Biggest MISCONCEPTIONS About Becoming a Self-Taught Programmer

you may have noticed by now if you've tried to teach yourself to code at this point and sort of looked around and seeing what the success rate is that not everybody successfully teaches themselves the code not everyone does this and gets a job and i have been really lucky to really observe a lot of how people get into this i know you guys reach out all the time with your comments i see a lot in the facebook group that i have and people who i work with and even myself i get a good idea of what's going on out there and i can tell you there's some big misconceptions that you guys have when you get into this that is causing you failure so what i wanted to talk about in this video today are those big misconceptions about being a self-taught programmer about teaching yourself to code that's probably holding you back from really getting into this so we're going to dive into it as usual you guys know i always like to introduce myself to those who are new to the channel here so i'm andy sterkwitz i am a self-taught programmer and i created this channel for you guys so you can do the same so i definitely would recommend to hit the subscribe button below also make sure to hit that bell icon so that you get notifications anytime i put out a new video all right so as far as misconceptions go to me the one that stands out the one that i see the most is really comes down to expectations and this really specifically about the expectations for how long this is going to take and how much commitment this is going to take on their part like how much work is going to be involved here and i can tell you that the first one is very pernicious right like a lot of people get into this and they they hear that you know i've done this it took a year for me other people maybe it took like eight months other people maybe took a year and a half two years and they think to themselves like wow you know well he did it in one year if i work twice as hard as him and i you know take the advice that he gives me i should be doing this in you know three months or something like that right and so they go into it with that expectation and they think themselves i'm just gonna go as hard as i can for three months and that should do it and while i love it i'm all about being ambitious i'm all about working really hard to get to your goals and anybody who can do this in three months i'll pat them on the back and say that's awesome i'm so happy for you but the reality dictates that we all can't do that we all either don't have the the talent from the beginning to do it like we can work our way up there certainly over time but we also don't even know how things are going to play out a lot of luck is involved in getting hired and people don't often want to talk about that right so i'm all about aiming for really really high goals and having high standards but at the end of the day if you aim for some ambitious goal like doing this in three months you're setting yourself up for failure because if you don't reach it i've just seen so many people who think they're like lowly scum right they're like oh i'm not worth it i'm not worthy even though in those three months they may have made more progress than you know ninety percent of the people who decide to do this and yet they're beating themselves up for it so expectations are really important to manage yourself and when i say as far as time management or i should say as managing how long you think this is going to take i'd say hope for the best so hope for three months i'm all for that maybe hope for six months but you have to expect the worst for me i swear my life i expected it was gonna take like a couple years i said if it took ten years i was fine with that and people think i'm crazy they think i'm lying i meant it because for me i said look i'm going to show up again and again and again i'm going to keep learning and maybe things won't go my way but i'm going to keep showing up until i have the skills and that's basically how you have to think about it so aim for a year aim for two years but hope for the best try your best to do it before then but if you expect to do it before then that's where you get into trouble now the second part that i would say as far as expectations go is really about how much this is going to take right so how much effort how much commitment how much do you have to immerse yourself into this this comes along quite often right like i'll talk to people and they say you know i've been trying to get a job i've taught myself the skills basically but i just can't seem to get an interview or when i go to interview they just don't believe that i'm really that skilled and i'll say okay let me see your github right i take a look at their github and they have like barely any activity on their github right like i see like three green dots in their activity and i'm like if an employer is going to hire you and they want to know that you're skilled at this and they're looking at sort of your track record of what you've done this doesn't look good this looks like a person who's maybe read a few books and read a few tutorials but isn't really doing the day-to-day work of a software developer which is like making commits right like pushing code up uh maybe pulling other code down forking other projects looking through it making tweaks that to me is really what it which shows you that you're immersed in this maybe you're even part of communities like you know programmer forums or maybe you go to meetups or maybe you're active on your social media and all you're talking about is programming but when a company looks at you they want to see that it's more than just like a oh you know i'm reading some book or i took a course oh yeah i took two courses wow they don't they don't care they don't want to have to train you they don't have to spend years training you or months training you they want you to come on and be able to get up and running within a couple months like usually one two or three months past that it's just not worth their time and effort so you have to really prove to them that you're committed to doing this and what i would say is immerse yourself in this go to meetups post all the time in your social media make daily commits have that github light up like a christmas tree like make it green as possible but it's going to require more than just dabbling your toe in the water or sticking your toe in the water and you know sort of having one foot in one foot out go all in and it's going to be much better for you the next misconception that's really common as well is really about how you go about learning or having the skills to be hired as a programmer right so that means like how do you actually attain the skills of a programmer most of us are very familiar with how to learn things from school right that's where we go back to back in the school days you learn by reading books you attended lectures where the professor stands at the front of the class with a white board and sort of draws things out and then they ask you questions and then you have to do homework and then you study and and then you i guess you know pass tests and you get a grade like all of us sort of know that process we're very familiar with that and we're sort of indoctrinated to think that that's how you learn anything like that's how you become uh you know successful at anything right like that's the the format at which you do it and so when people find out that coding is something that they can do that they can teach themselves they think the same thing applies that it's about sort of you know going to lectures listening to a lecturer talk and then they have to do a little bit of studying on their own they do a little bit of homework that's very tailored to whatever they're learning and then they should be getting some feedback that they're you know doing a good job like yeah you got an a awesome right whereas when you teach this to yourself on your own the thing that really really is not fun is there's no one to give you feedback the tutorials are great you feel good