How I Became a Web Developer with No Computer Science Degree or Bootcamps | Self Taught

i went from lost and broke to self-taught web developer with no computer science degree or boot camps in three months and this is how i did it what's up guys welcome back to my channel it's jess and in this video i am finally telling you guys how i became a web developer with no computer science degrees or boot camps i did it fairly quickly once i actually started taking it seriously so yeah if you're interested in seeing how i went from literally struggling like i'm saying fifteen thousand dollars a year with the kid to where i'm at now and my journey going forward then this is the video for you so a little bit of background um i've never had a tech job prior to the one that i have currently and i've always worked at like best buy or office depot and then right before i found the world of tech i was working at a bank i was in banking for i would say all together about seven years six or seven years i was with two different companies but the last particular company when i first started working there i absolutely loved it i had no complaints i loved the staff all my teams you know everybody was great everything was great but over time i became very unhappy and i started to see the just how much i was being held back i knew my potential i knew that i could get things done and i was still being held back for whatever reason and you know very slowly progressed so i decided that enough was enough and i literally packed my stuff up i was due to go to lunch at a certain time i know this sounds bad don't be like me but i was due to go to lunch at a certain time i knew when i walked in in my heart that i was done and so during lunch i packed up all my stuff made sure that i left there anything that needed to be left and anything that needed to come with me came with me and i walked out and said i'll be back after my lunch break and i never came back literally never came back so was it the smart thing to do at the time probably not but it got me to where i am now i had to make those different changes and literally leap of faith to get to where i am today so because i had to make money i had already started a stationary brand or like a stationary blog before i quit my job and i decided that since i quit my job i needed to focus in on this and take it seriously and figure out how i can make money from it keith and i went to new york we went to the biggest national or the biggest stationary show in our country and i would argue maybe the world the national stationery show where all the top brands come and they showcase all of their stationery after the stationery show i had this feeling like this is still not it i love stationery but i'm still not doing what i love and i'm still not to be honest making money and i have all these responsibilities i was trying to fix something on my blog for wordpress once i got back home and i was trying to like just revamp everything i was trying to fix something something would not work so i started researching and you know wordpress has the community forum so that other users of the platform can answer questions that are frequently asked i found out that it was something with what's called the html html is hypertext markup language which again we'll talk about in future videos where we actually go over code and all that kind of stuff um you know languages and things like that but because i had to fix that html it pretty much just from there let me down a rabbit hole of okay if i could do that with this what can i do with this and what is that in css in javascript what is that animation what is that so yeah it was just like a snowball effect and that is how i initially found out about coding so when it was actually time for me to start learning how to code i started going to the library i picked up a coding for dummies book html for dummies javascript for dummies and i went home and i started studying mind you i still didn't have like an actual nine to five job i was still on my own trying to figure it out by that time i had found out that i was expecting my second child which threw us for a loop i started crying not that i wasn't happy about her but then i it just snapped in my head like i have to make something shake i already had to before but i really got to now so um i was sitting at my desk you know really focused on learning these languages um i was watching youtuber after youtuber specifically ones who said that they were self-taught to see exactly what their path looked like and the one thing that i remember standing out was that a lot of these youtubers had in common that they went to meetups so i was like well i live in a very small city i live in dayton ohio and super small city but kind of a lot going on especially like now the tech world is starting to come come up you know it's starting to kind of you know make some noise a little bit so i literally downloaded an app called meetup um this is not sponsored in any way um obviously because i'm a tiny channel right now but i downloaded the meetup app searched for i think i searched probably something like coding groups and then of course you can like narrow it down to your area so in surrounding areas so i looked here and in cincinnati because i used to live in cincinnati and that drive is like nothing to me so i was willing to go to meetups that were there if i found them intriguing enough i found a coding group here and it was only for women well they offered you know they allowed men but it was more so for women and i found this amazing community of women who some were self-taught some were learning like me at the time i was learning i hadn't had my first job i didn't have a job at all at the time and um a lot of them though were women who worked in the industry for years or were working in the industry for years as like top you know developers in their companies um engineers software engineers things like that so i took that opportunity to ask the women questions i asked them how did you start where did you start did you go to school were you self-taught did you go to a boot camp what are the best languages to learn how do i learn them what do you recommend all the questions that i could think of mind you this is not just one time usually these groups meet up at least for ours we had the in-person meetups once a month at our library it was like once every saturday i think was like the first saturday of the month but there were also other groups meeting throughout the week so sometimes we would i would go on saturday mornings meet with the women and then i would go with keith or at first i was going by myself i would go like on wednesdays that seemed to be mostly the days that they would have them and eventually i drug keith along with me because he was actually learning as well but he was interested in different languages at the time i was more so into web development he was more so into apps so i drug him to a meetup and from there it kind of like switched everything around for him also he got to see that