> You learn dedication at university. Everyone I know, including myself, who came to software engineering outside of the standard academic route needed to make

> You learn dedication at university. Everyone I know, including myself, who came to software engineering outside of the standard academic route needed to make a huge commitment. Pretty much everyone who goes down this path faces a large cost in terms of the time commitment required to learn a new discipline, the price of training materials (boot camps, online courses, etc), and the opportunity cost of leaving an existing job to take a chance on a new entry level one. I personally switched to software development from a decent but mind-numbing career. The first couple years were really rough as I lived off of dwindling savings trying to learn and pick up enough entry level work to get by. Going the computer science degree > intern or entry level position > good engineering job route is both difficult and full of valuable experiences, but it's also the most cookie cutter approach with the clearest guardrails. The notion that only the most dedicated people can make it through the experience of a comp sci college course in their early 20s is hogwash in my opinion. I have a 4 year degree in an different field and that was a MUCH easier path than breaking into the software dev business with a self taught and boot camp background.