Study from a programming school

Is it worth? Or should we self-study programming/coding?

Get Real Industrial Experience

It is often said that even if you graduate from a programming school, it will not be much useful in the field. It is true?

There is no final answer to it but in my opinion, there are two types of students:

1. Those who challenge themselves to get work by their own ability in a short time.
2. And those who keep “only studying” for a long time.

My Story: I have learned programming on my own in just 1 year in 2011-12. After that, I started with a monthly income of $1000 through freelance work. And now we have grown to a team of more than 20 people and we have almost every web-based solutions to handle almost any kind of website and data.

Keep reading to find the procedure to reach a position where you have your own work with your own conditions and you can live a life that’s comparatively free from any job restrictions and you are earning purely on your own basis.

Studying at a programming school worth it?
My personal opinion is that it is NOT.

Programming school graduates are with no real industrial experience right after graduation. So basically it is difficult for them to generate money or get a good job.

Exceptions: For example, “To be a consultant after training”. Still, I doubt it.

You cannot be able to grow as a consultant (or even in any other similar fields) without accumulating actual industrial experiences of battles and competition.

The same is true for programming/coding and it should be the same for designers.

In my friend’s story (in the same year 2011-12), there was a university (Name withheld) famous for its digital media and programming courses. My friend did a 4 years degree course from there. However, even after so much effort, he couldn’t land in a proper job, and he end up working part-time at that university only. After that, he got a part-time job at a Design Office and gradually improved his strength and abilities by working and studying parallel for around 1 year.

Now he is working in a permanent position getting a good salary with nice experience.

He had enough money to enter into university and live there for 4 years, but I did not have. So I taught myself programming (self-study) because I didn’t have a choice.

Now while he was earning $500 a month by putting his full time, I was making $2000 a month by giving 3 hours per day on an average while doing pretty challenging and nonrepetitive programming work.

There can be an opinion that “Only a university can give us a certificate and only a certificate can give us a job and the only job can give us a stable income”.

But I think especially in the case of programming/coding careers, on average “Some people did not have a choice of entering a school for learning”. Yet they did even better if we compare them to university graduates.

How? I don’t know either. But it was true.

 Obviously, it is not a fixed rule that university graduates are useless but in my opinion, it is also fine to think differently sometimes and not become a slave to university certificates. 

Those who are committed to earning money individually should have guts. When a person with guts gains on-site experience, he becomes really strong.

So in conclusion: It is better to have the guts of gaining experience whether you are a graduate or not.

Some people say that by going to a programming school, you can be driven and do your best. 

In that case, you can change yourself to become better to study at your own pace. You are free. Moreover, when companies are hiring you, they also consider your behavior, your guts of taking the challenge, and your problem-solving abilities. And that I feel you better grow by yourself rather than studying at a university.

There was a time when I got a job in Japan and I was hiring programmers.

I was surprised since their resume was almost the same and not certainly useful as per the job requirements. I started thinking: Their CVs don’t become much help so let’s put focus on their actions and experiences.

After I selected a few students for on-job training, I told them the steps to reach “The industrial level” in coding/programming. So you can also follow them for your reference: ・

• Step 1: Polish your basic learning (1 month)
• Step 2: Create and publish your own service or website (1 month)
• Step 3: Undertake a small job or a running project

Step 1: Polish your basic learning (1 month)

First, let’s polish your basic learning whatever you have learned so far in school.

Whether you go to school or study by yourself, it’s okay.

For self-study methods please go through:

Basic Roadmap for learning programming

And

Advanced Roadmap for learning programming 

The minimum skill, for example, you can imagine is as follows:

1. By understanding HTML and CSS, you can create simple websites and publish it.
2. By understanding PHP and Ruby, you can create bulletin boards and task management apps with some relational databases.
3. By understanding JavaScript, you can make your projects more user-interactive.
4. To get more learning examples and knowledge, go to www.w3schools.com 

We recommend you to enter from web production with the order of learning HTML → CSS → WordPress and Bootstrap, which is more efficient than learning PHP, Ruby, and JavaScript at first. 

Step 2: Create and publish your own service or website (1 month)

Once you have simple knowledge, let’s make some magic from it.

For example:

1. Try to make a bulletin board or a notes app
2. Try to make a diagnostic maker
3. Simpler app similar to Twitter

If you have seriously studied all the above there is no wonder you can make these in a very short time and with almost no problems.

It takes about 3 months of basic study and around 1 to 2 months of polishing your skills to achieve all of the above.

By the way, I reached this level after about a year of learning. I was addicted to the blog on the way, so the progress was delayed. However, I gained SEO knowledge along with it which became a plus for my subsequent engineering career.

Step 3: Undertake a small job or a running project

After completing steps 1 and 2, the rest is the actual experience gaining area.

1. Undertake a simple website production project or a simple system construction project or a customer data management project, etc
2. By understanding the company job role and accumulating actual training data, you can contribute the efforts of your training to real company projects gradually. If your company appreciates your work, you are done. And if doesn’t, you keep growing and learning from your mistakes.
3. Some people may think that they should take a job before Step 2 is completed. That is, of course, OK.
4. There is no FIXED and RIGHT way to study programming/coding, so I think it is okay you should think about yourself with your conditions and move in the direction that is appropriate for you after reading our roadmaps of coding/programming.

If you are thinking of changing jobs, please also read:

All about changing Jobs in Coding/Programming 

Conclusion: I wanted to be a permanent employee after a few months of self-study jumping into an IT venture for a Job. I put my best efforts to achieve that but I couldn’t get through it. Then I ventured into freelancing and in 2 years I got an income of $5000 a month just by coding/programming.  

It was great to learn not only programming knowledge but also the mindset for working styles. This gave me a hell lot of experience that even university goers can’t get from their university. 

If you can continue to have fun with coding/programming, you can afford it and make income in a few months. That’s TRUE. 

If beginners are reading this, I am sure they won’t believe all this. So better talk to your seniors and they will resonate with it.

Based on my experience, I wrote it to the maximum. But I’m not perfect, and I’m neither an expert nor a superb person. I think I am at a normal level. 

But all I believe is that you can do wonders, especially in the coding area.

All the best!