresses into a mentor/mentee situation. That way they have had time to get to know you and see some of your work and progression. That is how it worked for me in my personal experience. There are sites where you can pay for mentorship. But you will have to make sure to carefully vet those sites because it can be costly.
I also have a question, with time frame? I was wondering how long usually it takes to let it set in. I am concerned, that I just won’t be able to further my skill. It seems like it is slowly coming to me. I just am not becoming more creative or able to see much result improvement. I was recommended along time ago form someone who tested me real quick on my capabilities.
Some people pick up things faster while others take longer. Take all of the time you need to learn well.
There is so much unnecessary noise online about how long it “should” take to get that first job. But when you start working for a company, you will quickly realize that no one cares how long it took you to learn how to code.
I have worked with people where it took them 4 years of learning before they started their first job while others it took 9 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc.
The only thing people care about on the job is if you add value to the team. If you work hard and help make the software product better, that is all that matters.
That is a very common feeling. This is hard stuff. If you train a runner, starting with an untrained runner, the greatest, fastest advances in their performance will be in the beginning. You are grabbing low lying fruit. The champions are the ones that keep at it, even when it gets harder.
In my experience, anyone with reasonable intelligence and aptitude can become a good coder. It’s just going to take hard work and it will take longer than you hope.
JWilkins,
Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed and insightful email. I think that you are 100 % correct with the importance of consistency. In the past being able to remain consistent has been my saving grace.
With your advice, I think what I will do is to fine tune my schedule and use my Clever Fox Planner as I have in the past. I am not working as in retraining therefore, I am treating this as a job spending between 4-5 hours a day learning and practicing HTML, CSS & PHP.
Lastly, your last comment about mentoring is spot on in that it must happen organically. I will keep this in mind.
I do have another question. I am not at this moment high in math classes. I have resources which I am starting with lower math textbooks. Is there any suggestion of which advance math I should be learning first. How far up, college wise. Regarding with JavaScript, Is it mostly what type of math also?
Can you specify what you mean by “finished FCC”? Finished FCC can imply that you finished everything from Responsive Web Design all the way down to Project Euler, and also how long did it take you to finish.
@jwilkins.oboe Please can you specify which developer communities to join. Especially communities that have the most impact in your life, because i am alone in my coding journey. I don’t have other developer friends to help me on my journing. Thank You
