Where to start? What to learn?

Career Advice
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Hi, I’m new here and i wanted a little bit of help on deciding what to do?
I’m a 32 years old Communication Engineering Graduate … but unfortunately i haven’t worked in my field since i graduated for 9 years now … i’ve been working as an English Teacher/Team leader and Office manager for the past 9 years … we make English educational books … so … it has nothing with engineering sadly xDD

Lately i’ve been wondering if this is it for me and i actually wanted to go into a career where i can grow up … since now … there is nothing more to do and i’m stuck financially…

anyway i studied CCNA back in 2012 … never got to work with …
and the reason i’m thinking of going into development either web development or maybe Android development is that working in Networking actually need hands on experience with the gadgets … and it’s kinda hard to find a job with 0 experience and 32 years old in my country (Egypt)

So i thought about development

My question is …

Web development either front or back or even full stack?
Or Android development and then IOS or maybe even Xamarin?!

I don’t know which one i’ll be good at … i started with a little bit of HTML i found it pretty easy … i also tried a bit of Java and also found it kinda easy … so i need a little bit of help here

what do you think i should go with? which one has the bigger market maybe?
and if so? what to do where to start? I know Android i’ll have to start with either Java or Kotlin … and web development i’ll have to start with HTMl, CSS and Java Sc

p.s.
I don’t think i’ll be very good at designing tho … it needs a certain skill to be a designer and make attractive stuff … and i don’t think that’s me

thanx for reading and sorry for the long topic >< and appreciate your help :slight_smile:

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Regardless of what type of development you want to do, at this point I would recommend starting at the beginning of FCC and progressing through it. FCC is much more structured, comprehensive, supportive, and free than any other programming education platform. Many of the difficult things to learn are not language specific and the core skills translate across languages and frameworks.

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Maybe start learning both web dev and mobile dev sorta in parallel until you can build some small projects with them? Actually working with the languages in a project may give you a better sense of which you enjoy more :slight_smile: There is one particular language that I built a sizable project for that I wouldn’t work with again if you paid me haha.

If you’re looking at this from more of an employability angle, maybe check out this or similar posts?

If you decide to go with web dev, I think FCC is a great resource :smile: . I especially like the fact that it has everything laid out nicely step-by-step in terms of what to learn.

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First of all thanx a lot for the reply
i really appreciate it :slight_smile:
So trying both is the what i should do… learning Java for android apps and HTML, CSS and Java sc as a start for front end web development …
but wouldn’t that take a lot of time?
or do you think either way if i learned both it would pay off later? like if i found a job in Android app development knowing html, css and java script will be a plus and will help me?
and vice versa if i found web developing the Java i learnt might help with back end development (i guess java is used in back end right?!)?

Tell me what do you think please?

and again, really appreciate your reply thanx

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“But would that take a lot of time?”

Its not something that is going to come in the first few weeks if that’s what you are thinking. It’s going to take longer than a few months at least, and if you are wanting to be good enough to get a job in that field it’s going to be longer than that. If you are looking to do back end you can always learn node.js which is JavaScript for the backend. This is something that you are going to have to be dedicated to if this is a serious thought. Spending several hours a day outside of work, and just sitting down and coding. Honestly this is something you have to have a passion for or it’s just going to be a headache…not to sound negative. I have an associate and a few certificates from school, and I’m still even spending several hours a day just going through material.

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i really want to do it yeah and i am planning to dedicate 3 hours a day after work and maybe more on the weekends
and a question
if node.js is essentially java sc

what about Java which is used in android development
would it also be used in web development?! or not … if not then maybe i should decide first which path to go into Java and Android development or HTML and the rest and go We developing

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Just saw this, hopefully you got your answer. Yes java can be used in web development

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One option, if you want to do both web and mobile at the same time is to learn ReactJS for web and React Native for mobile. They are similar in ways that Java and JavaScript are not, so you can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

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I don’t understand why people are recommending to learn everything all at once.
Frontend and backend each are completely different for web.
Android development is completely different
IOS is even more different since the language it uses and the tools are only for that specific OS.

You are a beginner. One of the worst possible things you can do is to learn multiple languages at once. Trust me…I know.

If you want to go into Web development, my advice is to start either front end or back end and NOT both at the same time.

In web development, you have a great job market waiting for you and it’s easier to get employed. Why? because not only you can build websites with the languages you will learn, but you can also develop emails or progressive web apps which is one of the most demanding job market currently because a web app is able to work on all platforms without coding for Android and IOS separately which requires alot, and I mean alot of time to learn both.

My advice for you is this, learn web development first. It’s easier to get into and faster to get employed. Start with front-end. You don’t need to be a designer. You just need to be able to know how to convert designs from designers into code. That means learning the following:
HTML/CSS/Bootstrap/JS/JQuery
Those are great languages to start with. One you’re able to develop a complete front end of a website using those languages with other tools and frameworks as well, THEN and only then jump into backend. Which means PHP/SQL and so on.

If you want to make your self even more desirable by the job market, learn either React or Angular. Both are front end frameworks that dominate the PWA (progressive web apps). Having learned one of those or both is a great skill these days. Specially if you combined state management with it. However, don’t start learning them unless you are an intermediate in the front end languages I mentioned above.

If you want to get into Android development. Learn only the languages and tools required for that specific OS. DON"T mix it with IOS.

That’s my advice to you. And I hope you really consider it. I started off by wanting to learn everything at once. Months went by and I only learned pieces of each languages which are not enough to build anything or to even get hired. Companies don’t look for quantity, they look for quality. After failing months, I finally focused on Frontend only and I got hired. Within my front end job I’m learning backend as well and in the future, React.

Learn languages that relate to each other.

Here’s a great article that tells you what you need to learn in either front end or back end