I think people like you with this argument miss the whole concept of getting a college degree. It is not to teach you specific technologies but rather to develop and enforce your critical thinking and problem solving abilities as a programmer.
Agree, but the cost is too high for something that just makes it easier. If you get an AWS certification, it can also help. But cost of getting AWS certification is less than 1/10 the cost of a degree. ( time & tuition). So is a degree worth it?
I disagree, 99% of the companies I applied for as a self-taught didn't even care about the degree. You need to have outstanding projects and a good energy.
@@Bobxchen333 if you are switching careers and I wouldn't drain my savings for a degree. If you're young with lots of time on your hands I would highly recommend getting the degree.
@@martinsalamanco6595 same here, but we're the exceptions imo, most "self taught" no degree folk these days, even bootcamp grads are having a really hard time. So I think it's kind of frustrating to those guys to hear it's "easy" when it really isn't until you're years into it
Yeah bud. Honestly the 2020 web development bootcamp by Angela yu on udemy is excellent. Especially for trying to get a react job and break into the field. Highlyyyyyyyyy recommend. Google a discount code. Cost me $8 🤙🏻
Yup...apparently I'm doing competitive programming questions.....and ...I even find it difficult to do most of the cake walk questions....can u help me with what to do???...in such a situation...
I'm a self-taught SWE working in Google. I learned coding in a startup company which is only way you can work although you are not qualified. Every stage, I made more efforts than others and I progressed to next level while most of them stayed in same place. If I'm 19 again, I'll go to CS degree in university. self-taught journey is very difficult and demanding. With same efforts, I'm sure I can easily land top prestige university and have more comfortable journey. Don't self-taught if you have another option. Failure rate is very high. I'm out of distribution.
.. I'm a computer engineering student, I took some basic cs course in college but never the advanced algorithms and data structures, most of the courses are hardware related such as integrated circuit and assembly code.... I learned all of the software engineering knowledge by myself on my senior year with online/offline resources such as leetcode/150 coding interview questions/geeks for geeks and now it's my 5th year working at Google...
my personal issue with the traditional route is the time it takes, with enough dedication you can become employable as a self-taught developer in 6 to 12 months or maybe even a year or 2 vs 4 YEARS!. Not only that, but it'll also teach you extreme self-discipline which is an invaluable skill to learn since you can obviously transfer that to all parts of your life. Yes, I know the hardest part is getting employed but honestly from all the research I've done, make sure all the projects in your portfolio are relevant to the jobs you are applying too along with a pretty website presenting it all. How could an employer even deny you an interview since your skills are laid out in the open? Apply a ton and chance will be on your side by that point, the more jobs you apply too than the better chance you'll get a call-back.
@@Terracraft321 I know they have interview prep bootcamp now that teaches how to solve algo/ds/system design questions, those generally takes over 6~month for proficient cs students (or even over a year if you don't have much coding experience) It's no easy route and takes a lot of effort but a lot of the peop I know attended those bootcamps and ended with jobs at FANG companies. I don't know which ones to recommended though since I never attended one.
I think Computer Science degree is still the best way to go for most of people who wants to know the fundamental of programming and computers since it gives the clearest direction compared to self-taught and bootcamp. Self-taught is the hardest approach because it requires self-discipline, otherwise you will get lost when you look up any resources without right selection. P/s: I prefer a hybrid approach combined computer science degree and self-taught, it works very well with my scenario.
Self taught isn't hard at all, college would be much more difficult since in college you have to be dedicated and disciplined for 4 years compared to a much shorter time as a self taught person. Also to the other guy, university won't make you "100%" better than a self taught person at all. Imagine someone self teaches for a year then gets jobs and is a paid developer for 3 years. Compare that to a fresh grad. On average, I'm pretty sure the person who already has 3 years of professional experience will be better than a fresh grad who has maybe done some internships.
