1) I was a Dominos delivery driver for waaaaaay too long. 2) I taught myself code. 3) I did some cheap freelance work. 4) I built one really good interactive photography site for a photographer. I did this one for free. 5) Somebody in Silicon valley saw the site and flew me out for an interview. 6) I didn't get the job in Silicon valley and came back home crushed. 7) I blasted out tons of resumes. 8) I got my first job and never looked back. You can do it! * Side note: At interviews I never talked about my lack of education and not one person even asked. Nobody cared. They just looked at my work.
It all comes down to how much you want it? Forget binging on Netflix, going out for "drinks". Just start doing. 🔥💯🔥💯 When's the best time to start? It's NOW! 😉
The answer is no. I saved you 13 minutes. I have a cs degree and no job for 8 months still. Practice your algorithms, leetcode, hackerrank, soft skills, and get a job in the meantime. School is pointless.
Joseph Jones I'm self teaching myself code. I already have 2 diplomas in technology(went to TAFE) equivalent to college I'd say. it's 1 level below university. both with distinction grades >83% average mark across my ranked subjects. I can't get a job in information technology as I'm not skilled enough by these so called recuiters and there not even aussie but foreign. you cannot beat these recuiters unfortunately because they practically dominate 99% of the IT job roles. they only hire their own or foreign workers that are cheap labour. so I'm learning code to make my own apps and sell them.
Programming is not the same as computer science. If you want to program you can certainly teach yourself like I did, just reading books and doing courses but it's not at all the same as having a computer science degree (which not having hurt me a lot when looking for a job overseas). Architecture, algorithms, compilers, how computers work isn't something that is covered by intermediate coding courses.
One thing that always seems omitted in these types of videos is the types of jobs you can potentially get being self taught or going the boot camp route. These people are all web developer arguably one of the easier types of developer jobs in the field. Nothing wrong with that but it does not give you the background to do some of the other more intense (and cooler in my opinion) stuff like algorithmic trading for a big bank or hedge fund, the software behind making rockets fly and land, how to get a self driving car to actually drive itself, operating systems, cyber security. Not saying you cant get those types of jobs by being self taught but it is almost impossibly harder going the self taught route for those fields then just say being a really good CS student and doing a Bachelors in 4 years or a BS-MS combo in 5 years.
I have a CS and masters degrees neither of which taught me that much about coding. I learnt far more through self-teaching. Preethi makes a good point about developing evidence of your work. Employers want to see examples of work far more than a piece of paper.
I think that shouldn't be hard when you're going through your degree. You have a lot of opportunity to build that evidence of work from the various projects you do.
If you want to be a CS professor or work on pushing the envelope of knowledge in the field, then go for it. But if all you want is a programming job then there are faster and more effective ways of breaking into the programming "profession".
Couldn't agree more. I have a STEM related degree, but it is not a CS degree. I have been working as a software developer for 18 years, and I am largely self taught. I was lucky because I had good mentors. I also joined a user group, and learned a lot from fellow developers.
I have to disagree with the comments here. Some people like me prefer to learn in front of a teacher to be able to ask questions, better explanations, etc. Also, the friends you meet at uni might be in your life forever. You make lots of connexions and you learn much more than just basic stuffs. I have to say I live in Canada so uni is only about 300$ per class
I worked in Oracle I worked in HSBC for 6 years in total . I will say u definitely need degree but you should have a purpose that is what you want to learn example Machine Learning / Artificial intelligence / Computer Vision / self driving vehicle etc . You cannot learn it on internet . You need an experienced professor to work with to make your degree meaningful.
