Hi! I’m a 25yo civil engineer not happy with my profession. I dit not identify myself doing this professionally.
In my graduation, I had some classes of Programing (Portugol/Pascalzim, a brazilian language I think), Statistics and Calculus of course, so I think I have a nice foundation to start studying for programing in a professional way.
I’ve always had the urge to learn Python, BUT I don’t know if its the right way to start and If I will be frustrated or overwhelmed.
I don’t have any preferences of languages, or if i want back or front end (i’m really starting planing today).
Python is propably one of the easiest langauges to learn and still very powerful.
While it will teach you some “wrong” concepts, I’d say if you ever come to need the right way, it’s not to hard to pick up later on and the fact you can relativly easy get working programs in Python is much more motivating for the start, than having to think about every nook and cranny of how a computer-memory works.
Though FCC focuses on JavaScript for the start. Which is very similar to Python, so no big deal. The language doesn’t really matter, the core concepts are the same everywhere (there are exceptions but those are exceptionally rare used in the working world).
As an engeneer, I’d assume you got the technical knowhow and intelligence to quickly grasp programming. So that shouldn’t be an issue. Statistics and Calculus might not come into handy all to much, unless you got into something like DataAnalytics or DataScience. But computers are math-machines, so understanding these concepts certainly doesn’t hurt. As I’m no engeneer myself, no idea if there are some programming applications where you could use your previous professional knowledge.
If you don’t know where to go, the FCC curriculum is a good start. It covers a lot of ground, gives some decently advanced knowledge in a lot of fields and if you don’t know where you want to go now, just try it all out. It’s free after all
And as you are just starting out, it’s better to try out different things instead of just blind-guessing which direction to go.
You have nothing to lose by trying. If you hate it, you can stop.
Python is a fairly common first language for people to learn. There are some reasons why I don’t think it’s the best place to start, but if it’s what resonates with you than go for it. I often recommend people start with web programming primarily because I think that you can find so many more free and good resources for learning web programming (of which freeCodeCamp is a great example).
I’m 24 yeas old, also work in engineering field as Mechanical Design Engineer. After 3 years of experience and BS degree from top University in my country also not happy with my career and opportunity that I have.
