I’m going to try and be concise but effective with this.
About me:
23 Years Old
No College Degree
Couldn’t afford school (No Debt Policy / DOE Won’t lend to us anyway)
Strong Technical Affinity
Sometimes Impatient with Computers
Dabbled with C++ at 13, Java at 17
Chicago Area
What I do now: Web Developer - I am building a node project to dynamically serve product pages with a top of the line designer giving me some pretty challenging CSS tasks. We also have an Angular 2 project going on with some prospect.io stuff for leads and marketing.
I had been studying for something like five to eight months. I was a salesperson without a degree that woke up a little after our Director of Sales said we may not be relevant anymore after the year 2020. He suggested Udacity’s nano degree program. Needless to say the fact that a Director at a Fortune 10 company suggested something piqued my interest.
I signed up for the program and gave it my best go. I really enjoyed it until the Javascript part went from 0 - 100. Without teaching loops, if / else and other basics, Udaicty dove right into prototype inheritance. Udacity acknowledged this hole and has since pledged an updated curriculum.
That was frustrating so I went to Code Academy’s Javascript track. After finishing up the basics, I moved on to their Angular 1.x track. After that, I felt brave enough to try and build Udacity’s neighborhood maps project with knockout.js. I nearly needed hand holding to get through that knockout doesn’t have a big community, and without a JSON tree, iterating through large sets of JSON is HARD.
I used indeed to look at the skills in the area that were e needed to become a front end developer.
The skills I came up with:
HTML
CSS
Javascript
Angular or React
SCSS
Node.js
After about 8 or 9 projects on my website, I quit my job and applied applied applied and reached out to recruiter after recruiter. I made my Linkedin look as impressive as possible and prayed – a lot.
After scouring Craigs List on a gut feeling, I landed a 3-month contract to hire at a home automation start-up.
Tips, Tricks, and Advice:
-
Recruiters are your friend but will be very skeptical that you actually know what you are doing. You need to convince them otherwise.
-
You don’t have jack if you don’t have a portfolio
-
Looks sell. Most recruiters wouldn’t talk to me until I made my site very cosmopolitan and designer worthy even though I didn’t claim to do that
-
Linkedin is very important and making your profile “All Star” should be a top priority. Most of my leads came from here.
-
Ignore Indian recruiters. They often times spam submit your resume which will render you ineligible to be interviewed wherever they submitted it for a whole year.
-Find a mentor if you can
- BUILD BUILD BUILD BUILD The more you have in your portfolio, the more likely you’ll have a job soon.
-Do not list skills on you portfolio
-
Resume should be cosmopolitan and designer worthy too; Avoid adding retail experience if your goal is programming
-
Do not half-ass learning. You will need to be proficient. There will be more time, however, to learn on the job.
-
Anybody can code. My sister took a coding class at Arizona State for her Journalism Major and is loving it. She’s not a logical person at all. She’s social.
-Your ability to code well, whatever that means to you, is directly related to how much time you spend doing it
-
Learning and not having a life may suck, but your life will probably suck more if you don’t stay motivated and learn. After all, you’re here for a reason.
-
Try not to overthink a solution and don’t be afraid to ask for help. I use stack overflow at work and Reddit a fair amount and my boss is totally okay with that.
-
You will get frustrated many times but it will be worth it when you change careers
-
Do something for free. You won’t think of the lost money when you transition into 9-5 with good pay and benefits.
-
Go to a Church, Temple, Mosque whatever. (Church was hugely important for networking and had many leads from there too; Maybe even over linkedin from the people I have met there)
-
Interview well. If you’re likeable and kind of still suck at coding you’re more likely to get a shot than someone who isn’t very nice and is pretty good at coding.
-
Don’t be afraid to act in humilty and ask for help finding a job. There was someone very kind who decided to help me and I’m not sure where I would have gotten without his encouragement. At times I stuggled with all of this emotionally (and technically).
Resources:
Code Academy
Udacity - Least favorite for learning - very cool projects
FCC Forum (Thank you!)
Tyler McGinnis (or something like that) does a great video on React, so does egghead.io
Other Tips:
-
CSS is best learned and tweaked in Dev Tools first
-
Always use JSON tree for viewing JSON
-
Copying code will almost always trip you up (YMMV)
-
Try to use a plugin or library if one exists. Make sure someone updated it recently and has updated it several times in the past
-
Try to pay attention to all of the little nuances to javascript. If you think through the code line by line and why and how it’s doing that, you’ll learn much faster.
-
You will run into things at work even that are difficult and need time to find a solution.
-
There will be plenty of google when you find a job
I’m not sure what I’m missing. Ask me anything and I’ll find time to respond.
P.S. I’m highlighting the fact I’m in Chicago because I feel like there are few american cases here and everything changes based off of locaton.
