Need some guidance please

[ImagoDaruma]

Hello,

im at this point of my life that I can see that I need to make a change before it is too late and my life will take the normal boring 9-5 that I dont like for the rest of my life.

I will bore you a bit with my boring life story with the hope that it will help you to understand where im going with this thread

I always had an interest in understanding how things work (people, machines, etc) I remember loving taking stuff apart and trying to put them back together, trying and sometimes succeeding in fixing old electronics like VSR players and other small gadgets.
When I was in high school I took a computer class as my elective course. At the time we “learned” (will explain why “”) about basic assembler, the next year pascal (which we decided to change to JAVA halfway through the semester, part of where my issue started). The reason that I wrote “learned” before was that by the end of the semester I know more about my teacher’s love life and how smart he and his family are than I know how to use JAVA.

I don’t want to blame everything on him and on the fact that when I was in high school we didn’t have anything even close to freecodecamp or guides on youtube; FB just came out then!
I was never the best in math (again didnt have the best teacher… Used to call us useless and that nothing will come out of us, and his Hebrew wasn’t the best).
I remember that even though my understanding of JAVA was not the best, I really liked doing it, wanted to learn more and get the big picture of how it all comes together.

Afterwards I spent 3 years in the army and then working and traveling, and living in europe. I saw the growing popularity of coding, the rise of tech startups and understood that this is the future and this is where I want to be.
Currently I’m working on finally getting a bachelor’s degree (was supposed to major in informatics but my luck is so good that this major got cancelled, and changed to an only master degree, after I already paid) in Business economics and management, and starting my third semester in a month.
Had a basic HTML course which I passed with an A but didn’t really like it, and a Pascal course which I also passed with an A. As I remembered some basic programming topics from my high school JAVA class, it was not a problem for me to get the topic. While working on it I remembered why I like programming, as it has a lot to do with taking a problem, breaking it apart into smaller topics, solving each one, thinking beforehand how I can solve the problem even without using programming language at all, and after finishing it and making the code working, thinking about possible inputs that might result in errors on the user side or might create an infinite loop.
Doing that made me realize that I am something I like doing

I know what I’m going to say now might sound like an excuse BUT I could never understand how to start coding, which language does what, and most important for this thread WHICH PATH SHOULD I TAKE and how to know which career will fit me the best.

I would really love your help in this topic. I read a lot about what are the uses of each language but don’t really understand what it means and if it is what will fit me and will give me the most joy and/or love and interest in the career it will finally lead to.
If you could, would it be possible to give me a bit more knowledge on the topics (in the attached screenshot), and if from my self-description above you think you understood which path will be the best for me and recommend it to me. Is there any career that combines business economics and programming? It’s not a must, as I would prefer to do something fully focused on programming. But it could be plan B.

The only thing that I know is that I don’t want to be a web designer, that is the only topic I can definitely remove from that list.

I also only have time to work on programming only on weekends and between semesters for the next two hours. How likely is it that I can progress enough to get a position in the field?
Again thank you very much in advance for reading my boring life story and for any possible help that you could provide me with.

Thank you, everybody

[AndyG]

Hello @ImagoDaruma

@ImagoDaruma

most important for this thread WHICH PATH SHOULD I TAKE and how to know which career will fit me the best.

This is an important distinction that everyone must made at the beginning. The positive side is that you already have found the correct question.

@ImagoDaruma

If you could, would it be possible to give me a bit more knowledge on the topics (in the attached screenshot)

I could not find the screenshot. But I will try to give you some advice.
First of all I also majored in Economics (more ‘general’ economics) And I have worked in finance. So I could say by experience that is a career that open to you many paths, in government, consulting, statistics, etc etc etc.
But… The tricky situation is How to be outstanding? What differentiates you? It has not necessarily to be coding. Many people have very good “interpersonal” skills and do well in Politics. Others have Communications Skills, others Project Management, others are oriented to Teaching and other are more Quantitative oriented.
Based on what you have written, the most fitting path would be data analysis (not too much data science or ML since they require more Stats and Maths.)
In addition, there are alternative paths that have great monetary benefits, but it may imply to you a more broad career change.
Backend Development.

The Best Way to Learn Backend Web Development

Cibersecurity;

How to Get a Cybersecurity Job in 2021

Where to start? Well, this is my personal advice, but Python is a common language and is used in Data Analysis, Backend and Cibersecurity. So its a very good start.

But my first suggestion is to search something very close to your major.

@ImagoDaruma

Is there any career that combines business economics and programming?

Yes many. Data Analyst, Data Scientist, Quant , Financial Trader, and Cryptocurrency careers for example.
Hope this helps

[aaronmccollum]

I think you and I are around the same age and have similar experiences. freeCodeCamp was not around when I was in high school, but oh how I wish it was! I’m also still in that stage where I don’t exactly know which path I want to take, although I am leaning towards web developer.

A few things I’d encourage you with:

1. fCC specializes with JavaScript and Python. They are two of the most popular languages and knowing them can lead to a lot of things. You can learn them on a structured path for free, spending nothing more than your time.

2. It will take a lot of work if you are self-teaching yourself but it is not impossible. I don’t want to put a specific time frame on how long it will take you to progress to get a position, since everyone’s story is unique. But for reference, fCC courses state they take about 300 hours to complete. If you go the Python route, that’s 1200 hours (approx.) of work. But you can do it!

3. Explore! See what you like. Try JavaScript, try Python, heck try Ruby. Ruby can be a lot of fun. fCC and other places allow you free or cheap methods of learning (something that would have been really important for me when I was in college).

Let me know if I can be of any help!

[ImagoDaruma]

Hi, thank you very much for your reply.
The screenshot I meant is this one :

[AndyG]

You can take scientific computing with python, and then data analysis.

[ImagoDaruma]

Do you mean Scientific Computing with Python and then Data Analysis with Python? thank you

[AndyG]

Yes, exactly. If you want to be a data analyst.

[michaelnicol]

@ImagoDaruma

While working on it I remembered why I like programming, as it has a lot to do with taking a problem, breaking it apart into smaller topics, solving each one, thinking beforehand how I can solve the problem even without using programming language at all, and after finishing it and making the code working, thinking about possible inputs that might result in errors on the user side or might create an infinite loop.
Doing that made me realize that I am something I like doing

This is a very good sign that you like programming. You care about the core of programming which is problem solving. This is why programming doesn’t make me bored, because you can always learn something.

@ImagoDaruma

I was never the best in math (again didnt have the best teacher… Used to call us useless and that nothing will come out of us, and his Hebrew wasn’t the best).

Math and programming do have some similar concepts. Both have complex problem solving and require breaking down of the problem. However, programming and math have two different purposes that allow programming to have many built in functions. Math seems to model our real world while programming creates our own virtual world that is built easiest for us to understand.

@ImagoDaruma

The only thing that I know is that I don’t want to be a web designer, that is the only topic I can definitely remove from that list.

Learning the basics of front end development would help. Building your own webpages to show off your back end projects would make a nice portfolio to show that you are a well rounded programmer. Even if the webpages are very basic, knowledge of how front end works might assist you in understand backend.