I think that from an HR's point of view, he/she will always start with those who finished the CS degree and then if there any positions left they'll continue to other CV's. A CS degree shows you can continue in the company to Algorithm development and more serious R&D roles. I started my CS degree and dropped it when I started working, but now when I'm trying to look for jobs today the first question I get is about my degree and then "Sorry, they require a CS or other relevant degrees". I think you underestimate your math degree which probably opened more doors to you than any other self-taught/bootcamp experience you had.
ivy league math degree at that, combined with coding Bootcamp, beast projects, and passion. I'm still gonna say the barrier of ease of entry is a stem degree.
You guys are forgetting that with a cs degree,you are eligible as different area of jobs like programming, cybersecurity,data science, software Engineering,operating system design, databases, computer networking, cloud computing etc much much more.....so with a cs degree it is thought that a person can work in any of the above field with very descent amount of skills.
There is no such thing like "Algorithm development". Knowledge you get in a cs program is useless. Only the piece of paper you get after graduation have a value.
Some problems with your analysis: 1. Not necessarily, these dimensions you’ve listed have the same weight, e.g: is it more important to finish fast my training or be able to land a job at a huge company? 2. You should consider other dimensions: initial salary, career possibilities, career speed, access to S&P 500 companies, etc; 3. Would your story be different if you had only your coding bootcamp and not your math degree? I think you have a huge bias here. Your math degree definitely helped you with problem solving skills, something much needed in CS;
To your points: 1. Agreed; I did briefly mention at the end of the video that weights would make the analysis more accurate. For instance, I think the difficulty of the self-taught route should have a heavy weight. 2. Yeah, there are indeed some other dimensions we could have compared. 3. I actually don't think so. While my math degree may have helped with access to opportunities, which I addressed in the video (though by the way, when I was applying to jobs and ignored by 95% of companies, it certainly didn't feel like it helped), I don't think that it helped that much as far as problem solving skills; I made a video on this topic here in case you never saw it: ua-cam.com/video/eSM1JATtGEg/v-deo.html
@@clem Thank you for the response! Regarding item 3, I just finished watching the video you mentioned. And I have to say that yeah, your points make sense. I just think that having a solid knowledge of the fundamentals of CS, will eventually help you dive more deep in the profession. I applause people that are fine with coding CRUDs for the rest of their life, but the CS field is much richer than that. In my point of view, if you are looking to reach more senior engineering positions (not necessarily management), I think that self-taught people will have real trouble getting through the complexity of the problems they face. Thats why career opportunities is an important dimension not discussed in this video. Either way, great content!
The problem is that far too many boot camps are crap and there are far too few self taught devs that persevere. My experience is that the degree programs produce more useful devs and engrs than the BCs. More often than not, those who graduate will be able to provide value out of the gate. Even at a junior level. Each path depends on the individual as you mention. But this ranking may miss some viable categories (mentioned in other comments). Also, I fear far too many will hear your words and think they are one of the few who will defy the odds going the boot camp/self taught route. Degree programs teach problem solving skills that take years to hone. Some boot camps offer that type of training but it can’t be honed in 6 weeks, or however long the boot camp is. My advice, as a Software Engr Team Lead with 7+ years of exp and a MS in Comp Engr is to understand yourself and be ready to work hard. Be ready to be exposed to a breadth of useful subjects in the degree path and to still find yourself lacking both hard and soft skills when you graduate. And be prepared to learn those skills for yourself with the lifelong learning and problem solving skills acquired through your degree. For BC devs, be prepared to be green for some time after you exit the BC and be ready to relearn much of what you thought you learned correctly in software school. I’ve seen you many BC grads come out with the idea that they are full stack developers even tho they aren’t ready to take on full stack projects. I’ve seen a few good BC guys but most are sadly delusional about their actual skills. Both the degree programs and BCs tend to expose their students to projects that are good experience. This is helpful! But both need to get project experience. And this leads me to the self-taught guys. To the ST devs, get some project experience!! The fact of the matter is this: the money never lies. The degree program devs get paid more than the BC devs, who get paid more than the ST devs. Generally speaking. Let’s not kid ourselves on which is the more lucrative route. I also second all of Abilio’s points.
