
Ask HN: I'm 28yo. Should I start college now, or get real world experience? - Calist0
I want to work in software development. I know enough to build a good portfolio that will showcase my skills through practice projects. But I have no real-world experience in the field.<p>I can either start college now, and be 32 when I graduate. Or build my portfolio and look for work. Most of my tuition costs would be covered through grants, but it would still cost me 4 years of my time.<p>What do you think? Would it be difficult for me to find work without a degree? I would like to eventually work at interesting companies like Uber, Airbnb, Spotify etc. I&#x27;ve emails developers from many of these companies to ask for their advice and I received a lot of mix opinions.
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EnderMB
Can you not study part-time? When I was studying CS, there was one older guy
in his thirties who was already a programmer for a defense contractor. Simply
being a professional programmer put him ahead of plenty of others in my class,
leaving him with the task of purely getting his head around the theory while
supplementing the programming knowledge he already had from working. When he
graduated, he ended up studying for a masters full-time, and then he joined
Microsoft.

In terms of finding work without a degree, it's not impossible, but I'd be
prepared to start near the bottom of the ladder, underneath the graduates. A
dedicated developer will do well regardless of their education, in the same
way that a shitty developer will still be shitty even if they have a top-tier
CS degree. I've worked with incredible developers with little to no education,
and shitty developers with Oxbridge degrees. If you're looking to study part-
time, that probably won't matter all that much anyway. When you graduate,
you'll have several years of solid experience, and you'd be in a much better
position to evaluate what you need to know before joining a big company.

~~~
Calist0
You make a good point-- If I study part-time, by the time I graduate I would
have accumulated ~5-6 years of experience which would diminish the value that
I'd get from a degree. I'm leaning towards joining a bootcamp, building a
portfolio and then looking for work. I feel like I'm missing out on the whole
university experience, but in 4 years time I can accumulate a lot of work
experience.

The only issue with finding a job right away is I would likely be starting as
a junior at whatever company that will take me. I'm afraid that this will make
me a less desirable candidate to good companies later on. The last thing I
want to do is be stuck at a unknown company for a few years doing menial work
and not learning anything new.

------
nicholas73
This is a no brainer - do both. Your school is mostly covered, so just build
your portfolio along the way. Who knows, you might not find a job for a while.
Not only this, by having something else going on you don't have to accept some
rinky dink bucket shop offer out of desperation. You might also get exposed to
new ideas and college girls.

~~~
dnh44
This is good advice, specifically the last word.

Also if you go to school it'll be easier to figure out what parts of the
industry you like. I think most people have quite strong preferences about the
sort of things they like doing professionally and school is likely to give you
a broader experience than a job will.

------
totalcrepe
If you have any bachelors then you should be able to add a BSCS with about a
fulltime year of credit. I would do that part time over 4-6 years, ideally
while working somewhere that pays for it.

If you don't have a bachelors, I would recommend getting one. But again, you
can find somewhere with tuition reimbursement and do it slowly.

(If you already have another STEM degree, I would consider a masters that
builds on it and requires programming before seeking a CS degree at a level
you already have in another science.)

I finished my bachelor in my 30s, and I am glad I did. It is one less thing to
worry about when looking for a new job, debating if I want to rock the boat
changing the terms of my current employment, etc. It also lets me work in
markets that are tough without any degree and continue to dictate most of the
terms of my employment when the economy is in a down cycle.

While I get very similar things from MOOCs as from my degree, it is nice to
have had the in person lectures as they seem to trigger a different kind of
memory bootstrapping when I am drawing a total blank. I just wouldn't pay for
them myself at the US market rates.

~~~
Calist0
Did you study part time?

I never considered studying part time because it would take so long to
complete the program, but a lot of people in this thread are suggesting I do
it. I have no clue how people work and attend college part time? If I work it
would likely be a 9-5 job and I wouldn't be able to attend my classes.

Although, the downside of going taking this route would be that I'd have no
time for side projects and making things.

~~~
totalcrepe
I did a mix of fulltime school, fulltime work (with an occasional class) and
part time work/part time school. Employers seemed fine with my being in
process of a degree and having done basic reqs, so no degree wasn't a barrier
at entry, but it did slow down my career path as the highest status/most
interesting groups couldn't justify selecting me until I had the degree.

------
coralreef
I started learning programming at about 24, I'm 28 now and have been an indie
developer since starting. I completed a 6 courses at a local university for a
programming certificate. To be fair I haven't started looking for a job, but I
might after this year.

