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I'm in a bit of an opposite situation, I've been doing web development since high school (i'm 27 now), and am just now going to college for the first time. Fo

by rsayers 18y ago

I'm in a bit of an opposite situation, I've been doing web development since high school (i'm 27 now), and am just now going to college for the first time. For a degree in religion of all things. That said, I would never have gone to school for anything related to computers. I'm still not sure if I plan to continue doing development or go into something else completely, but I'm fairly certain that I could pick up more useful knowledge outside of school. Experience is huge, and at 3.5 years you are about at that level where it doesn't matter if you have a degree or not to many employers. I've worked with many coders with formal degrees, did well in college, but simply fell flat when confronted with a professional development environment. The best programmer I know personally has also never stepped foot in a college class room. So my advice would be to stay away from formal education and keep coding. Do side projects when you can, You would be shocked how a weekend of toying with a new programming language will change the way you think of things and help your 9-5 programming.

Srenaeb 18y ago
Thank you for the encouragement. I will spend more time on my hobby projects. I have a lot of useful knowledge that I gained from my time in the technical trades school, as well as on the job. But sometimes I feel like I've hit a brick wall as well. For example the MSDN will tell me that it's more efficient to use class A rather than class B. Why? I don't know, I can't even begin to device tests for myself to find out if, where and when this is true. I just have to take whatever I find on the Internet as true. Sometimes it's frustrating. But then I still get the job done, so maybe it doesn't matter...? Also, congrats your going back for religious studies. I did a 1 year theology certificate program between dropping out and programming. Really taught me lots I'll be thankful for all my life.

by rsayers 18y ago

Srenaeb 18y ago

Thank you for the encouragement. I will spend more time on my hobby projects. I have a lot of useful knowledge that I gained from my time in the technical trades school, as well as on the job. But sometimes I feel like I've hit a brick wall as well. For example the MSDN will tell me that it's more efficient to use class A rather than class B. Why? I don't know, I can't even begin to device tests for myself to find out if, where and when this is true. I just have to take whatever I find on the Internet as true. Sometimes it's frustrating. But then I still get the job done, so maybe it doesn't matter...? Also, congrats your going back for religious studies. I did a 1 year theology certificate program between dropping out and programming. Really taught me lots I'll be thankful for all my life.