Hi, all. I'm Will. I got my BS in CS in 2015 at the age of 41...and I'm not using it. I have about a year and a half of professional programming experience. A bad experience at my first programming job really shook my confidence. Rather than risk my family's status I'm working for half of a dev's starting salary as a marketing technical resource. But I want to code. It's time to get back into the swing of things. I'm looking for an active community to help me steer my learning, and hopefully pay it forward when I can help in return.
You didn't ask for advice, but it's worth keeping in mind that your experience outside of programming is just as valuable to the right company as it would be if you hadn't had a career detour. You might want to quantify the sorts of things you've worked on, but the ability to walk into an interview and show that you understand the "big picture" of how features are going to land with users (or how to find out) on top of being able to do the literal work is a big deal.
Welcome Will. Quick comment for you -- I went all through my career without the typical college degree. Last position I held was R&D Engineer in charge of making prototypes and walking new product through design, development and industry certification. Not terribly bad for an "uneducated" guy. Hint: It's not about your pedigree or lack of credentials; it's about NOT GIVING UP. If Engineering were easy, we'd all be in movies. It's often quite hard. There will always be personal and technical challenges that can tear you up and spit you out.
You only lose when you quit and tell yourself that you can't do it.
Take it from me, it's been VERY difficult for me to get jobs w/o a degree in the past, but when I landed them, I set out to win and keep winning by deciding that I would not give up and do whatever it took to learn / understand new things.
That was especially difficult for me back when I deliberately quit management and started a job as a contract engineer. I had a new home and an 18 month old daughter. Talk about stressful.
Here's the thing: Prayer, dedication and not giving up. Drop the distractions and go back, mister. You CAN do it.
Hey Will!! Welcome to Dev! Its time to get your confidence back because if you made all the way through your bachelors at your age, im sure you can get back on track and learn new things here! I've learned a ton from a site called Udemy. theres paid and free courses that cover all the necesary topic to get you started on any particular language! So start coding! and enjoy!
Hey don't fear, there are some who have been programming a lot longer and are still bad at their job. Some times it's their code, some times it's their attitude... at least you can fix the prior.
Stay humble, keep learning, be thankful and always look for little ways to make yourself useful (ideally by working some sort of programming into whatever job you have -- amazing how you can do that these days). I know you will go places. The fact you allowed your confidence to be shaken (rather than just blaming others) tells me you are just the kind of dev I want to be working with some day.
I am a Full stack .NET Developer, I like to work with C#, Asp.Net Core, SQL, Mongo DB, Azure, JavaScript...
Always eager to learn new technologies. I am here to share, ask & eventually learn.
Hi, all. I'm Will. I got my BS in CS in 2015 at the age of 41...and I'm not using it. I have about a year and a half of professional programming experience. A bad experience at my first programming job really shook my confidence. Rather than risk my family's status I'm working for half of a dev's starting salary as a marketing technical resource. But I want to code. It's time to get back into the swing of things. I'm looking for an active community to help me steer my learning, and hopefully pay it forward when I can help in return.
Good to see you here Will. "Age is just a number", we can all do wonders with enough conviction. Welcome to the world of devs!!!!
You didn't ask for advice, but it's worth keeping in mind that your experience outside of programming is just as valuable to the right company as it would be if you hadn't had a career detour. You might want to quantify the sorts of things you've worked on, but the ability to walk into an interview and show that you understand the "big picture" of how features are going to land with users (or how to find out) on top of being able to do the literal work is a big deal.
I am just starting coding for fun. I am sure with your experience, you will find what fits.
Welcome Will. Quick comment for you -- I went all through my career without the typical college degree. Last position I held was R&D Engineer in charge of making prototypes and walking new product through design, development and industry certification. Not terribly bad for an "uneducated" guy. Hint: It's not about your pedigree or lack of credentials; it's about NOT GIVING UP. If Engineering were easy, we'd all be in movies. It's often quite hard. There will always be personal and technical challenges that can tear you up and spit you out.
You only lose when you quit and tell yourself that you can't do it.
Take it from me, it's been VERY difficult for me to get jobs w/o a degree in the past, but when I landed them, I set out to win and keep winning by deciding that I would not give up and do whatever it took to learn / understand new things.
That was especially difficult for me back when I deliberately quit management and started a job as a contract engineer. I had a new home and an 18 month old daughter. Talk about stressful.
Here's the thing: Prayer, dedication and not giving up. Drop the distractions and go back, mister. You CAN do it.
Hey Will!! Welcome to Dev! Its time to get your confidence back because if you made all the way through your bachelors at your age, im sure you can get back on track and learn new things here! I've learned a ton from a site called Udemy. theres paid and free courses that cover all the necesary topic to get you started on any particular language! So start coding! and enjoy!
All the best!
Hello, Will! Keep everyday hustlin' youtube.com/watch?v=JU9TouRnO84
Hey don't fear, there are some who have been programming a lot longer and are still bad at their job. Some times it's their code, some times it's their attitude... at least you can fix the prior.
Stay humble, keep learning, be thankful and always look for little ways to make yourself useful (ideally by working some sort of programming into whatever job you have -- amazing how you can do that these days). I know you will go places. The fact you allowed your confidence to be shaken (rather than just blaming others) tells me you are just the kind of dev I want to be working with some day.
Hi Will, Welcome :) I hope You can Learn and Get a Job, EDX is free , UDEMY and PluralSight is paid.
Check below links to get started:
dev.to/thunderfury1208/it-is-never...
dev.to/tranbathanhtung/how-i-learn...
dev.to/codingtagofficial/top-15-we...
dev.to/nicolepdev/how-to-find-your...
dev.to/bosepchuk/how-to-crush-it-a...
dev.to/beznet/learning-code-while-...
dev.to/flippedcoding/how-to-get-yo...
Hope this helps.
All the best. 😄
this seems useful