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100 degrees Calcium
Jan 23, 2011



... and should I even bother?

Thanks to a lucky break securing connections during an internship in High School, I sort of launched myself into doing web development work with a single organization. I've been at it for almost 7 years. The organization I work with has pretty low standards, in my opinion, which means I've managed to work at this stuff long enough to call it a career despite no formal training. I'm almost entirely self-taught, benefiting from the grace, expertise, and patience of some incredible mentors in the workplace.

The problem is that as I try to break away from web development, or basically any work that is slightly more complex than my easy job, I find that I don't really know what I'm doing! This isn't a shock to me, I always believed I was probably coasting, but with poor basic math skills and no formal education beyond high school, I think I've simply hit the limit of what I can do from self-teaching. I feel that lack of education is seriously handicapping me here.

One problem is I can't tell for sure if that's true. From what I read, it's really common to feel out of your depth as an "imposter" in programming.

Another couple of problems are time and money. I'm building up my savings, so in theory I could get to a point where I could pay for school. But I'll never save up enough money to live off while schooling. So that leaves either going to school after work or subsisting on loans.

Going after work might have merit, I'm not sure. That's definitely a level of dedication I've never shown anything in my life before, but if that's what it takes I guess I can't complain. I live in an isolated area, so this would have to be online schooling. I'm not really seeing much in the way of Computer Science degrees online, and what is available reasonably requires that I have some other credits in fundamental or general classes beforehand. I don't have a lot of confidence in this route, but I don't really have any better ideas.

The loan thing is like, bonkers to me. It seems like every week I'm hearing another horror story about someone getting loans for school, only to find no benefit from it in their career. So now they're saddled with some notoriously bad debt and no way to pay it off. In my case, I'm wondering if I wouldn't just be putting a bunch of time and taking on a bunch of debt only to not even get an advantage that matches up to the fact that I've been working in the industry, albeit poorly, for 7 years.

I mean, does it even make sense to get a degree at this point? I feel like I have so much to learn, but it's hard to tell if school is really the place I should be learning it at this juncture, particularly with the cost and time investment associated.

College, as a concept, has always been an overwhelming black box to me. I just remember one day in sophomore year in high school being told, without warning, that if I wasn't already applying for schools and getting scholarships, I had already hosed myself beyond belief. I had no plan and it was only thanks to landing that internship and making a good impression that ultimately, I didn't need one. I don't understand the processes that lead to getting an education and I can't tell a good program or good advice from a con.

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Grumpwagon
May 6, 2007
I am a giant assfuck who needs to harden the fuck up.

100 degrees Calcium posted:

The problem is that as I try to break away from web development, or basically any work that is slightly more complex than my easy job, I find that I don't really know what I'm doing!

What's your goal? Web dev is a huge, well paid field right now (though granted, it's not for everyone. If you hate it, I'm not going to try and keep you there). What are you trying to do instead? What triggered this crisis of confidence?

What technologies do you use currently? What resources do you use to teach yourself things?

100 degrees Calcium
Jan 23, 2011



Grumpwagon posted:

What's your goal? Web dev is a huge, well paid field right now (though granted, it's not for everyone. If you hate it, I'm not going to try and keep you there). What are you trying to do instead? What triggered this crisis of confidence?

What technologies do you use currently? What resources do you use to teach yourself things?

In truth I'd like to expand into games programming, which is a lot more math intensive. My early study has ended up referring to a lot of concepts I just don't understand, to the point where I feel like I could spend my entire life just googling the necessary terminology to proceed.

I wouldn't really consider it a bad life I stuck with web development, but even so my suspicion is that the moment I need to work elsewhere, I'm going to find that I don't have the chops to work a "real" job. To be honest, though, that probably has more to do with the kind of backwards environment I work in than whether or not I went to school.

I'm a .Net developer. To be honest, I think I'm pretty handy with C# and SQL. There's always more to learn, but I've had the privilege of focusing on these tools and I've come a long way. When in doubt, I pretty much rely on Google, Stack Overflow, and a random smattering of O'Reilly books at my disposal. I also have smart colleagues willing to share their expertise, even if collectively we seem to be stuck a decade or two in the past.