@@tstratton2007 hey Timothy…I’m a current computer science master degree student . I was wondering if you’d be okay with having a quick chat. I see you mention you also have a master’s degree and experience. I would love to pick your brain a little about a few questions I have. Thanks I’m advance.
I am self-taught and I can share my story. My first contact with programming was during my studies (logistics studies). We didn't have any programming classes, but one project made me start automating a lot of things with visual basic in excel to make my job easier. After some time, I came to the conclusion that I was interested in this more than in "logistic". I quit my studies and started researching the market and the technologies that are worth learning. After 3 months of intensive self-study, I managed to get my first job as a programmer. If not for these studies, I probably would not have started programming, but if I had graduated, I would probably have a problem finding a job now or I would be doing what I don't like. Now I am under 25, I have several years of experience in the industry and well-paid job, and I am thinking about resuming my studies.
you got a job after 3 months of studying???? I'm in month 2 and I still google like crazy for fairly simple challenges. I'm not even sure if I have a complete mastery of the basics of my language. Good shit bro.
Self taught: if you don't want to go to college and want to be a coder. Bootcamp:if you went to college (non cs)and want to be a swe. CS degree : select this option if you hadn't selected the previous ones.
Actually, I would say that in my particular case, a CS degree is the best option. I do not live in a place where there is a lot of boot camps, so it is actually far less expensive to go to a college than to go to a boot camp (I live in my mother's basement and pay nothing for college because I don't live in the US). Plus, going to a college you learn *a lot* of stuff a boot camp does not have time to teach you. I feel like over someone who did a boot camp, I know a lot more stuff. (But it also took me longer, but that's whatever)
@@MrPlaneCrashers Yes,you know more things but you won't use those things at work.Code bootcamp teach what you do at work won't waste time on something you won't use. CS degree is 4 years bootcamp is 1 year. In my opinion the best option is self-taught has a lot of free tutorials you can learn everything you don't need a course at all.
@@amarimsirovic4472 Yeah, I have to agree because colleges where I live include generic courses (like English, Phys-Ed and Philosophy) but a lot of it is useful to know.
@@amarimsirovic4472 CS degree is the way to go. CS degree is important in my perspective because if you wish to work abroad then you defiantly need a degree for recognition.
I'm taking cs courses as extra curricular and they're absolutely useless; we're still learning java and the questions on the exam don't make any sense Like who knows that you can use polymorphism ON INTERFACES as a way to upcast a class in java... I know no one
I'm self-taught who got a CS degree later in my career. I started my career in software as a self-taught. I had struggles in the beginning for almost a year just to get a grasp of what I should be learning or doing. this was back in 2011. but out of infinite passion I got through and learned web development and worked as a web developer then taught myself mobile, then lots of other stuff. Then later in 2016 I started a CS degree and got it done. It helped me better shape the world of CS and organized knowledge in my mind. I like how you think about evaluating things. and I totally agree with how you see the differences between the 3.
@@021bethineedilakshmideepak4 i think that web dev is the most powerful skile , by learning this you may even learn mobile dev if your knowledge is stile getting collected i would advice to start the harvard cs50 course
@@johneyoute I went back to learn CS in depth in kinda organized way. So the college recommended an order of classes for example: you need to learn about assemblers and compliers before operation systems. And you need discrete math before algorithms. So with that order I started studying each topic in depth regardless of what the professors do in their classes. So you can say that college was a way to enforce order and not get distracted by trying to learn everything at once or jump steps before learning the requirements.
