Can You Become a Programmer in ONLY 3 Months?

hey there how's it going I'm and Easter quits I'm a self-taught programmer and in this video what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna answer the question can you become a programmer in only three months and the reason that I want to answer this is because there are a lot of people on the internet on YouTube who have gotten a job within three months from the time that they started their first tutorial or their first class and therefore his book to the time that they got their first offer and so I just wanted to give you my take on it and give you a realistic approach or explanation of what is really going on there so if you're new here by the way if you're wondering who I am I'm and Easter quotes like I said I taught myself to become a software developer five years ago and right now I'm a mentor and coach to everyday people who are aspiring developers people who want to change your careers into this field so I highly recommend to subscribe to this channel by hitting the subscribe button below also make sure to hit the bell icon to get notifications anytime I put out a new video okay so let's just answer the question right off the bat here so can you become a programmer in only three months from the day you start programming to the day get first job of course there's nothing stopping you there's no laws that are stopping you there's no thing out there that says that you have to be doing this for a certain amount of time at the end of the day it comes down to will someone hire you based on who you are based on the skill set that you have in some companies will hire you way before you are ready to become a programmer now if you are shooting for this you're dead set you say I'm gonna become a programmer in three months that what I would say to you is this it's all about probabilities and there's many factors that come into play so I'm first gonna cover what factors are important for you to make this happen if you were are dead set on doing it three months and then we'll talk about what I would do if I were starting all over again like how I would try to make sure that was gonna be able to do this in three months so first let's talk about the factors that come into play so the first factor that's really important is just your expectations your expectations have to be properly set before you get into this I've seen a lot of people who have really poor expectations meaning they think they're gonna get into this read a few books and also they're going to go and start applying for jobs based on the fact they've read a few books the the the proper expectation for this is more like you're gonna be training for a marathon in three months meaning you're gonna have to change overall your lifestyle more than likely you're going to have to a lot of time studying you're gonna have to lie to spend a lot of time just sitting in front of the computer just racking your brain about how to fix this code that you've broken or build this application and so if your expectations are not in line this is gonna be really hard you have to really be discipline and focus for three months then you're probably not gonna be able to do this from there you have to figure how much study time you have so do you have a family do you have a full-time job or can you study just as much as you want as your heart's content and that really makes a difference as well because I coach a lot of people who have a full-time job and a family and normal life stresses and so for them they're only able to put in 15 20 maybe 25 hours per week if you can put in more time than that then you're going to be at an advantage and you can make more progress as far as studying and learning goes so how much time you have available to you plays a major role in this and then the last thing the last factor that plays a role in this is luck and I'm laughing at this because it's look I don't care who you are but luck will play a role in this luck always plays a role any time you're going to get a job it just depends on whether the recruiter at the company sees your resume at the right time whether you apply at the right time and whether you get the the interviewer who's gonna like you or whatever is there are so much luck that comes into play that people don't realize and so with this journey you're always trying to increase the probability that someone will say yes that someone will give you a job offer and that's really most important to realize that amongst all this is that there is you have less control than you probably think and so all you can really focus on is getting your skills better and then putting yourself in a position where you can actually get hired okay so from here the question is how would I set up a plan for myself I go back in the past to 2014 when I first taught myself to code how would I go back then and set myself up so that I can increase the probability that can get a job within three months so there's a couple different things that I focus on the first thing I would do is I would find a mentor or a guide somebody who is in the field who is a programmer who can help me set up a plan for the next three months you have to have some sort of game plan or road map that you're going to be following over the course three months because you don't have much time to waste and if you're not in the field it's extremely difficult to know what is important to learn and what is not important to learn what can you gloss over and what do you have to spend a lot of time on this is the thing that trips up most people who get in the field because when you go and you read blog posts when you go and watch YouTube people will list out all the things you need to know and the truth is that they're typically not telling you okay you should prioritize this one concept over this concept this concept you can just read a quick blurb on on this concept you really spend a lot of time on and so a mentor or guide is really going to help you to figure out what you need to focus on what projects to build in your portfolio which is really really important by the way you don't want to have all simple projects you don't want to have too complex of projects and at the end of the day to that mentor guide can give you feedback so when you are creating projects when you are writing code they can give you pretty much instant feedback or some delayed feedback about some of the programming practices you can do it one way or the other you can watch as many tutorials as you want you can read as many books as you want but at the end of the day I have found that there's no quicker way to learn and there's no better way to learn than to have somebody in front of you now to find a mentor is not easy you have to put in a lot of work here you have to if you don't know any software developers you got to figure out a way to network to get to know someone or you know actually hire a mentor if that's the case as well like whatever it takes getting a mentor is worth every single penny because there's too much to learn in this field to