I’ve changed my career from environmental studies to be a developer in ServiceNow and a friend of mine advised me to start the FreeCodeCamp tutorial since it was free, super powerful and himself have done it.
I must say, I started just to do the Javascript course and now I’m going for the Full Stack Developer certification because the way these guys taught is simply amazing.
You might not believe, but thanks to freeCodeCamp (and a lot of self-taught/effort), I have now a solid career and a true passion, Programming/Coding. It literally changed my life, I went from being constantly worried about my future to study every day to be better because I truly love to learn more about this IT world.
I like to think that people that helped me achieve my daily happiness deserve to know that made a little difference in the world, in my world. So, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank these guys from Free Code Camp so much for giving this kind of knowledge for free with much more quality than many courses that I’ve seen out there online (and paid).
You guys can text me with any kind of question!
Best regards and all the luck in the world for you,
Besides the learning part, what else did you do afterwards?
Did you have a portfolio? How did you construct your resume?
How did you go about applying for work?
Hey @Pedr0Leite
Good job in taking some time to educate yourself!
You mentioned about your career if you don’t mind me asking, where do you work at the moment?
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That’s awesome! I’m self taught as well and it makes me feel good and confident to continue the self taught route. I’m going into uni soon for tech but love teaching myself as well. How long did it take you to get a job and did you take any college classes at all for code?
Can you give more details? How you got the job? Mostly they ask for experience. Did you have any kind of related IT experience before you got hired? How you started as a junior ? I d like to know more.
All your positive messages have been so amazing to me, I never had thought to have so many, this fills me with true joy and happiness!!
I’ll try to reply to some general questions:
-I started with very few programming experiences (mostly R, HTML, some basic CSS, and some basic JS) but with a tremendous will to learn and be valuable to the company!
-I didn’t have a portfolio, only a LinkedIn account and now I have my personal GitHub account here I put some playgrounds that I created to practice.
-I try to do a daily challenge (not forced at all, all by passion): Code, even if it’s only a few lines, every day! small steps are key.
-I work in multinational IT company in Portugal.
-I’m focusing now learning angularJS and nodeJS.
-I’ve been self-taught a bit throughout all my life but I truly started doing L-O-T-S of it when I decided I wanted a better life for myself, a good and well-paid career. My brother always gave me the motivation to start coding and I always thought it was too late for me… guess not! True programmer/developer here
-I started as a Junior.
-It reached a point where I was in a shitty internship/real-job and taking self classes every day, weekends including and I confess, you need a lot of motivation and will to do it… it’s hard guys but it’s not impossible!!
For those who are still at the university level: Python is an AWESOME programming language to start, is easy to understand and gives you a lot of use in university projects, I wish I had started with python instead of R, ufff! And, I will repeat this because it’s important, small steps are key. Start with introduction courses and do lots of mini-projects to train what you learned, don’t just do courses, practice is also very important.
Again, thank you very much for all your replies, we have to support each other if we want to be succeeded.
I’m really happy to know that my story motivated other people, literally made my week.
If you have any questions, and I’m capable to answer, please, let me know!!
thank you so much Pedro, i have a question here. So i am a university student and this is my very first time in this coding world with codecamp, i saw in your messege you said for university students you recommend starting with Python, so as i’ve said this is my first encounter with coding and now i am busy with basics of HTML and CSS here at freecodecamp do you think i should leave HTML and CSS and start with Python?
Hello there, I am a university student too learning how to code here at freecodecamp. I remember i started off with c++ until i realized that coding languages are merely tools to accomplish a given task. What do you want to achieve with the knowledge you will get from coding? You can’t use a hammer to dig in your back yard, right?
First establish the purpose of your learnt knowledge and get to learn appropriately. However i believe Python is a multipurpose language and can work for a variety of processes and functions and it is totally easier. With this knowledge, do your research and see what works for you
I’m really sad to know that, it really sucks…
Well, I think knowledge it’s way more important than a certificate. The things you do and know should be way more important than having a piece of “paper” saying that you know something.
But we both live in a country where certificates might help you have a better chance to find a better job, of course.
To be honest, I had only a few certificates, but I payed one month on another site (Codecademy) to do one intensive JavaScript course and I said that in the interview. Guess they liked to know I was trying hard to enter the company and I was a self-taught person with attitude. But to be honest, If I knew FreeCodeCamp back there, I would prefer it!
IT companies love to hire people that have soft skills and a string will to learn new things. So don’t let you go down, make a super awesome CV and start RIGHT NOW sending like 10-20cv per day.
Also, and this is a personal opinion, I’m from the north and I had to try my chance in the south, where the job opportunities are way bigger. Just a tip…
Keep up with the good work, invest some time on the FreeCodeCamp courses that are amazing and gives you one real certificate. And it’s a good one because you don’t receive it just buy watching all classes, you have to prove you know how to do things and, I think, companies take that in consideration too.
thank you so much for the nice reply.
yes im sending some CV, but in my old job, i was aftersales manager and team leader, so im trying to learn code and put some food in the table at same time with two litle kids.
Im from Castelo Branco, Portugal.