Hey thanks for doing this. Not a software engineer, but I am a tech recruiter and a pathway program manager for under represented communities into tech. I believe weighing these characteristics would change the rankings and there is value in that conversation. I can tell you from inside the tech recruiting world access to opportunity is huge. We'll have 200 "software engineers" apply for each position. If your goal is having a career in software engineering then access to opportunities matters (brand affiliations) and technical capability matters. Self-taught even with an excellent portfolio is basically impossible to get in the door. A few unique individuals will have pathways through self-taught, but the masses will not. Self-taught is the pathway of curiosity and upskilling capability. As far as brand affiliations go, Bootcamps will only get you into the doors that they partner with, and then usually only the top 10%. CS degree is more universal and carries greater weight for the other 90%. (P.S. I partner with a number of Bootcamps for career placement. Bootcamps are significantly more accessible, and the right ones have amazing support and placement systems.)
Thanks for that. I am self teaching, going on my 3rd year in ML and Deep Learning. I practice by writing answers on Stack Overflow. I find it a tremendously efficient learning experience to focus on a Python library and look for questions from new users.
I think the only big thing that university has over the others is the variety of knowledge offered, so you really find what aspect of software development you enjoy. From what I know about bootcamps, you pick a speciality and this might not be what you're best at and you wouldn't even know! Also, I think coding bootcamps are only a big thing in the US, all jobs I've seen in both the UK and NZ required you to have a degree in computer science
This is a legit point. I started out in a sort of bootcamp(it was structured like a bootcamp, but it was put on by an actual software company that also helps place their graduates into the field). And since I've seen their resource material where they were teaching us front-end, and back-end, I started noticing the things I like, and the aspects I didn't like. I noticed I enjoy doing front-end web dev more than other things, so I've seriously considered dropping the bootcamp (that I spent only like $350 on), where I am supposed to learn a little of everything, but master none, I've thought about dropping that, so I can laser focus on the things that I enjoy and would like to have a job in(front-end web dev), so that would mean I should be learning HTML, CSS, Javascript, and a solid JS library like React or Angular. Because I don't want to graduate this bootcamp and be a jack of all trades, but master of none, if that makes sense?(sorry for the long message).
@@Kryptiik This is a good point. I would like to mention though that I have found a lot of work experiences in certain areas are different at work than how I learned it through whatever form of education where I was first exposed to it. So maybe you like learning front-end which is awesome but how is it when you work on front-end at a job? It might be different when you don't have the lee way when learning it on your own. Just food for thought :) I think the bootcamps can provide more of a foundation in a lot of things related to that area rather than a specialization in one specific part.
@@zachadolphe3633 You make another good point. Since messaging you the first time, I decided to merely place the bootcamp on hold (they will allow me to do this) and just stay in their system since I've already bought it, and then if I wish, I can come back later and complete the bootcamp, as well as I still have access to the resources they are teaching me. I plan on learning full-stack web development for now, so I can focus on just a few things, and then once I get a job in tech, I will probably use that to help fund a CS degree in something else.
i don't now why people think cs degree is about coding only their are 58 subjects that we study in cs degree which will start from how computer made how computer works some mechnical stuff that will use in animations and game development how to code to low level like tv remote self driving cars to AI web development to app development you should select what you wanna do if you wanna become only programmer go for self tought or bootcamp but if you want to become a person who can combine 2 3 field like software with electronic or mechnical or something else or wanna study AI than i think you should choose cs degree
@@vic__5378 ofcourse it is, why not? I can read the same books, make the same practices, everything. My point is, a Degree doesnt give you the knowledge, LEARNING give you the knowledge, and Learning can be either in school or by yourself. People think that self-education is worthless or not the same as school, in fact, its the superior way of learning.
Even B.S. degrees are >50% self-taught. I think the most important theme here is that you're willing to teach yourself and always improve no matter what path you take
The best option is actually having a CS Degree + learning everyday by yourself. Just my opinion. I know a CS degree in USA is very expensive but if you live in europe university is free or very cheap.
