Is there room in the industry for non-degreed, self-taught people?

[Ryokeen]

Hey Gang,

Here's the scoop.

I am just now 26 years old, I am married happily and struggling deeply.
 
I have not gotten a degree yet -- I have roughly 24-30 credits, one year of school basically, and a 3.93 GPA in the courses I have taken.
But I am struggling.

The local CS/CSE programs (which are about an hour drive from home one way)  have high entry requirements, with certain courses necessary for entry.
Sadly for me, I haven't taken those courses (I was unaware until recently.) This means it'll be another year of pure Maths/Sciences until I can get into the four year program.
This has me graduating college at 31... I've managed businesses (I use to manage two restaurants as a sort of regional manager), and while I have a complicated background and am understanding of unique histories, most companies get a stack of resumes and I assume some HR person would look at my age (31), my lack of experience (none) and my degree acquisition date (five years from now) and probably toss my stuff off the desk, regardless of my (likely) 3.9x GPA.

There's also the matter of caring for my wife. If something should happen to her, I need to be able to provide to care for her. I currently could never do that a million years. So I feel the pressure to act swiftly.

I just don't know what to do. 

There are no junior colleges or two year programs in my area that deal with anything other than IT, and from my understanding, IT jobs are slowly being dried up and/or require more training/experience.

I was wondering if self-teaching, or programs like Udacity are viable options?

I don't have the 20k to drop on a bootcamp, and we're not keen on moving to SF to do so either.

Do you think it's possible to self teach?
Could I jump into Freelance or remote work, if I do so?
Or do you think companies would be interested in a self-taught, older junior developer?

Any advice?

(Not opposed to negative feedback - the truth is the truth regardless of how it makes me feel.  )

Cheers

[Stadin6]

what can you do right now?

what skills do you have

[DevilishBooster]

I'm currently (kinda) in the same boat as you (but I'm not married/no GF #ForeverAlone). I'm 27, have a BA in English and a BS in Criminal Justice, and in the first year after finishing college (while unemployed/job hunting) I discovered that I reeeeeally like working with computers. So now I'm working as a Records Specialist, in a position that barely pays my monthly bills, living with my parents because I don't make enough to live on my own - even being full time - (but I'm not living in the basement, so I've got that going for me, which is nice) and I'm trying to get into IT with self taught skills. 

 

I can say that there are openings for people with self taught skills, but you have to really sell yourself in the interview. My current position doesn't really use either degree much (my English BA applies a little bit), but what got me the job is the fact that I have been teaching myself computer skills and some programming. So, even though I don't have any certifications, the fact that I had the initiative to learn something new on my own while unemployed was a big selling point (I'm now getting ready to take my SANS/GIAC Networking Security Essencials exam soon). If you apply to companies that really value their employees and offer/support OTJT, and you can show that you are willing to work hard to learn what is needed, then there is a good chance that you can get in. I'm trying to switch to my company's IT dept, but my situation is that even though there is a high demand in the IT field, there are currently no IT jobs I can apply for with my current company, so I'm trolling the market for entry level positions/watching my company's job site for new openings. (I'm also lucky that I have met and spoken with several managers in the IT dept, so they know I'm looking and have my resume waiting for when positions open). 

 

If you are looking to expand skills on your own time and you like working with programming, look at sites like Code Academy. Even though its not an accredited education center, they are still recognized as a place for learning valuable skills.

[Ryokeen]

11 minutes ago, Stadin6 said:

what can you do right now?

what skills do you have

In what regard?

[Ryokeen]

17 minutes ago, DevilishBooster said:

 If you apply to companies that really value their employees and offer/support OTJT, and you can show that you are willing to work hard to learn what is needed, then there is a good chance that you can get in. I'm trying to switch to my company's IT dept, but my situation is that even though there is a high demand in the IT field, there are currently no IT jobs I can apply for with my current company, so I'm trolling the market for entry level positions/watching my company's job site for new openings. (I'm also lucky that I have met and spoken with several managers in the IT dept, so they know I'm looking and have my resume waiting for when positions open). 

Thanks for the insight, and best of luck! Hang in there. It doesn't seem to be an uncommon position to be in based on my internet searching.

