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Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required

money.cnn.com

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Re: Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required

#2
While a degree isn't necessary to become a developer, this article makes it sound like the average person can pick up a "how-to" book and become an employable web developer in a weekend or two. If this is true, I'd worry about the quality of developers joining the workforce.

Re: Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required

#3

While a degree isn't necessary to become a developer, this article makes it sound like the average person can pick up a "how-to" book and become an employable web developer in a weekend or two. If this is true, I'd worry about the quality of developers joining the workforce.

It doesn't actually. Take this quote --

> To say this occupation is attainable for anyone though is a bit of stretch. It still requires some math chops and long hours of practice.

> "You have to be a self-starter to go along with this," Kenefick said. "In the beginning, it was literally all day and all night, day after day, I was practicing and building up my portfolio. I'm pretty sure it's more work than going to college."

To be fair, that quote is right at the end of the article.

Re: Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required

#4
post #3

While a degree isn't necessary to become a developer, this article makes it sound like the average person can pick up a "how-to" book and become an employable web developer in a weekend or two. If this is true, I'd worry about the quality of developers joining the workforce.

It doesn't actually. Take this quote -- > To say this occupation is attainable for anyone though is a bit of stretch. It still requires some math chops and long hours of practice. > "You have to be a self-starter to go along with this," Kenefick said. "In the beginning, it was literally all day and all night, day after day, I was practicing and building up my portfolio. I'm pretty sure it's more work than going to co…

Ironic that the quote "I'm pretty sure it's more work than going to college." is from somebody who only spent a few weeks at university.

(Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with dropping out)

Re: Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required

#5

While a degree isn't necessary to become a developer, this article makes it sound like the average person can pick up a "how-to" book and become an employable web developer in a weekend or two. If this is true, I'd worry about the quality of developers joining the workforce.

I think you overestimate the quality of developer in the outside, "non-hacker-news" world. Labor is always the biggest outlay management worries about; if they don't have technical experience, there are tons of small to medium sized companies that will hire someone at 20$ or 30$ an hour with no degree to bang out bad GWT or jQuery.

In the enterprise ( or small enterprise ) world, when was the last time a web dev needed to write a bloom filter in Go?

Re: Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required

#6
I think a more appropriate title would simply be "get paid lots of money for working hard and being good at something that's in demand" but it's not nearly as catchy. Seemingly, what's the case in the job market is that the degree is just the minimum required whereas your catalog of work shows that you weren't just following the trend of "fast growing/unfilled computer jobs". It seemed to work for me...

Re: Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required

#7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't actually. Take this quote -- > To say this occupation is attainable for anyone though is a bit of stretch. It still requires some math chops and long hours of practice. > "You have to be a self-starter to go along with this," Kenefick said. "In the beginning, it was literally all day and all night, day after day, I was practicing and building up my portfolio. I'm pretty sure it's more work than going to co…

Ironic that the quote "I'm pretty sure it's more work than going to college." is from somebody who only spent a few weeks at university. (Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with dropping out)

Personally, I'd qualify "...more work..." as "...more work that I enjoy, and am good at..."

I don't mind doing More Work. I mind doing Useless Work.

Re: Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required

#8
Sounds a lot like my situation, except I didn't drop out, I finished out the associates degree so I could take the few programming classes I wanted. It took my two years, I got a little bit of college under my belt, got a job before I finished, and was only 18 when I graduated.

I think experience and skill level speak higher than a degree in this field. I have hired people that don't have a degree, because they have a nice portfolio and have the skills I need.

Re: Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required

#9
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't actually. Take this quote -- > To say this occupation is attainable for anyone though is a bit of stretch. It still requires some math chops and long hours of practice. > "You have to be a self-starter to go along with this," Kenefick said. "In the beginning, it was literally all day and all night, day after day, I was practicing and building up my portfolio. I'm pretty sure it's more work than going to co…

Ironic that the quote "I'm pretty sure it's more work than going to college." is from somebody who only spent a few weeks at university. (Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with dropping out)

It doesn't take long to discover that university education is an inefficient sloth, a waste of time and basically a broken system for almost all majors.
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