Droo
Jun 25, 2003

I wouldn't bother to go to school in your situation. College does a decent job of teaching fundamental concepts of software engineering, but the vast majority of the classes you have to take to get a degree wouldn't be helpful. You might consider taking some individual college classes on object oriented programming, databases and networking - that would give you some education on fundamental software design and you would probably feel less overwhelmed by the things you work on.

If you are trying to learn the newest web development tool of the month, then college courses would be a complete waste of time. I know nothing about games programming except literally everyone says it is awful.

Veskit
Mar 2, 2005

I love capitalism!! DM me for the best investing advice!
Regardless of whether you should or shouldn't, go check out your local community college and research the programs that the school offers that specifically allow you to transfer credits to a 4 year university. It's cheap as hell so you won't have to worry about loans, and can easily get a feel for what college will be in the future.


Though there's merit in saying that you should consider not going back to college to begin with.

Grumpwagon
May 6, 2007
I am a giant assfuck who needs to harden the fuck up.

I would suggest not becoming a games dev, at least not a AAA games dev. Maybe an indie game or a mobile thing on the side, but you shouldn't need to go back to school for those.

Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 18:41 on May 2, 2017

100 degrees Calcium
Jan 23, 2011



Thanks for the advice everyone. Just to be clear, and this is somewhat mercenary, but is there not much chance that a bachelor's degree might give me a significant advantage in pursuing work (web dev or otherwise) in the future, even with 6+ years of professional experience? I realize that's a separate question from whether or not I'll learn anything of value, but it's kind of a big part of the college equation.

BarbarianElephant
Feb 12, 2015
The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.
Game dev is a decent goal, but you can do it self-taught. Just download Unity and have a go. If you like it, you will learn. There are online courses for the maths needed (Khan academy.) Unity has plenty of tutorials that will teach you the basics of development.

100 degrees Calcium
Jan 23, 2011



For what it's worth, I've been diving in to Unity and having a fair amount of success. I wouldn't have made it as a self-taught developer, even in my current environment, if I didn't have the willingness to step into new things with nothing but a copy of Visual Studio and access to Google. It's only when I started peering into more technical stuff (working on writing my own shaders being the most immediate example) that my head starts to spin and I wonder if I skipped a fundamental step in my education.

Colin Mockery
Jun 24, 2007
Rawr



100 degrees Calcium posted:

Thanks for the advice everyone. Just to be clear, and this is somewhat mercenary, but is there not much chance that a bachelor's degree might give me a significant advantage in pursuing work (web dev or otherwise) in the future, even with 6+ years of professional experience?

After 6 years of industry experience, a bachelor's degree would not meaningfully impact the strength of your resume, which is largely only needed to get you a phone screen anyways. The only exception is the relatively few companies that require a candidate to have a degree.

If you want to learn fundamentals and theory, go to a college's online resources for a specific class (lecture notes, homework assignments, reading assignments), take a community college course, or continue to self-teach.

100 degrees Calcium
Jan 23, 2011



Alright, that makes a lot of sense. There's no reason I can't pursue individual online courses and, of course, keep on advancing my skills through practice.

Ixian
Oct 9, 2001

Many machines on Ix....new machines
Pillbug
For what it's worth:

I run a 50 person development team at a Very Large software company (you've heard of it). I was a developer/operations grunt myself for many years prior. Also I am an old gently caress who's been doing this longer than you have been alive, walked uphill in the snow to school, etc. Doesn't make me right, just sharing my experience:

Degrees can be good when you are starting out in that they open doors. Also nice if you want to rise up in management, though a business degree will help you a lot more there. That said, not strictly necessary in this field. As a programmer, your work portfolio and thinking skills are way more important. When I hire people, college education is something I spend little time on. Maybe if it is a degree from an Ivy League tech school like MIT I'll look a little harder, but that is as far as it goes, really.

However if you really have 6+ years experience and can demonstrate you are good at what you do then what gets you or anyone like you the job is code/body of work. Even side FOSS projects you contribute to, whatever. How well you code and how diverse your work is carries more weight than a degree. That, and how well you do or do not get along with others - always a tricky proposition with developers (it took me years to sand off my own rough edges, trust me). The technical interview usually wins the day unless you are also a complete basket case in your interviews (and hell, when it comes to developers if you are good enough there's a fairly broad interpretation of what that means).