it's not just a whole bunch of geeky people sitting around talking about tech but that you really can build a network you meet people they feed you you know if you want free pizza go to a meetup maybe not now because of the stupid virus but once the world starts opening up again in a way that we were used to before then i highly suggest going to these meetups in person but you can still get on meetup.com because they're still like for instance the the women that i meet up with are met up with i haven't met with them in a while just because time and life but they still have zoom meetups so they will schedule on a saturday at 9 00 a.m for you to get on a zoom call and just same thing it's just not in person just like everything else these days so yeah i highly highly highly recommend finding a meetup in your city figuring out what you want to do even if you don't know what you want to do like even if you don't know i want to be a web developer but i want to code in some capacity or whatever it is that you want to do get on meetup go to whatever type of meetup you can go to right now contact these people any way you can and ask questions because there is a key there is a key thing to this all the youtubers that i watched that were self-taught said they got their first job also me from going to meet us and the reason is you network you start opening your mouth you have opportunities to show your portfolio or whatever you've been working on to the people who are already in these positions who may have had you know positions that they're hiring for at their company even if they aren't the hiring manager they know the hiring manager or they can put you in a position where oh i know this girl you know from this meetup or this guy from this meetup and they are working on this this and that and they will be a great fit for this new position that you guys just posted you should give them a call i'm telling you that's what happened to me spoiler alert yeah meetups so go to the meetups in whatever capacity that means if you can't go to a meetup or you can't participate in um an imp you know a zoom call or whatever the case is get on instagram i don't have a lot of followers right now as we speak i'm sitting at probably around 450 450 people that follow me on instagram and that's fine i get whatev without even posting anything i get at least three to five people a week dm and me from all over the world don't know these people some of them don't even follow me they just found me some kind of way and they're asking questions they are passionate about their craft and they are asking questions and all i have in my bio is self-taught web developer you know i said something like i don't build i don't fix computers i built websites because that's one thing when you get in the code and people don't think that you can fix the computer no i don't fix computers but don't know nothing about hardware but i can get into that software so anyway um these meetups i'm telling you are key to they're a key component in i'm not saying that that's the only way at all there are tons of ways that you can do it but hearing the other youtubers and then that happening for me it holds true to me so it would be worth a try but definitely network because the thing i was told also when going to these meetups by multiple people in multiple different groups it's not about what you know all the time and how much code you know and all this stuff i mean yeah you want to pass the coding test when you get your interviews and things like that but a lot of it has to do with how much passion you have and how that portrays to the people that you are interviewing with they want to know that you're dedicated to learning because tech is always evolving tech is always you know changing the things that i learned even just a few months ago may not be the same today so they want to know that you can adapt well that you can learn quickly and that you are dedicated to learning because it's you're always going to be learning and you'll never ever ever feel like you know enough there's never going to be a time as a developer or engineer that you feel like you've learned everything that you can learn there are people who have been in this industry for 50 years 20 years whatever and they're still learning they're learning from the younger you know our generation who are brought up on tech you know so there's always going to be something that you can learn so always remember that but um as long as you have that passion for which what it is that you're learning and want to do trust me it will come across to the people that you're networking with and the people that you're building with and somebody you know you just never know where that could lead as far as somebody thinking hey i talked to susan about you know she was asking me questions about the cincinnati and i know that she's working on this so we're offering this position she's a great fit another thing i did when i started learning was using all the free resources that i could because mind you again i had no job i had no income coming in um thank god i had keith who was busting his butt taking care of me taking care of leah i mean avalia was in my belly at the time but he was holding it down for our family and he eventually he was like at this point you can't go back to banking or whatever it is that you wanted to do because you're so passionate about oh this over here it makes no sense let me grind sacrifice whatever you learn you get your job and that's what i did so doing that i are learning when i was learning how to code and still learning i don't want to make it seem like i'm not learning because i'm still very new at this even though i've been in my job for almost a year now i am still learning i'm telling you you'll never stop learning um but anyway free resources um i will go over this in another video in depth about every resource that i found helpful for me on my journey when i was first starting out but one thing like i said that i you know still do is watch youtubers one in specific or one particular youtuber that i loved was real chris shawn and i'll link his page in the description below his journey if you ever question whether you can be self-taught and not go to school if i'm not doing it for you please watch his videos because he is literally the reason why i kept going and why i even started because his story is very inspirational he takes you on this journey of not going to school for this not going to any boot camps completely self-taught and he ended up working for his dream companies he ended up interviewing with entrepreneur uh and they declined him at first but once he started grinding and learning more and actually doing things and you know doing his youtube videos and things like that they reached out to him and gave him a job and i'm telling you guys we'll go over this as well these salaries look them up how much can i make as a web developer as a software engineer things like that they starting out are close to the six-figure range now everything is not that way