@@moutasemhussain That depends of the job imo. The accessible ones can be reached without a CS degree, but a more advanced/technical one will be harder to reach without a CS degree. Also that depends of the country but where I live in Europe, they give quite a lot of importance to CS degrees for jobs depending of their complexity. Now if you live in a country where it's cheap and accessible, I'd definitely give it a try before taking another path unless the door is closed to you. I'm attending one atm and I can confirm that you also get some networking from there as well (from the university itself or, rarely, from teachers themselves).
Free degree?? Is it a scam?? LOL I don't think it is free. Some people I know went to European universities and it is very very expensive compared to where I live.
@@abhirammadhu2973 not all universities are public. Private ones are expensive. Public one are free, you just pay around 100€ for the inscription process. Now, you do not have the same advantages if you are part of UE or come from somewhere else. Being from UE offers a lot of economical advantages, and then each country handles it differently.
I recently finished a bootcamp at Georgia Tech, while it felt like way too much too fast at times I think it was the right call for me since I'm a little bit older and a CS degree part time would've taken several years. I've been really satisfied with the support after graduation too, career fairs, interview and resume advice, invaluble information for someone transitioning from another field. Also group projects are a great introduction to the entire development process. I'm very optimistic as I begin my job search after graduation
I would argue that attending a college has a lot of benefits, not regarding technical skills but rather the life lessons you get by meeting different people, cultures, networking, some of your classmates might end up being your business partners etc. Also, you mature a lot especially if you come from a low to mid tier family with lower income, and you have to work a lot to pay your studies. This lifestyle makes a person grow a lot; whereas, Bootcamp is shorter, and people might not be as close as you are in a college, and also self-taught is pretty lonely. With both of these you miss the point of university which is not getting only technical skills but this broad spectrum of life.
I completely agree with this. I come from a low-income area&family and have noticed how much I’ve changed since coming to school personally, academically, and professionally. The connections you make at universities are amazing-UC San Diego rising 3rd yr here.
I'm not currently an Engineer, but I can tell you my experience job hunting as a Self-Taught vs. job hunting with CS Degree. After CS Degree... all doors magically open up to you. Going through universities, I've had access to a massive network, clubs, career fairs, etc. It also helps to have access to Internships to pad my resume with something other then personal projects and open-source contributions. Being around so many like-minded people is useful because it increases the chances that you'll come across a job opportunity that you'd be totally unaware of otherwise. Just to give you one example, at my computer science club, a recruiter for fin tech company came and presented one day and I happened to be one of 3 people in that meeting. They sent us a hackerrank quiz via email -- I finished it and sent it back and I have an interview for their internship next week. That interview FELL IN MY LAP, and I wouldn't have had that without being at Uni. If you're thinking about self-taught or bootcamp, I'd like to end this post with this: What's missing from this YT video is that in all three cases, you get what you put in. If your doing self-taught, you're going to hit the point of diminishing returns for your effort a lot sooner than bootcamps. And you're going to hit diminishing returns a lot sooner for bootcamps than Uni. At Uni, the more effort you put in, the easier the job hunt becomes.
I think one characteristic that might be interesting to consider is breadth of knowledge. With a CS degree you're going to get introduced to different branches of CS and programming. Before I studied CS I didn't realize how many different kinds of Software Engineers there were (Parallel and Distributed, Machine Learning/Data Science, More DevOps centered programming, Embedded Systems Software Engineer, Bioinformatics, etc). Also with a CS degree you have the requirements for non-CS courses, which you could look at as an opportunity gain more domain knowledge in an area you're interested in.
Well that's the whole point of a self taught curriculum, unless you're interested in learning the exact same thing Clement has, it'll be useless for the majority imo
The point is that as a self taught person you won't know which curriculum to follow, it doesn't matter if he makes one or not a totally new person will still have no idea if they should follow his or a different one.
Kind off agree with what u said. I mean I am in the middle of cs degree but still most of the time, I learn through self curriculum as my classes are not so much worthy so if he makes it, its gonna help me somehow
I think going to college kinda makes you lose motivation to learn on your own because of all the unnecessary malarkey they make you "learn" and it makes you more dependent on others for resources to learn.
