Starting a new profession is scary

I know this. Two years ago I have decided to change my life completely and dive into something new and exciting, Web Development!

The magic world of computers was so mysterious to me for a long time and I didn’t have courage to become a wizard myself. One day, I finally decided to change my career, I took many online courses, read a lot of books and blogs, and got certified from the University of Washington.

In this blog post, I want to talk about how to start learning Web Development and decide if it is actually for you.

When changing career paths, there are thousands of tests you can take that claim to help you in your journey, I am not into that! I don’t like to rely on random tests, I want to rely on myself. But I think, you never know until you try, so go ahead and try some courses, do programming and see if you really enjoy!

How do you know if you are into tech, especially Web Development? Here are a couple of options to get you started:

1. If you have a friend/family member/colleague who is a Software Engineer, ask them to show you how to make a website. If you don’t know anybody who codes, no worries, simply visit a local coding meetup, you can find them at Meetup. They will be happy to help, believe me!
2. Before paying for boot camps or courses, try free courses from CodeAcademy  or Coursera.

If you decide that Web Development is something you like, be prepared to learn and learn a lot 😉

A University or college degree is not required to succeed in this profession and it is easy to get started, here are several options:

1. Colleague/University
2. If you already got a different degree and don’t want to spent next 4 years going to College you can try Continuing Education Programs at your local university
3. Hire a Web developer to teach you or ask a friend.
4. Try local Meetups, sometimes they have free classes.
5. Old fashioned “teach yourself method” is always an option. There are plenty of resources online where you can learn coding for free, for example: CodeAcademy, w3shools or even Youtube.
6. If you are not disciplined enough, try paid courses like Lynda.
7. Bootcamps are getting popular and big companies like Expedia don’t hesitate to hire graduates from them. There are also free bootcamps like Ada Developers Academy, they are ladies only, sorry guys 😉

As you see, there are plenty of options for you, you just have to pick one. Don’t be afraid, if this is what you want to do, just do it! Don’t wait for a perfect moment, it never will come. You will NEVER be ready, you just have to deal with it. Step out of your comfort zone, that is where LIFE is happening.

See you next time, bye!