@Emily2007 Firehose project
Thank you very much @partyof5!
My DIL did a 6-month halftime coding boot camp, which cost 9K. I was worried because there are so many boot camps out there, and it seems evident that the market will soon be saturated. She is 3 days into a job as a junior software programmer with an online company, and beat out many, many applicants to get this opportunity. She is grateful that she landed this job. fingers crossed that the company will thrive and she will have this job for as long as she wants it! My son is spending 3 years getting a graduate degree in a field that is now also experiencing saturation. I just keep telling myself that he will only need one job to start…
@emily0722 – To excel in the computer world you have to completely and totally immerse yourself in it. That means 24x7 effort to learn every detail. The good news is that it has never been easier to create good designs/code because there are several free high quality development environments: Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition, Apple’s Swift for iOS, Android Studio (not great, but free), etc. I especially like MS Visual Studio’s Xamarin system for cross-platform mobile development. Your S should develop stuff with it and blab about it on websites like stackoverflow.com, release apps in the Apple and Google stores.
Anxiousmom, did your DIL do it online or in person? I didn’t think this field was nearing the saturation point, I read that it’s supposed to grow by 27%.
Droppedit, thank you very much for your suggestions.
The problem with my S is that he is one of those really smart people who just doesn’t really know what they want. He was identified as gifted early on in elementary school, enrolled in mostly advanced classes all through middle and high school and graduated college cum laude… Having said all that, he knew what he didn’t want to do (engineering, computer science, anything healthcare related, law, finance - pretty much ruling out many of the fields that are commonly expected to give graduates a good chance at getting a job fairly easily). So, the only field he kind of sort of seemed to gravitate towards was web design where he could use his creativity but not to have to be heavily involved in actual coding and programming.
His plan after graduation was based on the expectation that because he has a degree in a related field and already has a few years of relevant experience under his belt, that he’d be able to get an entry level job in his field and learn more on the job. Well, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, no employer seem to be interested in giving anyone a chance, they want someone who can come in and do what they need done. I can understand it from the employer’s perspective but it doesn’t make it any easier for my son and many like him…
The other issue is that his personality if not very conducive to all the networking and going to meetups so that’s going to be an adjustment for him…
I cracked up when I saw an article about the Einstein happiness quote that was recently sold for over a million dollars -
“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.” - that’s my son to a T.
DIL took an inperson Coding boot camp - it was designed for people working full time jobs so it was evenings and weekends.
That’s a problem because many people can do website design without any technical expertise. Computer-related fields are basically a meritocracy, what you do is most important. If your S doesn’t want to get into the nitty gritty CS part of websites then he needs to set himself apart by focusing on the design part. For example, he could start a blog that analyzes and critiques the design of major websites. Maybe create his own versions as demos. Buy Xara Web Designer Pro or Dreamweaver and show off his skill.
Appreciate your insight @droppedit and will pass it along to him.
Thank you @anxiousmom as well!