cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11308191
Greetings fellow Lemmings,
I know this is a community that has a strong backbone in the Software and Technology space. I am a returning student in my mid-30’s that is returning to college as a way to pursue a career change. I am looking to crowdsource opinions from experienced tech professionals so I can make good quality, informed decisions about how I move forward with my educational and career goals.
With that being said my question is how would you proceed between the programs I have linked below? I am starting at a STEM focused community college (Bellevue College) in the Pacific Northwest. My long term goal is to either transfer to another four year institution (like UW Bothell) grade permitting, or perhaps finish a four year degree from this institution. This is where your advice comes in, and where I believe I need better outside perspective to make a good decision.
Option #1 (Software Development - Application Development Track) This is where I have been leaning because it seems to afford me the largest number of future options with the direction I take my education. Most importantly I think it sets me up in the best position to make the potential transition to the University of Washington Bothell’s Computer Science & Software Engineering program. The Application Development track has a stronger focus on C# & .NET framework programming languages, which seems to provide a better foundation for more potential job opportunities at the moment.
Option #2 (Software Development - Artificial Intelligence Track) Artificial Intelligence is obviously the buzzword of the moment. However, I am wondering if I am robbing myself of options by over-specializing this early in the process, and I also have concerns about focusing my learning process so heavily on Python when that seems to be something that is not used as a standard backbone language for more enterprise level businesses. I also don’t have any interest in the robotics area of this degree, as I don’t see that as being something I would look to pursue in my career. I do want to be conscientious about learning whatever is going to provide me the most future utility, therefore, I am wondering if this is the way to go for that reason.
Ultimately, I am open to any and all advice, recommendations, and wisdom that my fellow Lemmings have to provide. My previous background was in a completely unrelated field, but I have always had a passion for technology and I am a quick learner with a lean lifestyle and no external distractions. Completing this process and securing employment will be my focus 100% for the next 3-4 years. With that in mind, tell me what you think.
- Where should I go with my education?
- What pitfalls should I avoid?
- When should I specialize?
- Am I crazy for doing this later in life?
Hit me with anything you’ve got Lemmy, it is all appreciated!
I faced a similar decision, and I went with App Dev, beacuse I thought I could probably work from anywhere and make good money.
Twenty years later, I’m working exactly where I please, fully remote, and making good money.
No regrets.
I also added a Cybersecurity specialization, beacuse the $$$ is nice.
Pitfalls
The biggest pitfall breaking into the programming field is relying on a (basically blank) resume to get the first job.
Do an internship, join a study group and a club or two. Spend more time socializing than working, at both. (But do good work, too.)
It’s your network that gets the first job.
When should I specialize?
The ideal way to specialize is on an employer’s dime, for two reasons:
- If someone is willing to pay to train you, it’ll be something there’s real demand for.
- Learning a specialization is best done when you can test what you learn right away, on the job.
Crazy for doing it later?
As someone who hires programmers, 3/4 of my top people did something else with their career first, (two have substantial retail experience) and it’s an asset to their contribution as a programmer.
This was fantastic information. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my post, I sincerely appreciate it.
I actually came from a previous retail background as well, and built a small business from 1 location making $1.5 million annually to four locations making $20 million annually in 6.5 years. The owner made the decision to sell the business after surviving all of the stress during COVID, and that is what started me back on my education journey.
I developed basically every system in that business myself from the ground up, through blood sweat and tears. So for this next chapter of my life I am looking to take my career more in the tech mercenary direction for lack of a better term where I am out to focus on developing my own skills in order to live the life I want to live on my own terms as much as is reasonably possible.
So, your advice really resonates with me, and was an extremely valuable addition to my thought process.
Does this advice apply in this current job market? I graduated 2021. I was unable to land a job, so then did a boot camp, and after that still ended up in a support role. If I’m unable get dev role, the paper won’t help at all. It will be seen as outdated knowledge.
Though, it might actually work for OP where he finished the degree as the job maker becomes hot. Who knows.
Does this advice apply in this current job market?
Maybe. All I can authoritatively give is my experience.
I graduated in a very diffent time, but I’m still hiring today. My recent hiring experience is more relevant, I suppose.
I believe that expensive degrees are less important for programmers today, but that it’s still a huge pain to land the first programming job.
I’ve hired folks with fancy expensive degrees, and I’ve hired folks with just bootcamp experience, or a community college degree.
My current team has 2x fancy degree, 1x Bachelor’s degree, and 1x community college degree. In all cases their communication skills and proof of past programming projects were key - much more than their degree.
That said, all of my current team have specialties, all of which were obtained through on-the-job training. In most cases, I arranged the training, in some past role where it was needed.
As we’ve discussed elsewhere, programmers are usually a net loss of productivity for the team for their first professional year or three. So I think the advice to build and use a network is definitely still relevant to landing the first job.
You’re thirty and used to the grind - I think it’d be reasonable to try and pursue a double major. Examine the costs and expected benefit but, at EOD, your degree isn’t going to make a huge difference in hiring or proficiency… outside of your first job without prior experience.
So my honest answer is that, in terms of financial motivations I’d suggest no degree at all, otherwise try and maximize the paper credentials you get for your money.
Thank you for your response. I think my main concern with no acquiring a degree is being taken seriously as a candidate for jobs. I also want to make sure that I set myself up for success my acquiring the foundational knowledge that will allow me to be a quick efficient learner as I am presented with opportunities to learn new technologies. I will take this advice under advisement though, and make sure that I am being a good consumer in how I spend my money. I am definitely looking to maximize my return on investment, and cut out all the fluff from the education process where possible.
I’d recommend going for the app dev. I always knew I will be workig in gamedev, but choose my bachelors degree in general software engineering, and only went for Masters in gamedev.
I’ve been out of school for around 5 years now, and I’m really glad I chose SWE instead of anything more specialized - because it has given me the broadest outlook on IT as possible, from documentation best practices, through UMLs, to various obscure languages from Smalltalk through Lisp, assembly and Prolog to C, Java and C#, while also having some optional classes focused on cybersecurity or AI.
Most of what I’ve learned, I don’t really remmeber or use daily - but, the information has somewhat stuck with me, and I can quickly recall the general concept every time I enounter a similar problem, which makes research a lot faster. If I need to write something in a language that’s not my main focus, I can be certain that no matter how unknown, I’ve already worked in something with similar concepts. And that makes it so much easier to quickly understand syntax and start writing code.
I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for me to grasp how the hell is something like Prolog supposed to work, but having to sit through classes on it that I barely remember has left me with a vague recollection of what’s the purpose, so if I encounter anything similar, I can just pick it up almost immediately. And this goes for most of styles of languages or problems - I’ve already dealt with something similar.
Not to mention that while UML diagrams and general documentation practices may sound pretty boring (and they are), I’ve already encountered situations where the diagram was integral to understanding what are the docs going for - and I was able to get it instead of having to figure it out by myself, because I’ve already worked with them at school.
Also, having options is nice - After the school, I went to work in Cybersec, even though I had only like one optional class on the topic, and I can see how much it has helped me having a borad overview in comparison to colleagues who didn’t have it. I can write scripts in whatever we encounter, I have a deeper understanding of how other developers write code, what could be wrong, and have a better educated quess at how exactly does the stack we’re black-box testing works. And looking up the more specialized cybersec knowledge is way easier, than researching a stack of technologies I’ve never seen or work with in my life. And that’s where the broader degree has helped me the most with.
Also, you can probably enroll into optional classes that are outside of your field of study, which I really recommend - I was doing that a lot during my studies, and it were the most memorable and usefull lectures I’ve had.