[DevBlox]

Well, TL;DR, there is, there are people like that in the industry (some actually have degrees e.g. in physics, and are full fledged coders, so even a wrong degree is a non problem), at least in Europe, where I live. But it's hard to learn to code very well yourself, because nobody is by your side enforcing it on you, so you do not know what you are doing wrong, so it might take way longer than usual and being a professional takes years (more or less, depends on how fast of a learner are you).

 

Oh and universities/colleges don't really teach the right things, they teach basic concepts, sciency things, only few of them are important, but teaching how to design your systems is lacking heavily. Though I believe a lot might depend on where you would be studying.  What companies really value - stable, clean, concise systems, so nobody will want a guy that just knows the syntax of a few languages.

 

There is online material, some great books that can give you tons of knowledge on this, but the thing you really want to do (at least what I would try to do) is at least get into internships (I got into an awesome one, taught me a lot, but there are too many that suck, it's a bit like taking a blind pick if you have no inside knowledge), then work your way out of there into the industry and up your career path.

 

You have to be really passionate about it and learn all the time. Show your passion to the company! It's not easy to keep up the pace, so it's a good idea to specialize. As I am much younger than you, this is basically all I can share from observing my surroundings and experiences. Best of luck to you!

[Ryokeen]

Thanks for the insight DevBlox!

[Brenz]

There are certainly jobs out there, obviously your lack of qualifications and experience will mean you won't meet the requirements for many jobs at medium-large companies but there will still be jobs.

 

I wouldn't recommend going freelance again because with your lack of experience you would really benefit from being part of an engineering team so you can read and review their code and actually learn more from them.

 

Now you just need to teach yourself. Use your time to work on personal projects that you can eventually show to a potential employer and to help you learn.

[vorticalbox]

53 minutes ago, Brenz said:

There are certainly jobs out there, obviously your lack of qualifications and experience will mean you won't meet the requirements for many jobs at medium-large companies but there will still be jobs.

 

I wouldn't recommend going freelance again because with your lack of experience you would really benefit from being part of an engineering team so you can read and review their code and actually learn more from them.

 

Now you just need to teach yourself. Use your time to work on personal projects that you can eventually show to a potential employer and to help you learn.

i'm just finishing off my degree in computer science, only exams left and I fall into the lack of experience group.

[Brenz]

1 minute ago, vorticalbox said:

i'm just finishing off my degree in computer science, only exams left and I fall into the lack of experience group.

Yes until you have actually worked in the industry everyone lacks experience but a degree at least shows you have been taught and tested to a certain level.

 

I've seen quite a few times on here where people have counted since when they wrote their first "hello world" program as years of experience. It doesn't count unless its a year in full time employment. There is a reason many senior engineer jobs require 5 years experience, the saying goes it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. Assuming you work a 40 hour week that works out at around 4.8 years.

[Bacon8tor]

5 hours ago, Ryokeen said:

Hey Gang,

Here's the scoop.

I am just now 26 years old, I am married happily and struggling deeply.
 
I have not gotten a degree yet -- I have roughly 24-30 credits, one year of school basically, and a 3.93 GPA in the courses I have taken.
But I am struggling.

The local CS/CSE programs (which are about an hour drive from home one way)  have high entry requirements, with certain courses necessary for entry.
Sadly for me, I haven't taken those courses (I was unaware until recently.) This means it'll be another year of pure Maths/Sciences until I can get into the four year program.
This has me graduating college at 31... I've managed businesses (I use to manage two restaurants as a sort of regional manager), and while I have a complicated background and am understanding of unique histories, most companies get a stack of resumes and I assume some HR person would look at my age (31), my lack of experience (none) and my degree acquisition date (five years from now) and probably toss my stuff off the desk, regardless of my (likely) 3.9x GPA.

There's also the matter of caring for my wife. If something should happen to her, I need to be able to provide to care for her. I currently could never do that a million years. So I feel the pressure to act swiftly.

I just don't know what to do. 

There are no junior colleges or two year programs in my area that deal with anything other than IT, and from my understanding, IT jobs are slowly being dried up and/or require more training/experience.

I was wondering if self-teaching, or programs like Udacity are viable options?

I don't have the 20k to drop on a bootcamp, and we're not keen on moving to SF to do so either.

Do you think it's possible to self teach?
Could I jump into Freelance or remote work, if I do so?
Or do you think companies would be interested in a self-taught, older junior developer?

Any advice?

(Not opposed to negative feedback - the truth is the truth regardless of how it makes me feel.  )

Cheers

Dude you can just have to stick it out. 