and every situation is different but most likely you can do that and if you don't do it the first job you can do with the second or third job you know so just keep going always stay hungry but yeah real christian i'll link him in the description below but outside of that i mentioned i went to the library to get books those are free um team treehouse was one of the resources that i use because of real christian um but that is not free um you might be able to i've heard you can get it free through your library i'm just not sure how to do that i haven't tried yet but i've been told multiple times at certain libraries i don't know if there's certain areas but some libraries do offer treehouse for free so i will check in with your local library and see if that is the case for you if not at this current time it's 20 a month or you can pay i think close to 300 annually which still comes out to less than what you pay 20 a month you know all the math um but right now i'm doing monthly because i don't necessarily need it for a whole year i mean it would be beneficial but um you know just to brush up on your skills but right now i'm taking a full stack developer track so they have different tracks that you can take um so for people like me if you're like me i don't want to go to school because one i don't want to pay all that money because let's not get on how much of a scam i feel like college is if you're not a doctor lawyer or something like that but like for this i have my own opinions and i'm sure other people who have gone this route do too and even people i've heard people who actually have computer science degrees said they learn more on their own like i literally worked with someone who said they learned more on their own and playing around with their ipad than they did in the four to five years that they went to school for computer science so anyway um use your resources okay use your free resources and if you want to pay for a boot camp that's fine i'm not here to tell you not to go to school this video is not about that not going to school or not going to boot camp but i know there are tons of people who want can't maybe can't afford college or can't afford boot camps because boot camps are pretty expensive and if you can take the time to learn it by yourself and make your own curriculum you do have to be very dedicated but you can do it for me i'm the type of person i need a curriculum i need to have some kind of structure to the things that i'm learning because if i'm too all over the place i get very overwhelmed and then it discourages me so if you're like me team treehouse again not sponsored because i'm an itty bitty channel right now but let's see where we at at the end of the year i'm excited team treehouse is an amazing resource if you want some type of structure and okay you did this now do this next okay you got that done now do this next they actually quiz you throughout the course um you know as you're going through the different modules and learning different things in between you know every you know however many slides they'll pop up with a quiz okay do you remember what we just talked about so it really keeps you on your toes and makes you feel like you have to pay attention because you're literally getting quizzed randomly uh i'm not randomly but you're just not used to it all of a sudden the quiz pops up and you're like oh crap like okay did i remember this was i paying attention so i love team treehouse i think it's amazing and also they make it very easy to understand the content javascript is very daunting language to learn uh but i've found with taking this track that you know i've already known a lot of this stuff you know the basics i already know those things but even looking at how i learned those basics compared to how they teach you on team treehouse is completely different and it's so much easier to understand so i highly recommend that also free code camp but again we'll go in depth on things that i learned and why i use those resources and why i recommend them okay so to touch on how i got my first job you know again i went to those meetups i networked i found someone who is still like my mentor today like i just got off the phone with her yesterday or it was the day before yesterday because i had questions and she was there to answer them and give me advice on okay well maybe if you do it this way then you'll have this outcome so you know it's great because you can get these unspoken mentors out of the situation too just from showing that you are interested and the thing about this industry is that most times when people are very passionate about their coding they are super passionate about teaching it as well so you'll run across a lot of people who are willing to teach you these things and they are excited to teach you i love talking about tech i love talking about code so um definitely get out there and network go to meetups if you can like i said um i researched a lot on like how to get your first tech job so um again youtubers we're talking about you know they did some there's platforms out there that offer like pretty much where you can do a practice run at a tech uh you know tech interview um and like a coding quiz so there were a lot of those things that you can do um but for me in particular it was that networking that did it to be completely honest with you um i had been putting out application after application after application and what i didn't realize is that maybe my portfolio wasn't that big because or it wasn't big enough there was nothing really on there that stood out and that's the thing if you're not networking you need a strong portfolio in my opinion things that are going to stand out or show at least that you have these skills that they're looking for especially being self-taught like they are already gonna see on there that you didn't put that you have a bachelor's degree they're gonna see that maybe you don't have any official training boot camps or whatever the case is um so you have to kind of make your are you should want that anyway to make your portfolio stand out um so that you can really just show your skill set and show your passion and dedication for it to even get that first interview and then from that first interview you just kill it uh so yeah uh networking was how i got my first job because i had been going to the meetups and speaking with the person who i was referring to as my mentor basically she ended up well she works for a company that ended up having a position a situation coming up where they were looking for a new web developer and she pushed me into it she said hey jessica i think you would be a really great fit for this what do you think and i was like hell yeah because at the time again we were making no money and we had two kids at this time because i had already had my baby so yeah we we needed that so um and she was offering more than i've ever made in my life not that it's a huge astronomical amount but coming from 15 000 a year i'm dead serious to what i make now starting out in my first job i