I have a B.S. degree from 25 years ago which is worth jack-poo poo this far in to my career; running my own business from 2003-2008 is what got me in to management (for being able to read a P&L, manage a budget, having infinite patience dealing with people from all walks of life, etc.). Many of my peers in management have B.S. and MBAs. There's at least one who has neither and he's one of the better ones. If you are good at what you do and even better at selling yourself doing it then the sky is the limit in software development.

I am not going to tell you getting a degree is a waste of time. You can learn quite a bit with the right school/major not to mention learn to deal with people under forced circumstances. I will tell you going for a degree if it means possibly taking on crippling student loan debt in the hopes it will magically improve your career chances is the wrong reason to do it. Building a solid portfolio of good code that tells a story - like, here's how I started out lovely (we all started out lovely) and here's where I've learned and am continuing to learn from my mistakes - counts for a lot more, even in Fortune 500 companies. Learn to sell yourself. Good developers are worth their weight in gold in a lot of places.

Finally, don't go in to game development. I know a lot of current and former game developers and they are all burnt out wrecks. You'd think you'd be happier because hey, you love games, and do what you love, etc. except that isn't how modern game development works for most.

BarbarianElephant
Feb 12, 2015
The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

100 degrees Calcium posted:

For what it's worth, I've been diving in to Unity and having a fair amount of success. I wouldn't have made it as a self-taught developer, even in my current environment, if I didn't have the willingness to step into new things with nothing but a copy of Visual Studio and access to Google. It's only when I started peering into more technical stuff (working on writing my own shaders being the most immediate example) that my head starts to spin and I wonder if I skipped a fundamental step in my education.

You won't learn much about shaders in most CS courses, unless it's a dedicated game development degree, which I don't recommend. This is a thing you have to self-teach. Hit the online math courses. If you can't figure out math on your own, consider the budget option vs degree of hiring a math tutor for a few hours - a math graduate student looking to make some extra bucks.

Ixian posted:

Finally, don't go in to game development. I know a lot of current and former game developers and they are all burnt out wrecks. You'd think you'd be happier because hey, you love games, and do what you love, etc. except that isn't how modern game development works for most.

I know plenty of current game developers who are all pretty happy. Avoid AAA companies though, particularly of the type that make the same goddamn game over again every year. But they are a dying breed these days. And they probably require actual degrees because they are big and bloated and have HR departments that don't understand the concept of "self-taught."

Ixian
Oct 9, 2001

Many machines on Ix....new machines
Pillbug

BarbarianElephant posted:

You won't learn much about shaders in most CS courses, unless it's a dedicated game development degree, which I don't recommend. This is a thing you have to self-teach. Hit the online math courses. If you can't figure out math on your own, consider the budget option vs degree of hiring a math tutor for a few hours - a math graduate student looking to make some extra bucks.


I know plenty of current game developers who are all pretty happy. Avoid AAA companies though, particularly of the type that make the same goddamn game over again every year. But they are a dying breed these days. And they probably require actual degrees because they are big and bloated and have HR departments that don't understand the concept of "self-taught."

Fair enough. I am sure there are plenty of happy folks in the industry. I've just run in to too many who figured, well, I just love playing video games so being a game developer is exactly what I should do, who then figure out the hard way the difference between work and play.

Also, unless you are starting yourself or going for a small shop most game devs start out on the low-paying, poo poo end of the stick. That isn't always true for other kinds of software development. If you are a a good developer there are better options, usually, is my point.

100 degrees Calcium
Jan 23, 2011



There's a pretty big chance my bread-and-butter professional work will always be web development, or something similar, but pursuing more complicated work on my spare time makes me feel like I'm investing in myself in a meaningful way. The flip side is that when I see programming concepts that are alien to me, I kind of freak out and wonder if I've been coasting just a bit too long on the shallow end of the programming pool.

Ixian
Oct 9, 2001

Many machines on Ix....new machines
Pillbug

100 degrees Calcium posted:

There's a pretty big chance my bread-and-butter professional work will always be web development, or something similar, but pursuing more complicated work on my spare time makes me feel like I'm investing in myself in a meaningful way. The flip side is that when I see programming concepts that are alien to me, I kind of freak out and wonder if I've been coasting just a bit too long on the shallow end of the programming pool.

