1. Be very specific about your end goal:
Were you ever asked to draw anything on the paper but you didn't know what because there was no topic? Well, this is no different, and here is why. You will hear a lot of opinions on what language you should learn and after spending 2 to 3 months learning it, you find out that what you want to build cannot be accomplished because you didn't learn the right language. So by identifying from the very beginning what you want to build in the future (let's say you want to build web applications), will help you to filter out what tools and languages you should not waste your time on. #savetime
2. Choose appropriate language and tools:
After figuring out what you are planning to build, you still need to identify what languages or frameworks you should focus on the most. Because when you will look for a job, you want to be relevant to the positing and match the languages/frameworks that they are using it. I would recommend to take a look at a few jobs and see what they have in common. Once you figured that out, you are one step closer to the goal.
3. Create small projects:
When you are learning something new, try to use it in a small simple project. It doesn't have to be complex, but it needs to have a problem that you are trying to solve. Software development is all about solving problems so if you can get better at it, you will start creating bigger showcase projects that you could show to people.
4. Networking:
As you are starting out to learn to program, you should probably spend a bit of time getting to know people who are already in the industry. You could get a lot more information on what they are looking for, you could also tell them what you are doing and maybe once you are ready, you could apply to work at that company.
These are my top 4 tips on what you need to do in order to succeed without going to college. If you think it's getting difficult, try to find a community that is focused on learning the same things as you.
Subscribe to my youtube channel DevPool as my goal is to help beginners and juniors to succeed in the tech industry.
Top comments (2)
100x Create small projects. The easiest way to show you know what you are doing when you don't have a degree to lean on is projects. Having built something that works (and the code is open source) is invaluable when applying for junior jobs.
I second this ^^^ btw... I recently released an open source project that I'm trying to get some contributors for: github.com/pyroscope-io/pyroscope