I’m going to be honest. I like this thread. Not only is the article long and “thorough” (whether you agree with this form of thoroughness or not) but the responses are too.

I can appreciate what the author is trying to express. I also related to how he’s trying to express it because it’s very similar to how I try to explain my opinions, shower thoughts, meanderings…which typically earns me eyes glazing over from my conversation partners haha.

I have many many thoughts on everything being discussed here, but rather than contribute, I’m going to sip on my coffee and keep reading.

P.s. I’m liking PD better than Reddit. Actual conversation happening.

Honestly, that’s kinda how it happened for me. When I remembered I liked coding I started tinkering with Python for a couple of weeks. I enjoyed it enough that I started to wonder if I could do it as a job instead of Electrical engineering. That’s what lead me to look at education options.

If you’re looking into web dev specifically… you could try writing some very basic websites for a week or two with HTML, CSS and maybe some Javascript. If you find your curiosity and your excitement when you get something to work outweighs the frustration of hitting learning roadblocks…then it’s probably safe to say you’ll like it and will thrive!

If you completely lose momentum and have no desire to try again or keep learning…then switching to it as a career will probably be a painful grind.

And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t even really know what web development was when I joined the boot camp…I just knew I liked tinkering with the Python stuff that I did.

Ha my buddy I talked about was also a server!

2 years to get a computer science bachelors?

Bootcamps are definitely a gamble. They vary in quality too. But, I guess I’m just here to say that it worked in my case! So it’s a valid option if the other factors make sense.

Do you know at this point if you like to code?

What is your current career? I was an Electrical Engineer until 2017 and was also considering a CS degree. I opted for a Web Dev boot camp instead as a lower timeframe/cost test of my ability to pivot.

I was able to land a job 8ish months after graduating and am now a Sr. Software Engineer. I think my previous engineering experience did help me get my foot in the door but one of my bootcamp grad buddies also broke into a web dev job without any bachelor’s degree.

The CS guys here may scoff at me but the boot camp route made sense for me and it may for you as well.

It’s definitely not a shoo-in. You have to like to code and have a passion for it. I liked it in high-school so it wasn’t liked I just pulled the “lets try a coding career” out of thin air.

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