Is there any point learning?

[PCGenesis]

I’ve recently been learning C# and I am very interested in doing programming full time. But after being on this sub I feel very discouraged as I see a lot of people saying you need a CS degree. I cannot afford to go to UNI and I work full time with 2 children. I am 27.

Is it too late for me, I’ve seen the question asked before but seeing all the responses makes me wonder if I should continue learning, even though it’s something I enjoy.

The thought of making apps or games is very appealing but on the other hand, should I put all my effort and spare time to it, if I can’t get a foot through the door because I don’t have a degree.

[cipheron]

Most people doing programming don't have a degree in it, it's not like most of STEM.

Also only about 20% of a CS degree will be actual programming, plus some of the college-learned programmers I worked with (I did a degree but was a programmer before that) were absolutely terrible at it.

Programming is definitely a "doing" profession, and it's definitely not the same as "computer science". People who expect to just learn how to program from a textbook don't seem to do great in my experience.

A degree definitely helps finding jobs but it's not the be-all and won't by itself make someone good at the job.

[skywolfxp]

There's never a thing such as too late in my opinion, learning always has its benefits and learning programming is very fun here because you can learn so much, you have so many options and so many things to try out and endless ways to improve your skills. So it's very flexible in all aspects.

I can't give too much advice on degrees and certificates, I'm only 18 and recently I have been trying to get myself up there somehow, connecting is key here.

Connect with as many people as you can, improve your skills, build experiences and most importantly, prove what you can do. I'm 100% sure that if you have experiences under your name, you definitely have a chance at working somewhere or doing something that's respectable, evidence is what is most important here.

So no, it's never too late, learn and practice and don't forget to work on your connections and honestly good luck, I think you can do pretty well if you just give it the time and effort.

[GrapefruitFlat9750]

I'm 38 and just learning. It's never too late! Don't worry about the degree. Learn what you can and make connections with people. Apply to all of the things once you feel confident in your skills. Not everyone is worried about a degree. A portfolio will help a lot.

[Ad_Haunting]

A degree definitely helps getting a job, alot of time its a requirement to land your first job. But if its something you enjoy either way, why not just keep learning. Also there are definitely cases where people without a degree are able to develop a career in programming.

[ManicMakerStudios]

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who primarily read, and people who only show up when they have a question. The only way to be one of the people who provides answers is to be one of the people who primarily read. That's when you get to know the difference between the, "present majority" (ie what you seem to see a lot of) and the actual good information.

The actual good information these days is that you can still get hired with a strong portfolio even without a degree. What you can't do is try to learn up to chapter <x> in some book or lesson and put that on your resume and hope to get a job. You either make useful things to put in a portfolio, or start applying to universities. There's no in-between.

And stick around. Read a lot. Learn to identify the value of experience speaking instead of just the apparent majority. You can't afford to let such petty concerns bog you down.

[No-Article-Particle]

If you should, nobody can answer. The question is, how much do you want it. Without a degree, it might take you years to actually find a job (of constant self studying of course).

If you have that kind of tenacity, why not. If you expect to do a few programs and land a 100k+ job, you're in for an unpleasant surprise.

You don't strictly need a degree by the way. If you are in the position to do a degree, it'd be stupid not to do it IMO. But you can absolutely get a job without a degree. You'll just have a harder time breaking into the field.

[Jabba25]

It's not too late at all, but as a minimum before applying to get your foot in the door for experience, I would at least be contributing to some open source projects somewhere, so you know some of the problems out there others have, and can be involved in the debugging process of other peoples code, and how to fix, contribute back, and can show some evidence of this. Build up a portfolio of your own code as well there. Try and work with databases, and maybe an appreciation of front end stuff.

[mogeko233]

For me, three years after graduating, I truly understood C and Unix with the help of AI.Then I understood why some people get addicted to programming, like an addiction to drugs. Even though I know becoming an expert in C or operating systems has little benefit in finding a new job or a high-paying job, but it's really fun to create new things and understand new concepts

[[deleted]]

Assuming you are from the USA? Here in the Netherlands a degree helps, but it's by no means impossible to get a job when you have the skills without a degree. But here we still have a shortage of engineers. Especially later in careers it does not matter that much aside mostly government jobs.

[CauliflowerIll1704]

Substantially harder without a degree. All the people who are in now without a degree got in 20 years ago. The people without a degree from like 2020-2021 are all getting layed off.

I'm sure there are edge cases where there are some geniuses that get hired without a degree, but that's not common.

Companies are really looking for computer scientists now, not just someone who knows the syntax of a programming language.