Hello,
I am a lawyer in Chicago, almost 30, with no formal education or experience in software.
Within the past couple of years, I’ve spent a lot of my spare time on Codecademy, Treehouse, Lynda, etc. I’ve toyed with Java, Objective-C, HTML/CSS, Python, and Ruby, and I’ve loved it all. Can’t get enough of the stuff.
It’s clear to me that I want to make a career switch asap, and I’ve narrowed my focus to learning Ruby/Rails in hopes of becoming a back-end developer as soon as possible. I’m still only studying beginner level tutorials, but I feel like it’s just a matter of time…
In hopes of accelerating the process I looked closely at Dev Bootcamp, but each of my developer friends said it’s not worth the money - everything that one needs to learn is free online. While I still see the value of the guidance and community support that Dev Bootcamp would offer, I also know that my friends are right in that I’ve already found more free learning resources than I can count. The biggest limitation to my advancement is that I have to go to work and do legal research all day. After experiencing 3 years of marathon cramming in law school, and considering my growing passion for software, I started to wonder if I really need a bootcamp? What if I just quit my job and code all day for a few months, networking and making friends in the tech community along the way?
I already saved up a bunch of money, intending to pay for Dev Bootcamp. Plus, my amazingly supportive wife has a good job that could support us if necessary, and she actually likes this crazy idea more than the thought of me being tied up all evenings and weekends to study for the next year or two.
So, what do you guys think? If a novice could code all day long, and draw upon the networks and communities online and in Chicago, how long would it take to find that first job? I’d be happy to take any junior developer/apprentice/internship or whatever in Chicago or Minneapolis. The only question for me is how fast can I get there.
Most people suggest it takes a year or two for someone to learn enough to get there first job in the field. Does it have to take that long? Even if all I do all day is study for months?