If you produce good results that clients like and you still think on the inside that you are a worthless dummy congratulations, you are officially a developer, and probably a decent one. Welcome to the club.

Divide your study in to two simple disciples, scripted languages and compiled/runtime. Try to have decent proficiency on both sides though it is perfectly fine to be better in one than the other. Getting a little deeper in to database, like PSQL, won't hurt either. You can focus a lot more on front end design if you want but the lines get blurrier there.

BarbarianElephant
Feb 12, 2015
The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

100 degrees Calcium posted:

There's a pretty big chance my bread-and-butter professional work will always be web development, or something similar, but pursuing more complicated work on my spare time makes me feel like I'm investing in myself in a meaningful way. The flip side is that when I see programming concepts that are alien to me, I kind of freak out and wonder if I've been coasting just a bit too long on the shallow end of the programming pool.

I think every programmer who isn't a complete hotshot feels this way. Studying new concepts helps. In your case, expanding your knowledge to more types of front and back end web development will stand you in good stead, and doesn't require you to take any kind of maths course like shader development would do. And there's a lot more jobs for good web devs than good shader writers.

Ixian
Oct 9, 2001

Many machines on Ix....new machines
Pillbug
I have personally, and now have employees, who have produced excellent, well thought out code that delivered who, through the entire process, thought they were complete frauds who had no idea what they were doing. I have also had employees who were 100% confident that whatever they were doing was the best way and woe the fool who contradicted them who produced complete poo poo.

If you aren't pushing yourself in this business that is when you are coasting. Realizing you don't know everything and always trying to learn is what gets you places. Learning to live with the fact that you won't know everything and that knowing everything isn't the finish line anyway is what will keep you sane. Software development is a tricky business but it keeps the world turning.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR
Apr 12, 2010



Runner-up, TRP Sack Race 2021/22
The Imposter Syndrome is definitely real. If you don't feel like you have no idea what you're doing every once in a while, it's likely you are actually complacent and behind.

KingSlime
Mar 20, 2007
Wake up with the Kin-OH GOD WHAT IS THAT?!
Ha very true, I find that people who doubt themselves a bit and show some level of stress or anxiety over their labor tend to produce higher quality work than people who are chill and confident about their skills, at least in a setting where both types of individuals are equally qualified

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IratelyBlank
Dec 2, 2004
The only easy day was yesterday
I was in a similar situation to you. I found myself working as a software engineer for almost 10 years with no degree, but I was going to school part time during the whole thing. I always felt like I could never transition to another programming job and that I was locked into the very narrow thing I was doing because I had no background knowledge and no degree to give myself any legitimacy should I need to switch to a different job.


I ended up going a different path, I changed my undergrad degree to electrical engineering and went on to do my PhD in the same area, but I still find myself spending more than 50% of my time writing code anyways. I think that programming/software engineering/development/whatever you want to call it is the ONLY field of "engineering" where you don't need a degree to get a job doing the work. With that said, a degree gave me an immense amount of security in that I would at least be able to pass the entry-level hurdles and not be immediately screened out for most jobs. That's mostly irrelevant to me now, but that's how I felt at the time.


Now that I'm on to my PhD and I have spent an enormous amount of time learning every aspect of the theory of my research, I feel that having strong fundamentals that an undergrad degree provides is extremely important. If you self-study, you may not want to spend your entire weekend beating your head against compiler theory because you have code due on Monday, but this knowledge may become important to you later in providing you a solid foundation. Not being on a schedule and accountable to someone else (your grades) makes it easy to bounce around from topic to topic without struggling through the details, but some people absolutely don't need this kind of motivation and will do it anyway.


e: there are legitimate universities that can give you an online degree in CS and this was originally my plan before I switched to EE. Florida State University, for example, is a state school with their entire CS degree online but you would have to pay out of state tuition if you aren't in Florida. Look around your state's universities and I bet you could find something similar. I feel like the number of these programs is increasing all the time. This is the best of both worlds, you get the degree and you don't have to quit your job.

IratelyBlank fucked around with this message at 01:21 on May 7, 2017

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