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Hey irrelevant but can I ask how did you enter the tech industry without college? If self taught can I ask how did you teach yourself and what (why), and with w

Hey irrelevant but can I ask how did you enter the tech industry without college? If self taught can I ask how did you teach yourself and what (why), and with what resources?

mseebach 9y ago
For me, I started out with BASIC and a library book and a supportive dad, then HTML and Javascript, most likely based on random online guides (this was late 90's), online communities (likely newsgroups and IRC, and I spent a lot of time on Slashdot), then PHP, based on the same. Along the way I taught myself Linux, too. Why? It was what was there and what was accessible. There wasn't a particular plan or direction, just the excitement of getting the computer to do what I wanted it to do.
- minhaz23 9y ago
  I felt that same excitement when I was a kid. Like 10 years ago maybe? The excitement of making a computer do what you want it to do. I used to mod Halo Combat Evolved games for fun and just put random code together and make shit work, picked up HTML and CSS even trying to make myself and some friends clan websites! My father didnt foster it as much, and somewhere along the line I stopped messing around and tinkering with all that stuff. Now I'm in my early 20's and really want to and need to get a job in the tech field. I feel really bad saying I want it for the money mainly, but it seems to be frowned upon when I ask around what can and should I learn to fast track my way to employability. Any advice?
  - mseebach 9y ago
    Web dev, possibly mobile app dev. Not the shining cutting edge, you'll struggle to compete, but the "boring" bread and butter stuff (think "utility company app for meter reading" and "replacing that brittle/broken Sharepoint/Excel based workflow with a simple Ruby on Rails CRUD app" more than "instagram" and "cloud AI internet-of-things"). Focus on adding (and articulating) real business value, not on getting to play with the latest shiny thing. Alternatively, find a niche that needs fixing with a CRUD web app, then build and sell it. A couple of years of doing that, always making sure you're educating yourself (educating doesn't have to equal scrambling to keep up to date with every fad or sitting in a classroom, it means making sure that you're adding skills and increasing your proficiency in ways that adds value to your work. Read a few CS textbooks, it's good to know the jargon, and understanding the theory behind what I knew to work was very helpful for me), a lot of good firms will take a good hard look at you. Just always keep in mind that you're "invisible" to recruiters, so you'll probably have to hustle a bit/network a lot. Anyway, that was roughly my path, combined with moving to London somewhere between paragraphs one and three (employers here care much less about my missing degree than they do in Denmark). YMMV.
    - minhaz23 9y ago
      Well I'm in NY if that helps. > Alternatively, find a niche that needs fixing with a CRUD web app, then build and sell it. Would you care to expand on that a bit please? Thanks!
      - mseebach 9y ago
        The business world is silly with workflows that involves emailing wonky spreadsheets full of opaque formulas around or convoluted filing of documents in deep directory trees on a network drive or actual honest to god paper forms. Spend half a day in any sizable office environment as a capable developer, and you'll identify potential for hundreds of hours of savings by switching workflows to simple applications that are little more than said CRUD web apps. I can recommend reading the early stuff on kalzumeus.com, about the bingo card creator. Same guy is also a prolific contributor here, as patio11.

Hey irrelevant but can I ask how did you enter the tech industry without college? If self taught can I ask how did you teach yourself and what (why), and with what resources?

mseebach 9y ago

For me, I started out with BASIC and a library book and a supportive dad, then HTML and Javascript, most likely based on random online guides (this was late 90's), online communities (likely newsgroups and IRC, and I spent a lot of time on Slashdot), then PHP, based on the same. Along the way I taught myself Linux, too. Why? It was what was there and what was accessible. There wasn't a particular plan or direction, just the excitement of getting the computer to do what I wanted it to do.

minhaz23 9y ago
I felt that same excitement when I was a kid. Like 10 years ago maybe? The excitement of making a computer do what you want it to do. I used to mod Halo Combat Evolved games for fun and just put random code together and make shit work, picked up HTML and CSS even trying to make myself and some friends clan websites! My father didnt foster it as much, and somewhere along the line I stopped messing around and tinkering with all that stuff. Now I'm in my early 20's and really want to and need to get a job in the tech field. I feel really bad saying I want it for the money mainly, but it seems to be frowned upon when I ask around what can and should I learn to fast track my way to employability. Any advice?
- mseebach 9y ago
  Web dev, possibly mobile app dev. Not the shining cutting edge, you'll struggle to compete, but the "boring" bread and butter stuff (think "utility company app for meter reading" and "replacing that brittle/broken Sharepoint/Excel based workflow with a simple Ruby on Rails CRUD app" more than "instagram" and "cloud AI internet-of-things"). Focus on adding (and articulating) real business value, not on getting to play with the latest shiny thing. Alternatively, find a niche that needs fixing with a CRUD web app, then build and sell it. A couple of years of doing that, always making sure you're educating yourself (educating doesn't have to equal scrambling to keep up to date with every fad or sitting in a classroom, it means making sure that you're adding skills and increasing your proficiency in ways that adds value to your work. Read a few CS textbooks, it's good to know the jargon, and understanding the theory behind what I knew to work was very helpful for me), a lot of good firms will take a good hard look at you. Just always keep in mind that you're "invisible" to recruiters, so you'll probably have to hustle a bit/network a lot. Anyway, that was roughly my path, combined with moving to London somewhere between paragraphs one and three (employers here care much less about my missing degree than they do in Denmark). YMMV.
  - minhaz23 9y ago
    Well I'm in NY if that helps. > Alternatively, find a niche that needs fixing with a CRUD web app, then build and sell it. Would you care to expand on that a bit please? Thanks!
    - mseebach 9y ago
      The business world is silly with workflows that involves emailing wonky spreadsheets full of opaque formulas around or convoluted filing of documents in deep directory trees on a network drive or actual honest to god paper forms. Spend half a day in any sizable office environment as a capable developer, and you'll identify potential for hundreds of hours of savings by switching workflows to simple applications that are little more than said CRUD web apps. I can recommend reading the early stuff on kalzumeus.com, about the bingo card creator. Same guy is also a prolific contributor here, as patio11.