This is quite real – this is how many leading seniors in companies studied. This is a young field in which the educational process is just being formed. There are few universities that graduate programmers; their programs are outdated at the speed of light, and employers do not require a diploma of specialized education. The main thing is to have knowledge and experience.
Therefore, the vast majority of IT professionals are self-taught, and there are many of them among the new generation.
There is enough information, reference books, video tutorials on the Internet. The main thing is to have enough perseverance and motivation to force yourself to learn.
For self-study it is important to break the process into small tasks. Imagine that you are already working and have received an order. For example, you can create a small landing page, get free hosting, put your training site on the Internet and show it to your friends. Or write a simple program that will carry a useful function. Real intermediate goals help to move quickly.
Another important point is to find a mentor. It will be good if you can make friends with a working programmer and ask for advice in difficult moments. Not all answers can be found on the Internet.
Is it worth going to courses?
Definitely worth it, but only if you really understand what you will get as a result and why you need them.
First of all, you need to understand which direction to choose. And then look for courses of website, mobile application, game or software developer.
Those who studied development with the help of courses came to the result in two ways:
studied independently in parallel;
took several courses one after another.
For example, you can first take programming courses for beginners, and then consolidate your knowledge in classes dedicated to specific languages – Javascript, PHP, Python and others that you choose to work with.
The main reason why you should choose courses is the organization of the learning process and the help of a mentor. Many of us have problems with self-organization, in addition, a large amount of disparate information from the Internet piles up like an avalanche – what to study, what not to study, in what order?
This is exactly what the courses provide – the student can study according to the developed program, he receives relevant knowledge that is necessary for his specialty. The community also plays an important role – other students of the course and the teacher with whom you can discuss controversial issues.
Plus – in all schools, the final of the course is the development of a project or even several, which can then be presented in a portfolio.