Hey there, hope I’m posting in the right place and this isn’t too out of the ordinary.
(Tldr: what educational opptions, preferably online and with direct instruction, would you recommend for someone who has some knowledge of kotlin, Python, html+JavaScript+css, Linux/unix and some cloud stuff but needs a refresher and wants some kind of certification or strong networking/job search support? Cost will be subsidized so does not need to be free but needs to be as affordable as possible to increase likelihood of approval)
My name’s Jack, I’m an older person at 39 and am trying to find a pathway into an IT career, preferably one where I can be programing and developing/problem solving most of my working time. My experience level is just past beginner, I attended a session of the now defunct/renamed Lambda school (an online code camp) for Android/kotlin development which also had aprox ww6 weeks in Python and general web development, I also have many years of personal experimentation and am quite comfortable with Linux/unix systems, some cloud technologies and general object oriented and to a lesser extent, functional programming patterns.
My biggest hurdle is I have no certificates or real proof of any of my skills, lambda became really toxic and I stopped before finishing after they canceled their android program and fired all of the instructors I had been working with. Further, after this I ended up getting quite sick in 2020 and after my health worsening for a while became very depressed and persued
federal disability. This, for better or worse, was denied after appeal late last year as my health has improved some (which is a blessing!) and so I am now working with the federal vocational rehabilitation program to try to get my career started.
The vocational rehab folks are great, and I can get funding for further training/certifications/code camps but unfortunately they aren’t very knowledgeable about how to assist someone like me, so, the bottom line question is: does anyone have any good suggestions? If there’s a program, in person or online, that would allow me to have a better chance at breaking into the industry, I have the opportunity to get tuition funded providing it’s within some reasonable amount – they haven’t given me a ballpark but I’m estimating sub 10k at the upper end and likely sub 5k USD. I would love to do something that isn’t web development, i.e. developing using something besides JavaScript (I really like kotlin still, but python is solid imho, I would prefer anything with a strong type system if at all possible, C# looks really attractive. Just not keen on JavaScript for idiosyncratic reasons) – but with that said, I’m mostly interested in getting some certification in under 6 months and trying to get employed in some similar timeframe.
I’m also willing to bet many of you have been in similar situations without funding or time and have maybe bootstrapped your way into employment by completing examples projects of some such? Any thoughts there? To be honest I really want to find somewhere I can learn and network, somewhere I can get some instruction to get myself less rusty and get back in the game.
Anyway thanks to anyone who read all that and thank you so much for any advice as googling has left me with a lot of websites of companies that promise a lot… But having been burned in the past, I’m eager to at least here from some humans what their experiences have been or perhaps I’m thinking about this whole situation wrong, if so, please set me straight!