Hello friends,
I am about to celebrate my 16th week here on Codecademy, and I am at a crossroads. It is a well-trod crossroad, so I would ask you all for advice.
I’m in my 40’s, having left a successful, yet physically unsustainable, career in touring theatrical management. I’m gambling on myself and my love of logical flow into a career as a programmer. There’s the obvious, “What the %^$# are you doing? Why would you leave now? Are you really doing this?,” but I’m past that point now, and it’s time to start focusing in a direction.
JavaScript was initially tough to wrap my head around, but I got there.
HTML was great. I was much more confident with that.
CSS was a lot of fun, because it was very easy to create high quality content from a brief course length.
I finished intermediate JavaScript, as I was very close to finishing that already.
And just tonight, I finished Learn C#, which both benefited from what I knew of JavaScript, and further reinforced what I had previously learn about JavaScript.
Here’s where the rubber of my lofty master plan meets the harsh road of reality, as compared to the Underpants Gnomes.
The Underpants Gnomes from South Park had a three-step plan:
- Steal all the underpants
- ???
- Make a lot of money
I have all the foresight of an Underpants Gnome. Allow me to elucidate:
- Go to Codecademy, study my pants off, and get certificates
- ???
- Become financially stable in a new career with less dancing and costumes
I’m having fun! I look forward to this part of the day, studying and processing. I love having a mission, but I feel like a college kid without a major. I’ve got a capacity for what I’ve learned, but:
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How does one decide where they want to work? That is, do you decide to be a Python programmer in case someone wants to hire a Python programmer for some random thing at some random company? -or- Do you decide you want a career in a specific field and cater your language familiarity to it?
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I’ve successfully completed two JavaScript courses, and I haven’t gone back and looked at it in the few weeks that I’ve spent on C#. Do I need to have different projects in different languages going just keep fresh, or is that as insane as it sounds?
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I honestly have no practical expectation about what to expect from a career in programming. It’s like saying I would like a career that involves paint. If my future boss runs in and says, “There’s a baseballTeam.tsv file on the server, I need to to print out a list of sentences that list the NAME of the team and the YEAR they were founded, or the internet will break!,” I got you. Unless all of programming is arrays, lists, objects, and manipulating those members, I don’t have a clue what to prepare for.
TL;DR :
I am looking for a guidance, resources, or pithy statement that might help me focus my efforts into a direction.
I’m basically undeclared, and I’m looking for a major.
If you’ve been there, how did you find your way out?
Thanks!
Brian