I wish I just went to school and got it over with. When you teach yourself
you'll come across topics that you wish you were exposed to sooner, and would
probably help propel you further and quicker. For example, one of my courses
covered data structures and algorithms, but barely. If I want a job I still
need to learn how to practically implement them and practice, which is a
difficult choice to make when I could be working on products. I might not have
the discipline to teach myself algorithms/data structures today because I
mostly don't care about them, but if it were a school assignment I would have
done it and learned it.

~~~
gremlinsinc
My brother graduated from school w/ degree in web development -- he can't find
a job because they teach out-dated js/css/html -- but don't teach anything at
all about Angular, Twitter Bootstrap, etc -- and most companies that hire
frontend won't touch you if you don't have some JS framework experience.. I'm
backend/php dev in Laravel, and self-taught and work for a decent company, I'm
a jr dev now in my first major gig. I don't really think you can 'practice'for
a job -- honestly getting your first job is the best way to learn. Or building
stuff, going through classes only gets you so far--you learn way more by
pushing stuff into production.

Since becoming full-time and moving from side projects I've learned 500% more
from working with team-mates than I ever could've in College or on my own
alone.

~~~
coralreef
The context of my reply was generally towards a 4 year program in engineering
or computer science.

I think if you just want to be a front-end app or web developer than a
bootcamp or alternative education can suffice. And I agree you learn more by
producing work. Teaching yourself how to use frameworks like bootstrap or
angular is easy. But teaching yourself fundamental CS principles like
traversing a linked list or rotating a 2D matrix is much harder, and the
payoff comes much later.

For example, you mentioned that you do backend dev. Suppose your boss asks you
to do load balancing to handle server traffic. You could probably hack
something together with AWS tutorials and Stack Overflow, but do you
understand the principles behind it? Can you actually improve whatever it is
you built? What if you can't afford AWS or you need a custom solution? If you
don't know or can't do these things, then you'll never be as valuable or
useful than someone who does.

~~~
gremlinsinc
True I guess, I'm a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none I'd say. PHP
I'm pretty intermediate on, and linux. I can hack things and make them work,
but I've taken college classes on programming, and to this day I've never used
linked lists in my code. I've also never rotated a 2D matrix, but a lot of web
apps and even mobile is a lot of the same interacting with api's, manipulating
data, etc..

I've used linode before for node balancers as they have those as builtins. --
I do actually spend about 2 hours per week going through CS courses on things
I haven't learned from a github CS syllabus which basically has an entire CS
degree crammed into free online lessons. I'm also becoming more interested in
learning pentesting - not only to be able to become a Whitehat hacker, but
because it'll give me more insight into securing my own applications better
from malicious hackers.

------
buchanaf
If I were you, I would honestly consider a top tier bootcamp if you can get
in. Its typically 3-6 months and slingshots you directly into your desired
career.

At your age (also my age), I just don't think there's is a ton of value in 4
years of college, especially full time. All things equal, 4 years of work
experience is going to grow your skills and employability by magnitudes more
than a college degree. I know many people who have gone through bootcamps
without college degrees--dropped out or basically passed after high school--
and they were successful in getting jobs. Granted, they were very smart
people. While I don't know if you would be able to get a job at those
companies mentioned above (certainly possible), I don't think college degree
would help at all, but 2 years of solid software engineering work experience
might.

-thoughts from university and bootcamp grad

~~~
joseakle
Which bootcamps do you consider to be top tier?

~~~
buchanaf
Off of the top of my head, Hack Reactor (probably the most prestigious), App
Academy, Flatiron, and Fullstack Academy are some that I know to have strong
reputations. There are a ton of online sources that can do much more justice
to the topic than I can, but the above are at least a couple of examples.

------
DrNuke
Real world experience = living and working together with other people = social
skills. The 6-12 months bootcamp is probably the best ROI you can have: not
too long in time, very demanding and job oriented, face to face with other
people. You may also want to get in touch with former poker players turned
developers, just send them an e-mail, they will probably tell you more from
the perspective you really need. Good luck!

------
taxicabjesus
Somewhere in my stacks of books there's a copy of "The Screwing of the Average
Man", by David Hapgood [1]. One of the chapters points out that College was
originally something wealthy parents to send their children to, so that their
offspring would have a leg up on the underclass. When hiring to fill a
position, those doing the hiring would choose to go with the college graduate
because they were "obviously" a better candidate for the job.

Then WWII came to a conclusion, and lots of newly unemployed veterans had
nothing to do. According to Mr. Hapgood, because the Congress didn't want a
bunch of PTSD'd young men wandering around, they started the G.I. Bill. [2],
which paid for retired soldiers to go to college too. Thus began the college
cost spiral.

I suffered through a computer science degree. It is a piece of paper hanging
on the wall.

If you choose to start a college program, you have to be very focused on
what's important to you about the courses that you take. I most certainly
would NOT start out full time... Maybe take two courses to get a feel for the
institution. You'll probably find that you're perfectly capable of teaching
yourself quicker than any course you take.

[1]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=-PJ0DLVOIXcC](https://books.google.com/books?id=-PJ0DLVOIXcC)
(I don't agree many of the "screwings" that this book describes, but it does
have a good point about college)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill)
(my one WWII grandfather had already graduated from dental school, so he used
the GI Bill to learn to fly a plane. My other grandfather had no interest in
"more school", didn't take advantage of it, and barely scraped by for a long
time)

------
NhanH
There is at least one other poker pro turned programmer, who ended up at
AirBNB in his first job. [http://haseebq.com/farewell-app-academy-hello-
airbnb-part-i/](http://haseebq.com/farewell-app-academy-hello-airbnb-part-i/)

You can search for the discussion of that link on HN.

------
mrits
There are big differences in how demanding Universities are. I'd go to one
that is known to be easy and try to graduate in 2.5-3 years. Between summer
classes and permission to take more hours you can really accelerate things.

------
runesoerensen
There's some good advice in this post[0] by Sam Altman as well as the two
extensive discussions[1][2] it has sparked on HN so far :-)

[0] [http://blog.samaltman.com/advice-for-ambitious-19-year-
olds](http://blog.samaltman.com/advice-for-ambitious-19-year-olds)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5934698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5934698)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696844](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696844)