I am 27yrs. old , only been pursuing this industry for about 4 years , after alot of youtube videos and tutorials, and finding an oppurtunity at my place of work and them giving it to me, I am now the IT director(only It person for entire company) of a pretty large HVAC company in Arizona. I have no schooling, I dropped out of college, wasnt even really into computers I played 360 had a laptop but nothing from ordinary stuff. Got interested in scripting for GTA:SA MP , and that led me to wanting more and more, now I can write in several coding languages C#, PHP, JS , HTML/CSS, and dabble in some others. I have taken a company who was running windows 2003 r2  on 7 different dell blade servers, and various versions of centos 5,6,7 on another 8 servers. Now I have upgraded them to win server 2012 r2 & centos 6(i hate 7) on 2 Esxi host on a Dell R710 (3rd is a backup machine) connected to 2 SANs (which I hand built they have Xeons CPUs, ECC memory and redundant PSU) . oh and the best thing is they ahd a 10/100 network going on for over 100 users it was slow as balls, now we are almost fully gigabit ( I really hate networking ) , but at least all the servers are gigabit . 

 

So Yes it is extremely possible, I have "headhunters" calling me all the time cause they are looking for IT people and they are finding my Resume on Dice.com and it clearly shows I have no IT schooling. I have gone to a few interviews that I felt just brushed me off cause I had no schooling  so I know where the frustration is comes from but screw them they are missing out. 

 

Edited:   You want to talk or ask some questions Id be glad to meet up , discord teamspeak (i really dont use skype but I can DL it) , but I much rather make a IRC server or a mumble server , anyways hit me up for anything.  

[Ryokeen]

13 hours ago, AlexTheRose said:

You will have to fight your way through all of those bad apples who rake in offers, by searching for offers that have hidden things in them—offers with anti-bot measures are basically an offer screaming for you to take them! I got a good number jobs by looking for just that, so far at least.

 

Alex (if it's okay for me to call you that!)

Great information. Thank you!
I take it you're working on paving your own path in the field then? 
You said you've managed to land some freelance work.
Well done!

How do you go about competing with bots and, for lack of a better phraseology, foreigners with a lower cost of living, effectively?

I am developing my skill-set, trying to make sure I can competently tackle some work before I put up more portfolio and begin trying to get folks to pay me to build the things to solve their problems. But I suspect I'm not too far off. I've grasped the basics firmly in my desired tech-set and am going deeper now.


Thanks again


 

[Gachr]

Hello, I am in a (bit) similar situation and I can share my experiences with you.

I'm 17, and I hadn't finished any school in my life, so I would have to do like 4 years of general education and then I could enrol for next few years. This is out of the question for me, since I'm just with my mum who can't earn much more than minimum wage. I'm in UK btw.

Also, academics and technology don't go together well, I'm very much aware that I will learn lots of things that I don't like (Java), things that are obsolete (Flash), or both (PHP). Another thing is that I won't be very fond of a sitting lifestyle.

What I decided to do is enrol to a college for a couple years to have a profession, something simple, electrics in my case. This will provide a stable income for me, and I can do IT on the side, privately - so I do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want.

 

I can't answer your initial question, unfortunately, since I did not get into IT, especially on my own. However, from the research I've done I think it's possible, especially with smaller companies. You could make a portfolio to show, try to get an internship, do freelance or make products yourself (like websites).

 

Oh, and congratulations on your marriage

 

Edit:

It greatly depends on your chosen path, I assumed that you want to do general programming here. There are some other options, like sysadmin out there too tho.

[Project37]

If you want to get into programming, you could build your own apps for Android or ios. There are plenty of free tutorials out there to get you started. This will get your feet wet in code, and maybe make some money if an app becomes popular. 

 

Coding is not the only IT Avenue. There is also the infrastructure side,setting up networks and servers. Solving business problems with technology. You can get started in this fairly easy by getting your comptia a+ certification and find a user support job. Like the geek squad. better yet, in house support for a company or a call center. Then you will start gaining experience. 

 

There is plenty of room for people with certifications. Not in programming as much. But with certs and start getting successful projects under your belt, you can go a long way. Interviewers want to hear what the problem was, what you did to resolve it and what the outcome was. Quantifying your improvements into something that is a positive outcome is huge. 

 

The business world is all about boasting your accomplishments in a professional manner in my opinion.