Not everyone can afford to spend years in college before beginning their programming career. You can gain knowledge of programming from experienced developers or teach yourself computer programming using reasonably priced textbooks, training courses and or coaching programs. Becoming a computer programmer by going to college to study computer science is a wise choice, but in this article I will show you that you can gain the same knowledge without having to invest a fortune in a college education.
Do You Need A College Degree?
On a resume your qualifications or programming related degree will stand out and get you noticed, but prospective employers are really looking for people who have the ability to write good quality source code. There are many programmers that have developed their programming skills without spending any time in college and got a job in the programming market without a computer science degree. It’s up to you to figure out if you want to get programming qualifications or a programming degree.
What Do Employers Want?
You’ve made over your resume, submitted it and begun preparing for programming interviews; but you should slow down and ask yourself “What do the employers really want?” Are they looking for a diploma, certificate, bachelor’s degree or master’s degree? Or real world experience with C#, Visual Basic.Net, SQL? No matter if you taught yourself programming from home or learned it from college or a correspondence training course, employers want to see good competent software development skills and interpersonal skills more than anything else. They are also placing more emphasis on newer object oriented languages and tools such as C# and Java. After you are hired your employer will expect you to be able to document and design software applications and write good quality code regardless of where you learned the skills. They will also expect you to keep up with the changes in technology and continuously update your development skills and technical knowledge.
It Is Easy To Study Computer Programming and Get a Job
One of the best kept advantages of becoming a computer programmer is that you can learn computer programming at home and advance your skills to a competent level without first getting a programming job. When I realized this more than 12 years ago that I could just buy a computer, connect it to the internet and learn as much programming as I wanted without having to get a job first, I was excited. Of course, I realized that I would still need to invest in programming books, software development tools, and invest in training packages that would allow me to learn programming on my own. I figured out that the total cost of my investments in computer programming training would pale in comparison to how much I would earn as a programmer and how much more time it would take me to study medicine or law in college. I took my developer training and got a well-paying contract programming job within 6 months, an opportunity I knew I would not have had with any other high paying career.
How to Begin a Software Development Career after High School?
You can get a programming job without a college degree and here’s how. You will need to communicate your programming knowledge and development experience. Knowledge and experience is the key. Show your prospective employer that you have just as much knowledge as the guy who did go to college and go into the specifics about the applications you have built using software development tools. Talk about the problems you ran into when building an application and how you solved the problems. Do all that you can to show your prospective employer that even without a college degree you are an asset to anyone who hires you!
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My name is Kingsley Tagbo and I'm a technical expert living in Saint Louis, Missouri. I write about the training, coaching, mentoring and personal development of software development professionals including business analysts, computer programmers, testers, project managers, web designers, data analysts, report writers, software developers and other information technology professionals.