~~~
Calist0
I've read that blog post before :) Unfortunately, the advice directed to 19
year olds might not be best for me. Sam suggests a 3rd option: going to
college for 2 yrs and then dropping out. A 20-21 year old drop out with no
work experience isn't the same as a 30 year old dropout /w no experience. And
a 22yo fresh grad is very different from a 32yo grad.

~~~
runesoerensen
Yeah maybe it doesn't all apply directly to your situation, particularly if
you care a lot about building a CV. The post is largely about accurately
assessing the risks though which I think is the important point - and it's
going to be tricky to optimize for happiness/career/potential/security
simoultanously.

That being said, no one will care if you're 20 or 30 when you drop out of
college and bootstrap your own startup :-)

------
_RPM
I will be graduating college this year, just a few days after my 26th
birthday. Don't worry about age.

------
brianwawok
Here's one plan... Start applying for jobs and do a college application for
the fall. No jobs in a month? Try school.

It's a tough pickle. College helps so much for your first job. But 4 years of
your life could very likely be used for not much.

Me personally I gained a lot from school. But you don't need it to code some
apps.

~~~
Calist0
That was my initial plan, but I don't see it working out. My hands will be
full with school and I'll have to commit to my tuition costs early on and sign
a rental lease, and most importantly I won't have time to build a good
portfolio while in school.

------
hallz
It will be difficult to get a job at a big company without a degree.

If you can afford it studying full time is probably a better experience (lets
you focus and enjoy the lifestyle). Otherwise work and study part time.

Good luck!

------
MalcolmDiggs
How about both? I worked full-time through most of my college years, as did
many of my classmates. It's rough, but not impossible. Night classes, early
morning classes, online classes, etc.

------
stevenwiles
I don't think you will be able to get a good software job starting so late.
Sorry, man. Good luck trying something else!

~~~
Calist0
Sorry man, I'm not going to let other people's preconceptions place false
limitations on my own abilities.

Someone linked a blog post in this thread where a guy joined a bootcamp around
my age and is self-taught. He recently got 120k+ offers from Google, Uber and
many other good companies and settled with Airbnb for a 200k+ offer. I also
spoke to someone else recently who started their postsecondary education at my
age, and they now work for Uber.

~~~
stevenwiles
Ok man, you can obviously do whatever you want. I'm just saying that you
aren't that guy. Good luck! Software is extremely easy and anyone should be
able to learn everything they would need to land a $200k+ job in a few weeks.

------
ashitlerferad
Jump into Open Source and learn on your own time.

------
5_5
Get a job first. This will open your mind and will help you identify what
actually you want to work in software development.

------
nicomfe
check this out, might be useful if you dont wanna spend thousands in regular
uni, [https://github.com/open-source-society/computer-
science](https://github.com/open-source-society/computer-science)

------
cup
What do you have under your belt so far?

~~~
Calist0
I'm embarrassed to say that I've been making a living playing online poker for
the past 5 years. I have never had a typical job before. I took web
development courses at a community college for one year, while self-learning
through sites like codecademy. I learned html, css, javascript, jquery and a
little bit of php and sql. I know enough to build a front-end web dev
portfolio with practice projects.

~~~
wingerlang
Why is it embarrassing?

~~~
Calist0
I don't exactly feel proud for being 28 and having no formal education and
work experience. Online poker was good while it lasted, and it helped me grow
independently. But it hasn't really granted me skills that I can translate to
a real world career. I'll have a huge gap on my resume, and I know that some
people tend to hold low opinions towards poker players. Many ignorant people
dismiss the 'professional poker player' as a degenerate gambling addict.

I'm going to have a tough time making my resume look good!

~~~
wingerlang
Fair enough, seems like valid concerns.

But the media, with the movie 21 and the huge amount of poker tournaments on
TV, seems to make is quite a 'cool' thing to do.

Maybe reality isn't as romanticised as the TV, but I guess playing poker takes
a lot of skill and loads of hours, multitasking and so on that could translate
to 'willing to put in work + smarts' that some recruiter could enjoy?

Maybe you should compile these facts, time spent, focus on the 'number aspect'
of it. And such things. Put this and 'self sustained/employed?' on your resume
etc.

Honestly I have no idea what hiring managers would think, and maybe I am far
from their mindset.

