Hello World: Jump Starting Your Career

in Mentoring on Mentoring

Demand for programmers is skyrocketing, and it’s lowering the barrier to entry. A traditional education is no longer a hard requirement; a diverse set of people are pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and starting a new career at a lucrative and rewarding time. (and you can too!)

I’m a self-taught developer. I completed ~2.5 years of college on and off while interning at a small web development company. I ultimately dropped out to accept a full-time position.

My brother, currently in a nursing program, reached out to me. He wants to know how I did it so he can follow in my footsteps. (oh boy). This blog series is to help chronical his journey and my thoughts while I guide, mentor, and ruin him.

College, Bootcamps, or Self-Study

The Traditional 4-year Degree

College is the safest route. Your education is under much less scrutiny when backed by a degree, but let’s be honest, college takes the most time and has the highest cost. If you’re reading this, it’s probably because college isn’t an option.

Bootcamps

Bootcamps suffer from a quality problem. Those ads claiming that anyone can become a developer in 3 to 6-months are akin to for-profit colleges: Less regulation, praying on the hopeful, and providing only moderately better outcomes than self-education.

Don’t get me wrong, many bootcamps set proper expectations and provide a valuable service. It’s

  • Guided lessons; told what you need to learn
  • A teacher you can receive real-time feedback from
  • Team projects to practice collaberation and build a portfolio
  • Direct partnerships with local businesses
  • Interview coaching and a network of alumni

Self-Study

What language

  • https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-roadmap
  • https://techbeacon.com/bootcamps-wont-make-you-coder-heres-what-will

Resources

Pre-Requisits

Books

Accounts

TAG

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