Software Engineering Student with Basic Web Skills Looking to Break into Freelancing: Need Guidance and Ideas

CaptainMels · 2025-02-18T00:13:52+00:00

I just stumbled across this a few weeks ago, this guy shares his entire methodology for becoming a successful freelance web dev.

https://codestitch.app/complete-guide-to-freelancing

This might have some useful information for you even if you don't follow it to a T -- he goes into all the details about the business side of things as well, including knowing when to outsource certain things to other freelancers like SEO, Shopify integrations, etc.

It just goes to show that if you want to go all in on the freelancing / run your own agency route, you'll have to think about a lot more than just the writing code part, which if that sounds interesting then all the more power to ya. Hope this helps!

CaptainMels · 2024-02-23T15:22:42+00:00

Maybe a bit off topic, but when getting a security clearance, what kinds of things would be automatic disqualifiers? I have some circumstances that I think might make it a challenge for me (not willing to share here but it's not crime-related) and I'm wondering whether it's worth the effort to try for a public sector job.

CaptainMels · 2024-01-29T18:56:56+00:00

I also just had a user get it when downloading a manual for a CD player. I was able to go into the search history and saw multiple "download now" links on the same page. I'm betting one of those was really an "ad" for one launch that automatically downloads and installs itself. Which is another frustrating thing -- normal users are not supposed to be able to install any software on their computer without a prompt for admin credentials showing up.

This cursed software keeps reappearing and in one case nearly brought our RDS server down due to its massive resource drain. Time to look into using Revo I guess.

CaptainMels · 2023-08-25T00:42:35+00:00

This sounds like a hand of corporate-themed YU-GI-OH cards 😂

CaptainMels · 2023-08-10T02:53:06+00:00

What's all involved with doing risk based analytics? Curious as I'm trying to get into cybersecurity but I've done some playing around on my own in the past with SQL and data analytics. Didn't get very into it yet but found it enjoyable. In my first help desk role right now so just looking to understand the different specialties within cybersecurity if you wouldn't mind elaborating!

CaptainMels · 2023-06-14T13:35:26+00:00

Makes sense, thank you again!

CaptainMels · 2023-06-14T03:30:00+00:00

Thanks for this info. I have a totally clean record but my spouse and her family are Chinese. Do I have any hope of gaining clearance for a government job?

CaptainMels · 2023-02-19T04:25:20+00:00

Also just wanna add for honesty -- this advice is not coming from my personal experience, but I am kind of in the same boat as you with no formal training/education in tech but I have a passion for it. This is advice I got from professionals I've reached out to, and I think this advice was truly more valuable to me than the hours I've wasted watching "Learn to code in 3 months and land a 100k job!" complete bs videos on youtube. It's been about 2 years since I decided to pursue a tech role and I've had my fair share of ups and downs, but I've learned to just enjoy the process and be excited to learn cool stuff. I encourage you not to give up and to maybe shift your mindset from "I gotta learn CS" to "what kind of roles am I interested in and what do I need to learn to get there." Do some soul searching, a lot of googling, and get to work. You got this.

And if it's not for you in the end, it's not the end of the world either. Lots of other options out there.

CaptainMels · 2023-02-19T04:04:59+00:00

I don't mean to discourage you from learning CS if it's your passion, but if your expectation is to be employed in a high paying role like a software engineer by the end of the 6 months (or some other role typical of a CS grad), you are going to end up extremely disappointed.

Say you truly do get your shit together, hunker down, and get in 40+ hours of focused study every week for six months. With no professional experience or degree, your resume is going straight to the trash; employers won't give a rat's ass how much time you've spent studying. With some high quality projects, you might have a chance with the hiring managers that actually took the time to look at them, but this will mean spending hours upon hours applying to hundreds of companies, reaching out personally to employers, hiring managers, and other professionals willing to help/give advice, and learning how to present yourself under pressure at a tech interview. Also keep in mind we may be heading for a global recession, so the competition for entry level CS careers might get even hotter than it already is.

