So I'm 26 years old and I walked away from education after getting an Associates Degree in Applied Sciences. Decided to enroll in a local university and got accepted into their computer science program and will be taking my first class "Java Programming" this summer. Having really focused on other aspects of my life over the last couple years I was wondering if anyone has any advice for someone who is wanting to become a software engineer someday. I practice Vedanta a Hindu Philosophy and a lot of the initiates at the temple are involved in software tech firms in India and China. They told me if I learned Java and was even half way decent at it I could be making 60k-100k in less then a year. This seems ridiculous. But because I'd love to just game and code at home for a living I'm enticed. Suggestions?!



Thanks,

Akhenaten



This post was edited by KingTia on May 17 2016 08:07pm

i get the impression you never coded before. are you just learning it because you're interested in the money? based on your lifestyle of sitting at home gaming, you really dont need so much income. would you be interested in something like web design? it's much easier than being a programmer and still get work from home options.

as for learning to program at school, i recommend you first learn basic programming on your own. there are lots of tutorials out there to help you get your feet wet. many people find that programming isn't for them. i think it's useful to know that prior to committing a lot of money in school.

/edit: as for salary, depending on where you live, 60k sounds realistic. people with more interest in programming or more ambition can easily get more money.

This post was edited by carteblanche on May 17 2016 08:04pm

Thanks for the advice brotha! I posted in here a few months back when I was just starting to finish Code Academy tutorials and you threw me some knowledge! I had just started to dive into Java after messing around with some other web languages(if that's what you call them). I don't care about the money and honestly I'd love to just do web design and stuff like that but aren't there websites and stuff that do it for free? Don't get me wrong I know I'll be free lancing and cramming for the first few years but are you involved in the field?

those free website builders are great for cookie-cutter sites. blogs, forums, etc. you can find themes and plugins, but there are a lot of cases where they don't work so well. web designers have different roles. some just do stuff like wordpress, some do a lot of dreamweaver, some do a lot of html/css themselves. i personally don't have a lot of experience making websites look nice, so we had a web designer make the pages writing the html / css and i just plug in my code. it works well for everyone. a lot of web designers also do some programming.

at the moment i'm working on an ios app. we have a 'user experience designer'. she listens to our requirements and she draws mockups of what the screens should look like. that's another field you can look into. you can also look into 'quality assurance' where you test other people's code. some just do manual testing, and others do a lot of scripting.

Thanks a lot man it's helping me see this in a whole new light! Glad there's a comfortable medium for people who prefer and more talented in certain aspects of coding/programing/web design/ios development

if you have an associates it'll take you 2 years minimum to complete a bachelors, and you will need that to get an interview most of the time.

I went that route as well and i can tell you the two biggest problems you will run into are
1. bachelors programs are often meant to be taken over 4 years, while you work on major and general electives. You will have to really plan out the entire programs prerequisites to get it done in 2. I had to take 2 12 hour semesters, 2 summer classes, and 2 18 hour semesters to get it done in 2 because i lacked the prereqs to take 15 my first couple semesters.
2. alot of people drop out of this program because they just want a degree to get a title. you need to want to write code, to enjoy it, to be successful. the people who do well are actually reading their books, doing research on their own, and writing code outside the coursework.

Solid advice. I'm on your path, and I have no intention of being deterred or slowed down. I've kept my imagination running all these years you would think if I love helping people so much I could come up with something to get us all out of this fools game for good lol. I know it'll be a lot of work. I look forward to it. I've pursued a mostly philosophical, spiritual, and non material lifestyle these last few years "Off-the-Grid". Thanks for the advice guys I'll let you know how round 2 of CodeAcademy goes see if I can actually build something from nothing hehe

dam in a couple years most people on jsp will be in their 30s time sure flies

I'm getting too old for this shit

I started college aiming for a computer engineering degree. I did not know C++ or Java, I had only written a couple basic math programs on my graphing calculator. I had completed two years of calculus in high school. Two years into college, I decided the engineering math was not for me and that I really loved the coding classes, so I switched to computer science. I feel that if you have a good teacher for your beginning programming class, you do not need to know anything about coding before you start. Programming is not for everyone. You have to change the way your mind solves problems.

As for the salary aspect, computer scientists are in high demand with little supply. Every business can be improved by a computer scientist...