figure it all out in your on your own so find a mentor try to stick to one by the way don't try to get like six or seven different mentors because you have people telling you all different things find one really good one maybe two at the most hopefully they agree on mostly everything and stick to that plan that you're gonna create with them the next thing I would focus on if I really want to increase the probability or likelihood that I got a job within three months is really focusing on my strategies to learn or learning how to learn or learn more intelligently I think that makes sense because most people's inclination if they want to decrease the time that they're going to learn something to a high degree is they're going to put in more hours they're gonna cram and all the scientific studies out there about cramming show that it doesn't work like if you think you're gonna put in 12 to 14-hour study sessions over the course of three months that somehow it's gonna make make you catch up to a regular developer it's misguided to say the least like first of all your brain is very similar to a muscle and that it needs rest it needs time off in order for it to function at a high level you have to get your sleep you have to spend time away like doing other activities than just studying and so studying smart is very very important using the Pomodoro Technique is something I recommend it helps you to really in a disciplined way focus on periods of time of work versus periods of time of rest so I recommend implementing that I recommend having off time meaning like at a certain point day you don't study anymore no matter how much you want to write like having a cutoff period of like 6 or 7 p.m. every day but before then you could study as much as you want even beyond that when it comes to programming and study time you can't just learn this from reading a book or doing what I call passive learning you can't be sitting there watching a tutorial 100 percent of the time you actually have to be using or implementing what you're learning and doing hands-on learning so building projects to remove code reading other people's code that's just as important and so you have to be spending at least half of your time doing active learning by building projects in order for you to build a portfolio of projects and show potential employers that you know you're doing you have to be building things right and so I've always said this I've said that a million times in my channel but you have to spend at least half of your time actually coding because that's the thing that's gonna help you implement the things that you're reading in books or washing in tutorials but there's no substitute for that so make sure when it comes to learning smart that you're spending a lot of time with your active learning that you're not cramming that you're giving yourself time off that you're using the Pomodoro Technique or some technique that's limits your study time because cramming is not gonna work you have to study intelligently alright now the last thing I'd really say here if you're going to get a job in three months is you're going to have to apply way before you feel ready to actually start applying for jobs I don't care who you are like 90 percent 98 99 percent of the population if you're going to really intensely study for 3 months you're not going to feel ready to be a programmer well after a year most people don't feel ready to be a programmer and so you really have to be comfortable with this concept that when three months comes around you're gonna be like really I don't think ready maybe I should wait a bit a little bit longer so you to mentally prepare yourself that you're gonna feel like a fish out of water you're gonna feel very scared you're gonna feel like there's a lot of imposter syndrome going on when you first start applying but that's totally normal at the end of the day look if you go out there and you apply for jobs after the three-month period and you don't get much feedback or you fail a bunch of interviews then okay you got a lot of feedback about what you need to change moving forward and so you have to increase your timeline or what could happen is you go out there you are green behind the ears right as they say meaning you don't have a lot of skill or experience but somebody sees that you're very eager very passionate they really like what they've seen from the interview process and from what you've coded so far in your projects that they're willing to take a chance on you and that's really what you're betting on look at the end of the day you're probably I could work for Google you're probably not gonna work for Facebook you are probably gonna work for a smaller company or middle sized company who you just happen to meet the right recruiter or the right interviewer they really like what you bring to the table and they know that they can work with the raw talent that they see and the progress that you've made so far and that's really what you're banking on you're not banking on being a perfect candidate that takes more time that takes that six months nine months a year or longer to craft your skills to a higher degree to prepare yourself for it in the interview process at three months the chances are gonna be really good that you're not quite ready and that's okay and that's totally okay but the end of the day if you're really dedicated to doing this in three months if you're just gonna say like screw it I'm gonna do it just prepare yourself that you're going to feel like an imposter you're gonna feel like you're not ready at three months and that's okay just have to move on through it so those are really that's everything here I hope you have better expectations about this whole become a programmer in three months craze that's been going on at the other day if you're really dead set on doing it know that you have to take it serious know that you are going to have to study intelligently that you're gonna have to apply before you feel ready and that then the day this is all about luck and you're just trying to play the best odds that you can right increase your probability as I like to say so if you enjoyed the video please leave a like you tube really likes that apparently that increases the likelihood that I'll get more views so if you could do that I'd really appreciate it other than that guys if you are looking for more set from me I actually have a free Facebook group that you can join at and Easter quits com forward slash group I'll also put a link in the description below but that groups really about high quality content I try to keep spammers out as much as possible and occasionally I do some live Q&A events so highly recommend checking out the group when you get a chance other than that that's really all I got for today so thank you so much as always for watching and take care [Music]

Channel: Andy Sterkowitz

Views: 151,301

Rating: 4.9402442 out of 5

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

Id: DeqnZIV9Ef8

Length: 11min 49sec (709 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 17 2019