when you're doing them but when you go out on your own when you start building projects on your own which you have to do if you're going to be hired as a programmer because you have to be able to do this there's no feedback there the only feedback most people are going to get when they start actually coding is that you suck like you are not good at this you're going to get stuck you're not going to know what to do you're going to kind of be sitting there just like with your hands up like okay well what do i do from here and if you're going back in your mind and thinking like school is the only route the school approach is the only way to do this be teaching yourself is going to be completely miserable so what i find is going to happen is you have to like literally retrain your brain how to think about problem solving he has to you have to retrain how to learn because a lot of learning is feeling lost there's no guide there's not going to be there's going to be people on the internet like myself and others maybe people on forums that you can go and sort of get help from and listen to and hear what they have to say but a lot of this is feeling lost and if you are not comfortable feeling lost if you start panicking when you feel lost or you feel like you're kind of moving around aimlessly then you're going to really struggle with this so what i tell people is learning on your own is about feeling like you're lost most of the time it's really about teaching yourself how to learn like learning how to learn is one of the things that we are not taught in school we're taught to follow directions we're taught to listen closely study past tests but we're not actually taught to like if you want to learn how to shoot a basketball or swing a golf club like how do you actually do that in an efficient manner in an effective manner so this is a big expectation just understanding the process of how to learn and going away from the traditional route of you know sitting in a classroom and being tested you have to learn that otherwise you're you're going to be miserable because you're going to be doing all the things that you think is right reading books watching tutorials but it's not going to culminate in you getting the results that you want the last misconception that i see happens quite often when people are learning to code and teaching themselves is that they think they have to be like really skilled like at an advanced level before they even start applying to their first job and this really comes up a lot and i see people procrastinating like a lot of people will be teaching themselves for around a year and they keep like when i ask them like when are you going to start applying they're like you know i i was going to do it now but i'm push it off another three months and then the you know sudden you talk to them again it's like another three months or another six months they got all these reasons there although when you look at their body of work they've got a really great body of work they've got projects that they've been building they had their github is you know very active like it looks to me like they're ready to go their portfolio website is up and running their linkedin is set up and you can kind of just see that the person is procrastinating right so in other words they in their mind are using this idea of being the best programmer they can be before they even go out and start dipping their toes in the water and trying to see like whether companies are going to give them interviews and whether they get interviews whether they're going to hire them based on their performance in the you know technical aspect or even just in the interview process so what i would like to say to a lot of you guys is that you don't have to be an expert to be a programmer you don't have to be an intermediate even to be a programmer you can still sort of be in that beginner in immediate stage what you have to show in an interview is that you have the potential to learn quickly um some companies they want you to be ready you know like if you're going to work at google or something like that it's rare that you're going to find people get hired at sort of the beginner intermediate level but the world is not comprised of google's they're not comprised of facebook they're not comprised of netflix and amazon there are so many countless companies that you can get hired at that don't even do it like a real stringent technical interview like believe me this is true i know you probably hear a lot of different things in other youtube channels like gotta have the data structures and algorithms perfect i'm not i'm not saying you don't have to have that but there are companies where you can get hired at where the technical interview process is either not as stringent meaning it's not you have to have this high level of skill there or they're just going to do a behavioral interview and they're going to look at sort of your body at work or maybe they'll even give you like a homework assignment which you know i've done when i first got hired as well my point is this you can get yourself up to a certain level of skill what i would call beginner intermediate and start dipping your toes in the water start trying to interview the worst thing you can do though and this comes down to the misconception i'm bringing up here is sort of keep pushing off and waiting keep procrastinating on the job interview process because you're scared of you know failure which is really what it comes down to failing in the interview process is not as bad as you think i actually tell people if you're scared go do it even if you're not ready yet because you need to sort of shake the fear that you have and see and realize with your own two eyes that getting rejected you know quote unquote which is not even really rejection getting rejected in the job interview process is not that bad it's not that bad at all you'll live you'll your skin will get a lot tougher right like you'll you'll be able to handle any sort of adversity a little bit better you in order for you get hired it's likely you're going to have to go through rounds of interviews fail at that and eventually you'll find one but if you keep procrastinating on that and you keep using the excuse that you have to keep learning as your excuse you're going to just keep avoiding it because you'll never you'll never ever find the end of that rabbit hole right like you'll always find there's something you don't know or could learn better so what i say is your skills do not have to be at an advanced level they don't even have to be an intermediate level get out there earlier than you feel is necessary if you have a mentor ask them right like you can always ask them as a fallback and usually if your mentor is sensible they'll tell you to get out there even before you feel ready so those are the biggest misconceptions that i see from my experience of talking to a lot of you guys my own experience as well because i certainly went through this people who i mentor and coach so if you guys enjoy this please leave a like as the youtube algorithm really loves that it does me a huge favor as well also guys i have a free facebook group that you can join if you like my content and get more of it i will leave a link in the description below if you want to join i post content there as well i also try to keep it out of from spammers and i also will participate in some live q a events as well so check that out join as soon as possible other than that guys thank you so much for watching and as always peace out [Music] you

Channel: Andy Sterkowitz

Views: 70,994

Keywords: self taught programmer, self taught software developer, learning to code, computer science, software engineer, software engineering, software development, computer programming, programming, software developer, andy sterkowitz, self-taught software developer, code, learn to code, self taught web developer, self-taught programmer, how to get a programming job, programming job without degree

Id: B7J8Idx3hyY

Length: 12min 49sec (769 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 28 2020