@@SandyRocks007 Labs for 'research' Those labs can be your home desktop with a good gpu or you can hire one on a hourly basis from AWS Google Colab offers a gpu for their instance
You don't need to go to a college to learn the stuff tgat you mentioned. These days there is tons of free info on youtube, free code camp, coursera, etc
If you watched this video 6 years ago and made the decision to go back to school you would rn have the degree and a masters on top! If you’re reading this now, go back to school if you can afford it.
practical experience is by far more beneficial than a degree. Contradictory to that is how HR departments will use a degree as a way to sort our resumes. There are a few good ways to get around this. 1. Make your own interview. Hand deliver your application to an HR manager and strike up a conversation about the company. Your physical presence will make you stand out far more than a piece of paper. 2. Award yourself a degree. Check with a few colleges to make sure your experience includes the majority of their curriculum (minus the math and general study courses). If everything checks out, look into awarding yourself a degree. There are legal ways to do this. 3. WGU.edu. Western Governors University has an online, self paced, Software Development degree. With prior knowledge and experience you can get your degree in a year or less.
Seven Pie Dr. Roger Schank, PhD has spoken and written a lot over several decades about the problems with the mismatch between degrees and experiential learning. The Universities have been out of syc with society for many decades. I owned a company years ago where I was legally required to have a PhD on staff to oversee and accept responsibility for certain work. I've also worked with Engineers and contractors within a regulated system of licensing. I have also seen people with advanced degrees from foreign countries working as janitors at fast food places. It only takes a misplaced decimal or comma to crash a spacecraft or cause a medical device to malfunction. If there are too many accidents, people start demanding certification, accredited training institutions, etc.
I never liked the term "coding" to mean anything other than working with static/markup languages like HTML, CSS, JS, and the like. Speaking of terms, I heard the term "Software Engineer" has been deprecated, since it didn't really match other tech areas like engineering, where you literally need a license to earn the title of Engineer. .
There is actually not a competition and never was. If you want to do something just go and do it. What would you be doing if your whole life food supply is secure ? Do that
If you don't go to the college you will be tide to the same time of jobs positions for years. If you don't go to the college you won't be able to work in other countries, because countries have laws and they require you to have a degree according your position to emigrate. If you don't go to the college you will learn how to write code, but you won't have the engineer background profile, and you will always be in disadvantage when competing to a good job position. You can skip the college if you want to start your own business, but not if you want to work for a company.
College is overrated. There are better courses online than a lot of the CS classes. I figured a good teacher is all that matters. Find a good teacher online.
That's very well put. It If you have a chance (time/money/etc) go get a degree -it only helps. But if you cannot afford to get a degree then be willing to put in passion and hard work and lots of time and nothing will stop you. Eventually you will have something real to show off and some knowledge to back up your skills during an interview. Be humble, honest and have something to support your claim that you are ready to work as a programmer. Also don't forget that even a CS degree is just a start and you'll have to put in hard work to expand your knowledge, be competitive and stay relevant. Bottom line IMHO is if you don't like it after a few months then just look for something else cause you won't have enough strength to do it for many years and it becomes really rewarding discipline after many years of hard work IMHO.
I'm an automation engineer with a bachelors in mechanical engineering. I considered getting a masters in computer science but like said I'm not trying to go down student loan route again
It's recommended to get a Degree and not must but my suggestion is that, if you have the money and the time and patience then get one and it will surely help. And better yet that it will be what you needed to get to the Job easier and meet alots of awesome people.
If you are already working in the field, I would not go back to school for a degree. Time spent working in the field beats time spent in college. If you haven't started in the field then college can help get in.
This video is a bit old, but unless you get into a top school for computer engineering don't waste your time. My local university only teaches in C++, which will not get you a job these days. Is it nice to know C++? Sure, but chances are college didn't make you fluent in it, thus the unproductive junior programmers. You can learn Python, SQL, C# on your own and you will be employable. The key is to make some apps or websites and create a portfolio. Companies want to see that you can do it, nobody cares about your degree, although they do look good on a resume. If you are not getting call backs, look at your resume, is it full of unrelated job experience, or your program languages and projects?
I went college for computer science, did maybe 70% of the course, dropped off, got a full time developer job (which I still have), went back to college and dropped off again! CS is boring as hell! |o|
Interesting, how was the interview process for your developer job? I am in the same boat in the beginning, I did like 75% of college for electrical engineering but dropped out lol cause I got bored and find coding much more rewarding. College is outdated and overpriced.