wasn't gonna say no when i got hired on where i work now um the woman who i told you is like my mentor now she actually owns her own company but she has a contract with another company so pretty much i had to interview with her and then i had to interview with the program manager from that other company because he was the program manager over the contract that i work on so it was a quick process i believe i started the interview process in september and like two days later i got word from her and the program manager that they wanted to go ahead and hire me and then i started working there september 2019 and i'm still there today so in conclusion i want to say that whatever your goals are when it comes to coding or tech in general because you don't have to code to be in tech whatever your tech goals are define them make them definite and execute them make sure you know it's going to change like right now i'm a web developer but i want to get more into languages that i can use to create apps but still take those those skills that i learned from web development and apply them to those apps so your as industry changes your goals and you know ideas of what you exactly want to do when it comes to coding may change but always remember to make them definite wherever your goal is at that time make it definite and execute make a plan and execute it that's it just do it i was told by some people at the beginning of my journey that i would never be able to be a web developer without going to school i would never be able to do certain things without doing this i couldn't do this without doing that you need to go get a real job while you chase your dreams you need to do this you need to do that but the thing is it's like only you know what is good for you when you're a certain age okay definitely you're gonna have people in your ear who care about you saying oh you should do this you should do that but you have to figure out what is good for me what makes sense for me does it make sense for me to work a job that has nothing to do with tech i mean if you have the means of course people have to work you got to make money but whatever it looks like to you whatever your journey looks like to you is what it is to you if you get told that you should go to boot camp or you should go get a computer science degree but you don't feel that you need to do that don't do it if you feel that you need to do it do it so just always take what you feel and apply it accordingly it sounds unbelievable to go from 15k a year or really once i quit my job making nothing a year to almost doubling or tripling that until you do it everything is unbelievable until you do it and really what is impossible anyway what is that shouldn't even be in the dictionary to be honest because just because it hasn't happened today doesn't mean it can't happen tomorrow so i mean that's with anything so just always be mindful of that just because you are where you are today doesn't mean you'll be there tomorrow like literally things can change once you change your mind things can really change around you and i'm so serious i mean i was going from a place where i lived with my kids where one night they were shooting outside my window and i had to drag my kids off of my bed onto the floor and just wait for it to stop and now i live in a very secure place uh with an amazing view and i'm not saying that at all if you know me i am not a bragger i'm very humble i'm very quiet like i'm very but i just want to give hope out there to someone that you can change your life whatever your circumstances you don't have to settle we were all put here to make a difference and to use our voices and use our skills and to live a good life we weren't here put here to struggle and keith taught me that you know keith was in my ear about that because i went through some times where i was very very down on myself but one thing you can't tell me is that i didn't get this by myself so that about wraps up this video hopefully it wasn't too long i wanted to make sure i got all the key points because i've been getting asked this question so much and it's really been anticipated so i'm very excited to finally get this out to you guys if you are into learning how to code following my tech journey on your own tech journey you want to learn some tips and tricks want to have fun see some behind the scenes vlogs or not behind the scenes but daily life vlogs which i already have some up right now if you want to go check those out make sure you subscribe to my channel if you enjoyed this video or found it helpful help me out and like it i didn't think i would be one of those people to say that but i guess it helps the algorithm so if you could push this video up into that algorithm so you two can pick it up and we can help more people please too um so yeah um this is going to be the first entry to a i think five part series that i'm gonna do uh it's gonna be a series i haven't come up with an official name but we'll just for now say that it is how to get your first tech job as a self-taught web developer or self-talk coder in general because i feel like these things apply to you know across the board but this is the first video to a five-part series um we may add more we may take away some but right now it's five parts in my next video i want to go over things that helped me actually learn how to code so the books the different platforms and the different youtubers that i watched on my journey after that i want to talk to you guys about when the right time might be to apply or at least from my experience to apply for the different positions some good pieces that i feel like will be good on your portfolio when you go to apply for these positions and then maybe i can get my fiance on one of these videos and he can talk about with me what to expect on your interviews or like different things to help you prepare for your interviews because he went on way more than i did his journey looks completely different than mine he's a software engineer and he's also self-taught with no computer science degrees or boot camps i also want to do a video on whether or not you should do computer science degree route boot camps or self-taught because i feel like that's a great topic to talk about because everybody's journey is going to look different and everything may not work out the same you may not be good at self-taught being self-taught you might need to go the computer science route so i want to break that down at least in my opinion what i feel are the benefits of each in the cons of each so if you're interested in seeing more content like that product reviews tech talk coding sessions daily life of a web developer and software engineer vlogs with me and my family be sure to hit the bell notification so you never miss a video and i will see you in my next one thank you for watching bye

Channel: Girl Tech Connect

Views: 24,911

Keywords: software, tech, coding, engineering, engineers

Id: e2T8xJAVJG0

Length: 27min 42sec (1662 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 25 2021