The struggles of being a self-taught programmer in 2021
Being a self-taught programmer sounds fantastic. You can save so much money, I mean learning something as good and with such a high salary and job opportunities without even a university degree? That is probably too good to be true and as a matter of fact, it is. It is great but it definitely comes with its flaws. In this video I want to give my perspective of being a self-taught programmer and what that meant for me to start from 0 knowledge to being employeed as a software developer. The struggles of being a self-taught programmer.
Being self-taught doesn’t really give you any type of structure, what should I learn first? A hierarchy what is important, maybe this is more important than that language, maybe SQL can be postponed. There are courses online that have amazing curricula, everything is structured, you don’t have to think about anything, but if you rely too much on external sources you run the risk to become dependent. It is paramount that you develop a sort of independency, you can handle and manage things whatever they are. If you always wait for courses and tutorials to give you a good idea for a project, your projects won’t be very creative, everyone watching that course has done it. How could I stand out?
Standing out. At university, you might get to know several other students and collaborate on a project that is really complex, and in this example lies a piece of the answer: you gotta find other people. Reach out, look for other people who are learning and get to work on something together. There are tons of resources out there, if you look for them you can find them.
Getting your first job, now it depends on where you are in the world there are places where it is easier than others but almost everywhere you need to pass through that agonizing phase of sending applications, and you know your CV is not really great when you start. And that is harder for us self-taught. Students might feel like they got nothing to prove, there’s their degree for that, whereas self-taught know they must come on top somehow. It usually takes the form of a kick-ass portfolio, so tip right here, work on your portfolio religiously so that you have something to show, and you are proud of it, it also helps with imposter syndrome.
Internship, that is a big big big advantage for CS students. Imagine being a 20 yo student, working at Microsoft, or Bank of America for the summer. As self-taught, internships would mean a lot, but we don’t get to see them.
Networking is very important, and for students, it comes easier when you have a professor with decades of experience in the industry to tell you I know this guy, or I know another guy. Learn how to create a network because the chance of you stumbling upon a job is not very high.
One last thing is motivation: it sucks I know especially at the beginning when you are doing very basic stuff, printing hello world in 7 languages, or to-do apps. It can be frustrating because you see that guy who knows so much and talks about things you have no idea what they are. Also, working at companies can help you out because you get to know different people and different technologies, and that can really speed up the process.
So even if at the beginning you feel overwhelmed with information, frustration, don’t give up, just keep going get into the habit of putting in a few hours every day for coding and with time and patience, you’ll get to be an excellent developer. You might also get exposed naturally to certain topics because once you increase the level of difficulty of your projects and your learning, you’ll be exposed to increasingly difficult concepts.
So don’t despair keep going, we have all been there and as far as I am concerned knowing that my struggles are also other people struggles helped me to get through it, feeling I am not the only one, made me cope with what I was experiencing, and looking back at it right now, I don’t regret it one bit, I was right….and I love being right.
BeGeos
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