I did the same as you. I did not get into programming till I was in my early 30s. I think I was 34 years old when I first started identifying as "a computer pro

I did the same as you. I did not get into programming till I was in my early 30s. I think I was 34 years old when I first started identifying as "a computer programmer" (I mean, when I would meet people and they would ask me what I did for a living). I've had a great time doing software work, but the first year or 2 I was doing it were frustrating for the number of things I still did not know how to do. It is a little bit amazing how many different things you have to know to be good at it. Anyway, my own experience is that it can be done. Of course, 2010 is a tough time to be starting in any career at all. You did not mention which country you are in, but from the way you talk about your schooling, I assume you are in the USA. The recession has been intense in the USA, see this chart: http://calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/07/employment-recessions-june-2010.html http://calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/07/employment-... One change I've noticed in the tech industry since 2005 is there is a much bigger interest in knowing frameworks, rather than simply a computer language. Maybe 10 years ago a person could say "I know Java" or "I know PHP" but nowadays its more like "I know Spring, Hibernate, Grails" or "I know Symfony, CodeIgniter, Drupal". So my advice is to pick a specialty.