i'm a teenager and want to have a career in programing. please help
Posted by max_level_redditor@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 6 comments
i need some help in finding the right path for learning and making my portfolio
where should i learn from?
do i need to take science stream and go for engineering?
is a college degree necessary?
are private courses good and do their certificate hold any legit use?
Danver26@reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/s/9DQ1lLFqnQ
smirnoff4life@reddit
you should go to an accredited college/university and get a bachelors degree. during your degree, you need to be extremely proactive about putting in effort outside of school to improve your chances of employment in this market. network, join clubs, do personal projects, and grind those internship applications. if you graduate without any internship experience you will have an impossible hard time finding employment as a dev.
assuming you’re in america/canada/europe, then yes, a degree is necessary. online paid courses/certificates are of zero use in the current market.
things were different 3yrs ago, when you could do a 6mo bootcamp and get a 6 fig job right after. but we are long past that now. do not listen to anyone who says you don’t need a degree - you’re going to be underemployed for a long time, possibly forever.
good luck on your journey!!
Competitive_Tea6785@reddit
I am not trying to be discouraging, but Programming and Software is a tough field now. I have Computer Science Grads that can't find jobs. We are hiring them for Information Technology (TECH) jobs. Fixing computers , help desk, Field Service. I have worked in I.T. for 25 years...and want to encourage STEM. I would work hard, study hard, and look into "ENGINEERING". A lot of math, but those careers are shining. Too many people are getting Computer Science Degrees and the companies are NOT hiring. Learn Artificial Intelligence (AI). Embrace it, because you will be exposed to in now or later. I love PYTHON - there are so many "FREE" resources to learn it. Program it every day. Make Projects (Digital Clocks, Password Generators, Automation Projects). They seem complicated until you try them. Also JAVASCRIPT (The language of the WEB) will help you make websites, which can be valuable. Try to be the brightest in your peer group, so people will come to you for answers.
Comprehensive_Mud803@reddit
You should learn from books and web pages. Written content is way above any video.
You should go into a science and/or engineering curriculum if you have that (ymmv on your country and school system).
If you want to work in IT fields, the degree is necessary: the CS curriculum will cover the fundamentals and reasoning behind existing tech and the concepts to use in software engineering. You might find them boring and think you’ll never use them until you do.
Certificates might hold some value, but their value perishes quickly as new tech emerges.
If you have a PC, you can start learning directly b/c all the tools you’ll need are open source and thus freely available.
Beregolas@reddit
It depends on where in the world you are, because the job markets and expected qualifications differ greatly. A country suffices.
From a central EU and USA perspective:
A degree is not 100% necessary, but makes the entire process of finding and keeping (good) jobs a lot easier. If you want to go this route, taking all general STEM classes you can get before will help.
A computer science degree will generally give you good basics, but you will be expected to "self learn" programming along the way. You will probably get taught the basics for programming as well, but everything beyond that is incidental. Programming is to computer science as masonry to an architect. This is the slowest route, but you will be the most well rounded, and able to go into basically any field (inside of IT) you want to specialize in.
A software engineering degree locks you out of very few things: Theoretical CS research is the only thing that comes to mind, but I am sure there is a little more. It mostly has the same basics as a general computer science degree, but you specialize in how software works, is made and programming a lot more. Theoretical CS and other possible specializations, like Bio/medicine and programming, physics or IT-security will be ignored more. If you know that you want to be a programmer, this is always solid.
In some countries you also have vocational training as a programmer, you can treat this like a Software Engineering degree, but shorter and with less prestige.
Then you can go the self taught route. Here it's even more about a good portfolio, to prove oyu are able to work, and good networking. You need connections to get anywhere, because you need to give people a reason to even consider you an option. Normally the degree does that for you (to an extend, networking is also important if you have one)
Certificates are motly completely useless in my experience. This will vary greatly throughout different regions and specific fields, but when we did technical evaluations of new candidates, we just ignored any certificates. The only thing we looked at was education and prior experience, like a portfolio or earlier jobs they've had. I know now, that in some countries they hold quite a bit more value, and that's why it's important to say where (approximately) you will be looking for work, once your education is done.
If you want to know where to start for self learning, there is a quite well written FAQ section in this subreddit (right hand side of your screen on PC, you will find it on mobile as well) with a list of places to start, very well laid out and explained
Southern_Attitude641@reddit
Dm