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I'm on the opposite side. If anyone asks me if they should go to school, do a bootcamp or learn by yourself I always tell them that "don't take my word for it

I'm on the opposite side. If anyone asks me if they should go to school, do a bootcamp or learn by yourself I always tell them that "don't take my word for it but I'd personally never go to school to learn and get job as a programmer if that's what you want". Seeing as I've "made it" so to speak coming from a another field, without any kind of degree whatsoever, with no prior work experience in IT, I personally don't really see the value of going to school unless you really want that experience or if you're the type of person who needs a structured way of learning. My career path is also strange to most people since I started out in sales and marketing, then went into finance as a glorified salesman and eventually got fed up with sales hussle and learned web development on the side. So from that I decided to learn how to code and web development to actually landing a job as a web developer took roughly two years. I believe that with my soft skills from sales and finance and a decent portfolio made the decision to hire my over let's say someone straight out of college with no other credentials a no brainer. Sure, I run into those "blind spots" from time to time but so far everyone I've ever talked to who has been in tech and specifically in development positions says the same thing, they all have the imposter syndrome and it won't go away.

GreenJelloShot 7y ago
The average annual out-of-state cost for a bachelor program in Computer Science is $41,992, with an estimated average four year degree total cost of $167,968. You have to ask yourself what would be more effective: 4 years in college (spend $170k) or spend 4 years learning on your own (free), working on open source projects (free), and/or getting an entry level job (earn 120k or more)?
- tombert 7y ago
  I don't know what entry-level job for a dropout is going to pay 120k/year; my first full-time job as a dropout paid 35k/year (in 2011). Granted, this was Orlando, FL, not Silicon Valley, but even still I have a hard time believing that the average entry-level salary is that high. Also, why the constraint of "out of state" tuition? In-state tuition for CUNY schools is ~$7,000/year. 4 X 7,000 = ~$28,000. Is that a lot of money? Sure, but it's less than my first year's salary as a dropout, even without your inflated numbers.
  - sodafountan 7y ago
    I agree with just about everything you said but you still have to ask yourself if 28,000 dollars a year is worth it. There's a lot of people coming out of school who just don't really know how to code, you can fumble your way to a CS degree but if you can't put any of that into practice then you wasted a lot of money. I mean ideally before you entered school you should have had some type of idea about programming. I know many people who started writing code very early but even if that wasn't you you should have at least gave it a shot before you dedicated a major to it right? Therein lies the problem, if you're intelligent enough to start learning on your own, at what point does the opportunity cost of college outweigh the benefit? If you don't have the initiative or desire to start on your own, then you probably won't make it very far in this field anyway because it requires constant learning and experimenting on your own. I guess that's why so many companies look for "self-starters"

GreenJelloShot 7y ago

The average annual out-of-state cost for a bachelor program in Computer Science is $41,992, with an estimated average four year degree total cost of $167,968. You have to ask yourself what would be more effective: 4 years in college (spend $170k) or spend 4 years learning on your own (free), working on open source projects (free), and/or getting an entry level job (earn 120k or more)?

tombert 7y ago
I don't know what entry-level job for a dropout is going to pay 120k/year; my first full-time job as a dropout paid 35k/year (in 2011). Granted, this was Orlando, FL, not Silicon Valley, but even still I have a hard time believing that the average entry-level salary is that high. Also, why the constraint of "out of state" tuition? In-state tuition for CUNY schools is ~$7,000/year. 4 X 7,000 = ~$28,000. Is that a lot of money? Sure, but it's less than my first year's salary as a dropout, even without your inflated numbers.
- sodafountan 7y ago
  I agree with just about everything you said but you still have to ask yourself if 28,000 dollars a year is worth it. There's a lot of people coming out of school who just don't really know how to code, you can fumble your way to a CS degree but if you can't put any of that into practice then you wasted a lot of money. I mean ideally before you entered school you should have had some type of idea about programming. I know many people who started writing code very early but even if that wasn't you you should have at least gave it a shot before you dedicated a major to it right? Therein lies the problem, if you're intelligent enough to start learning on your own, at what point does the opportunity cost of college outweigh the benefit? If you don't have the initiative or desire to start on your own, then you probably won't make it very far in this field anyway because it requires constant learning and experimenting on your own. I guess that's why so many companies look for "self-starters"