Real world programming involves a complex set of skills. I doubt anyone (or at least very few) are born with them all in excess. Math skills, algorithmic thinking, design, error detection, longterm planning, documentation, logical thinking, multitasking, researching, test devising, remembering various libraries, etc. No one has them all in spades. But with hard work, most can learn them sufficiently.
And not everyone that comes to FCC is looking for a job. Some just want to learn something new. Some just want to try it out. Some want to learn enough to make their own simple site.
I know the feeling of “I just need to learn HTML, CSS, and JS and then I’ll be … wait, what the crap is all this other stuff?!?” I liken it to climbing a mountain and you think you see the peak, but when you get there you see that it was a false peak and the next is farther ahead. But when you get there…
Is that FCC’s fault? Or is it our fault for assuming this would be a quick and easy fix? Many people look at web dev and think “I’ll just study this for a year part-time and then I’ll land a six-figure job.” But was that a reasonable expectation? Is there any other field where that would be a possible? Not even close. It also defies basic economics. The fact that web dev jobs pay so well is evidence that it is difficult to learn.
Some people have deluded themselves into thinking that it is a quick fix. (And I might have been guilty of a bit of that myself.) Is it FCC’s job to lead a crusade to disabuse people of their delusions about what web dev is and what it takes to become one? I don’t think so. There are a lot of people with that unreasonable expectation. A simple search of several forums that will find many questions along the line of “What’s the bare minimum I need to learn to get one of those great web dev jobs?” or “How long until I get a $100k job?”
It’s a collective delusion. It is a symptom of our “easy solution” and “get rich quick” culture. As a music teacher I see it all the time there too, “How much do I have to practice to get good?” I get a lot of students that stop lessons after a few months when they realize that it’s going to take years of practice.
None of that is FCC’s fault. None of it was created by FCC. None of it is the responsibility of FCC to combat. Unlike a lot of bootcamp’s that exploit this for great financial gain, FCC offers it’s tutelage for free.
I’m not trying to come down on the OP. It’s a fair question. This is hard. It’s going to take work. It’s going to take longer than we thought. We’re going to have to learn some new skills, some of which may not come naturally to us. We’re going to have to be creative. We’re going to have to fight the urge to give up. We’re going to have to have patience. We’re going to be outside our comfort zone. But anything worth having is worth fighting for.
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