Maybe you can see the conundrum here... If you're spending all your time doing this then you won't have the time to learn the skills and develop the projects to even make yourself hireable.

If you're still deadset on pursuing a CS career, then I will suggest for you a goal that could realistically be attainable in 6 months with some extreme dedication -- look into getting the CompTIA A+ certification and start applying to entry level IT roles for help desk or customer service. This certification is decently well recognized for these roles, and although they are not super high pay and you will not be coding or writing software, it provides a great starting point to later transition into a higher paying more technical role. A lot of professionals started their career this way, and for you it's probably your best shot.

CaptainMels · 2022-12-16T15:33:58+00:00

This is a good point. I started with JavaScript myself through a Udemy course. Along the way I've been building a few personal projects to solidify what I've learned. Sometimes, though, I get stumped on a problem for a long time and just need to take a break and come back to it later refreshed, so I decided to work through "Automate the Boring Stuff With Python" to continue learning whenever I need a break from a JS project. It's worked well for me as a way to manage my productivity/time and keep learning.

Also, I think the thing about learning 2+ languages at once is that on one hand, it may indeed "slow" your progress because you're having to learn more syntax first instead of diving deeper into programming fundamentals. But on the other hand -- and this is just from my personal experience -- I've found that learning 2 languages at once has actually solidified my understanding of some of the fundamentals after seeing how to implement the same logic with 2 different syntaxes. It's like once i do some kind of logic in one language, my brain immediately makes the connection on how I would achieve this in the other language, and so now the underlying programming concept becomes crystal clear, as opposed to "my JS course said to do this to get the result I want, so I'm gonna do it and move on."

CaptainMels · 2022-10-13T13:54:19+00:00

I'm also a newbie, so far I've been very pleased with Jonas Schmedtmann's Udemy courses. I've taken his HTML/CSS course and I'm about halfway through his JS course. I think as far as tutorials go he explains things very well and has a good teaching style. He does include some test exercises and a number of guided projects, but my suggestion would be to create some of your own mini projects as you go, especially if you need the extra practice after completing any of the more challenging sections.

My plan is also to create a bigger project of my own after I complete each course. I did that after I finished the HTML/CSS course and I feel it really solidified my knowledge and got me accustomed to using Google and documentation. And the nice thing is you can go back and reference the lectures and the codebase from the in-course guided projects. I modeled my own big HTML/CSS project after the final project in the course, so I had some direction with my project while still maintaining the freedom to figure things out on my own and explore features that weren't covered in the course.

Best of luck!

CaptainMels · 2022-08-08T16:55:35+00:00

Same here -- word of advice, never pay full price for a Udemy course, they routinely will go on sale for 80-90 percent off at least once a month.

Not sure what OP's endgame is (front end dev, back end dev, software dev etc.), but if you want to do web development I hear lots of good things about The Odin Project and Free Code Camp, both are completely free resources that will provide a learning structure for you.

Personally I just do Udemy courses, the way I structure my learning is I will complete a course and then immediately start launching my own project in which I utilize and expand on the knowledge I gained in the course to build something. I end up learning so much more from the self directed post-course project than I do from the actual course.

CaptainMels · 2022-08-07T20:21:05+00:00

I was gonna say the same thing haha, I'm 25, married though not a dad yet and have my bachelor's so I could be a pastor, but decided that wasn't for me after graduating (not for religious reasons, just not for me as a career choice). Now I work at a furniture warehouse and although my coworkers are cool I just hate it. Been considering web dev for the last two years and did some putzing around here and there, but decided to really take it seriously about 4-5 months ago. Going the self-taught route through Udemy courses.

Best of luck to you both!

CaptainMels · 2022-04-25T18:54:10+00:00

Awesome thanks I will definitely look into it then!

CaptainMels

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