At the time they were looking for an Android Developer and I had done some apps for fun. In the interview I've shown one of the apps I did (which wasn't very good), and told them how I did it. There weren't many personal questions and everyone was nice. I left college because I needed money, when I had money to go back to college I needed time. I got really depressed and stressed because I couldn't handle both the job and college. Anyway...I kept the job instead.
Might be worth checking out Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2017 (link below) for some insight that might help you make a decision. It has an education results section. I believe it's super-important to have a solid grasp of coding concepts that are language-agnostic, such as algorithm design and analysis (Big O notation etc), data structures and elements from complexity theory in general. Being able to have meaningful discussions with peers and interviewers about these topics regardless of the coding language will impress more than knowledge of any particular language or framework. Many of the good interviews will have you explaining your thought process as you work through a given problem long before being required to tap away at a keyboard in the language of choice. insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017
Well, 25% have no degree whatsoever and from those that have a degree 25% have a non "computers" related degree. Those numbers might be considered small but they are actually huge. In theory, you have 1 in 4 chances to become as successful as someone that has decades worth of higher education. Those odds are extremely good actually. Of course it all comes down to how good a learner you are as 90% of devs are self-taught to some degree.
This is sound advice, I myself had some doubts and was on the fence about going back to college after dropping out due to life circumstances. thank you for this video.
I did bachelors in civil engineering. Liked nothing about civil engineering. I worked as architect for my dad who owns some trucks and few excavators and is trying to run a construction company. But he has no idea about good architecture and bad architecture. All he wanted was meeting the formality in as cheap price as possible. And on top of that the government engineers are making it hard for the non-government engineers to do this job by delaying and giving problems in approval process and persuading the clients to give them the projects instead or pay high amount of bribe to approve the design and construction works. I can't get work any more. Now I am studying Msc. in structural engineering. But I don't think I can do this anymore. So I am thinking of switching my profession. I want to get into computer programming. Your insight was very helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you for the video! It’s hard when you are the only one in your friends with a specific goal. I have a bachelor degree in nursing, and I’m doing a graduate diploma in digital health. I want to work in the development oh health technologies for space ( I already work in the implementation of health tech in clinical settings and work in clinical informatics). And, I want to go back and do a computer science degree to complete the loop of my clinical side, the management side and the tech side in order to get the type of job I have. Jobs working in the development of health tech requires always a comps sci or eng. Degree. My profile is too clinical… and to work in the space industry, they like when you have many skills…! So there is my question! Should I do it? I’m participating in the canadian space agency challenge to create a health tech for astronauts, I’m part of a space health team in the experimental biotechnology team… so Being there I see they all are eng. Or comp. sci. Persons…! I know My clinical side is super helpful, but I have limitations with the building of the tech!
Engineering mindset is where it's at. I know some friends who were so entrepreneurial and pragmatic in their thinking until they got a job. Then they turned back into consumers. They probably aren't going to stay that way. I'm not condemning anyone to being lazier (not lazy) once they find a job. But the engineering mindset is very powerful, and the doors opened by STEM and math degrees are many many many! With ADHD, the main thing is that we do, we practice. When we see an opportunity we go after it. Look, money is an opportunity. I worked at so many fast food and min wage jobs. You shouldn't be worried about skipping college. You should really be advocating for you and your friends to skip the min-wage experience! Ha.
To be honest at first as i decided to watch this video i kind of new that i am wright about what i had in mind!!! Surely every body can do anything if the spirit exist in that person... after many years of being distanced i finally have chance to come back in CS, I am a little confused of what major to choose right now but i m sure it will be solved soon and i will become what i believe... Thank you for your very very good video if you would liked i could use some advice about decision making...
preethi hi, question for you. I saw your bio, you worked at coinbase.whats your view on investing in the crypt currencies for few years from now? thank you
That Developer Guy I think the stack in this instance means the stack of calls that higher level code such as scripting code and programs that will make to operating system code which gives the CPU instructions. For example starting with Python and ending up at C
guys i want to do a degree and a bootcamp should i do bootcamp before the degree or after ps i can do the bootcamp during summer so it wont interfer with the degree also im only 18 so i am young