CAREER CHANGE - ARE YOU TOO OLD? MAYBE YOU'VE LEFT IT TOO LATE?

I had a message on Twitter from Carly Thank You Carly she says hi Giles I've just found your YouTube channel I've dive into Python having fallen in love with coding however I'm 30 years old with two children and have no technical background is it possible to gain a career now that's an interesting question and I think we should talk about it but let's do it at a better location than here what drew me to this question was the way that it had been framed I may be wrong but implicit in this tweet is in spite of a newfound love of coding and a clear commitment to learn Python which incidentally is particularly obvious if you take a look at Carly's Twitter feed there's doubt as to whether this is something that is actually achievable due to several factors like age family circumstances and technical experience now this is interesting to me because I receive an awful lot of questions just like this one now it's getting a bit hot so let's go somewhere a little cooler let's talk about age stop I come to the coast where it's a little cooler now before we get on to how you might feel about your age and whether or not you've left it too late it's important to know that employers certainly in the EU in the US are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of age it's really important that you know that incidentally neither can they discriminate on now hold on I've got the list here on my phone let me just find it gender race religion or belief disability pregnancy and maternity marriage and civil partnership sexual orientation or gender reassignment so if you think age is an issue just leave it off your CV they can't force you to put it on there but how do you feel about your age and planned career move you probably think you've left it too late and I think we all have a tendency to feel this way Giles from the future doing the Edit I've just noticed that the sound on this bit is a little bit distorted and that was because of the wind I've tried to clean it up as much as I can but that's as good as it gets it only lasts about another 30 seconds and then it'll improve oh and also I need to apologise I hadn't realised how messy my hair was I'm overdue a haircut and I promise ones coming but well there's a okay so there's a funny reason why I haven't got my hair cut recently I'll explain it to you at the end of the video I think in the end it comes down to perspective the problem is that today right now right this second you're the eldest you've ever been you've never been older than you are right at this moment watching this video and that's skewed as your perspective it makes you think you're too old to do things when really you're not and you wish you'd started three four or five years ago had you done that then it would be fine but now it's too late but if I'd have asked you that question five years ago you'd have probably felt the same way and if you don't start today in five years time you'll think oh if only I'd started five years ago that actually would have been all right but now in this fictional time five years in the future it really is too late but it's not just age it's the what-ifs what if I fail what if I'm not good enough what if I just can't make this work but I think the count that is what if my talent goes undiscovered what if I never fulfill my potential what if I don't give this my best shot ask yourself is what you're doing now the optimal set of circumstances for you or is it something that just feels comfortable and reassuring through familiarity if the only reason you're doing something today was because you did it yesterday and it seemed okay then maybe that's not enough justification but it does mean swapping the perceived certainty of what you're doing now with the uncertainty of doing something new and we all tend to prefer certainty over uncertainty an uncertainty is a good reason not to make a change but I'd say rather than certainty its familiarity I think the unfulfilled potential of human talent is a real tragedy so don't let your bias towards the familiar stop you from fulfilling your potential and don't let your fear of not being good enough be a barrier either good news is that anyone can become expert at anything and that's a scientific fact Benjamin bloom who was a professor of education at the University of Chicago studied this in 1985 and more work has been done since and the findings are very clear experts are made not born you can become an expert in any field you want using a technique called deliberate practice and if you're an expert I guarantee someone will want to hire you now I'll cover the research behind this in a future video but I've put some links in the description to deliberate practice and it's definitely worth having a look at in the other part of Carly's tweet she mentions having children as if that could be an impediment to getting a job Tech is crying out for more diversity in the workplace it needs more women it needs more women with children it needs more parents that can only be a good thing don't let that put you off whatever your background there's no reason why you won't fit in in fact if you don't have a typical background you should see yourself as more valuable as you bring different experiences and a richer perspective with you particularly as a parent I think you develop certain skills that non parents might not have and that could make you a very interesting proposition as potential employee Carly also mentions not having a technical background but you know this is something that you can acquire through doing your own project building project doing work experience or having a mentor [Music] [Music] have you heard of Nicholas Winton he was an incredible man he saved 669 children from the Nazis and I was really lucky to meet him a couple of times and he had a saying and the saying was if it's not impossible then there must be a way to do it and I think you can apply that to your career change it's something that you can definitely do you're not too old you can become an expert and I know you can do this just persevere oh yes I nearly forgot to explain about the hair well I'm currently in northern France in a very rural area of northern France and I don't speak much French I normally spend my time between the UK and Spain and my Spanish isn't bad and obviously I'm a native English speaker but my French is dreadful and I haven't yet plucked up the courage to go to the hairdresser in France because I can't explain how I want my hair cut so that's why it's getting longer and longer and longer but I'm back in the UK next week so hopefully I will be Shawn by then this channel supported by Coursera now if you haven't heard of Coursera it's an online learning platform but I think is really democratizing education it's particularly strong for data related courses and I've put some links in the description below to some courses that I particularly like so if you're interested in a paid-for online course on this subject then go and take a look thanks for watching like subscribe and if you really like the channel

Channel: Python Programmer

Views: 53,630

Rating: 4.9293237 out of 5

Keywords: have i left it too late, career change, data science, coding, am i too old to change careers, how to change careers, am i too old to code, python, learn python, learn to code, learn to code later in life, learning to code in your 30s, learning to code in your 40s, how to learn python, how to learn data science, am I too old to be a data scientist, am i too old to be a software engineer, am I too old to be a data analyst, career change data science, career change python

Id: HIBY-47bHyw

Length: 8min 17sec (497 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 29 2019