Self taught here. Went from $10hr internship > 40k salary > 80k salary in 2 years since the day I decided to learn to code. It's definitely harder to get your first gig, but after that you're set.
@@ivoriankoua3916 Getting your first job is the hardest part. It progressively gets easier the longer you've been in the industry. -Job #1 I got from networking. It was temporary. -Job #2 I got from the shotgun approach of sending out 100s of applications online -Job #3 a recruiter reached out to me on linkedin. Once you have a year+ , recruiters start seeking you out.
I'll give my 2 cents here. I have just graduated from Systems Engineering, which is a career option akin to CS. I will say this, a university degree in CS or Systems Engineering will provide you with plenty of life lessons and will help you acquire knowledge that will later allow you to broaden your understanding of how computers work. I am not the same person I was when I first enrolled into college. The amount of different old and new technologies that I was forced to work in, the amount of mathematics that I had to learn and even Physics has really helped me alot not only in understanding how to code, but how machines actually work, something that would otherwise not be offered in a bootcamp, but you are able to learn it if you are self taught. I will also argue that, for the most part, if you are partaking a CS degree or a similar degree like Systems Engineering, you will not go very far if you do not have the ability to become self taught. Now if you just want to get a job as a web developer, or a mobile developer, yeah you dont really need a degree, I agree with that 100%, in that case, however, a CS degree will still be a huge complement, but it'll be much more of an addition to your knowledge than to your resume, and many do not understand this. Lastly I'd like to say this, I understand why people trash degrees to oblivion, but for those who do, they either did not complete a CS degree or did not go to university at all, for the most part ofcourse. The amount of things you are exposed to in university, if you know what you want, will payoff in the future.
Depends on country, there are countries in Europe where you can study at university for free, which makes it cheaper than the self-taught route I guess...
They are only free if you don't value your time. With a CS degree you will have to take some courses that you will never use. You are also subject to what ever tempo the course runs on, they might go to slow or to fast for you. The value of a cs course for me is mainly that they do offer a curriculum to follow and you get a piece of paper when you finish, that many employers unfortunately still require to hire someone
The best pathway was the one you took Clément a math degree which gives you all the logic and the problem solving trainning + the bootcamp which provides the actual tools are being used in the real world, good video thanks for sharing.
As a self-taught programmer, I can say that the way you made the comparison between the three situations is purely brilliant. Thank you very much, Clément.
Before I begin, I should mention that I'm a community college CS instructor, just in case some bias sneaks through here despite my attempts to be objective. (1) Even if you take the bootcamp or CS degree route, you will need to learn to be self taught. This industry changes on a seemingly daily basis, so if you want to be good at your job, you need to continually learn new things, and you'll generally need to do that yourself. (2) If you do choose the CS degree route, and you live in a state with a good community college system, consider taking the first two years at a community college. You'll get the same courses at a fraction of the cost (where I teach the courses are 40% the cost of the local major university). (3) The CS degree will introduce you to topics you may not think to study on your own, and which will not be taught in a bootcamp (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Where I teach, an AS degree requires courses in computer architecture and discrete math, both of which give you new and interesting insights into programming. (4) Getting a CS degree will require you to take courses in other subjects as well. Whether that's a plus or minus, I'll leave to you. But if nothing else, you'll need to take a course that will teach you to write. In my 30+ years in industry, nothing drove me crazy more than co-workers (and managers) who could not write a coherent email. (5) There's no reason you can't mix and match these options. For example, use a bootcamp to get your first job, and then, if you're interested in learning more, use that job to finance a CS degree. Your employer may even pay for it. (6) No matter which route you choose, check out algoexpert.io to get some good problem-solving practice. Okay, that last one was just to see if Clem would actually read this entire (longer than I intended) comment :-).
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. As someone who started out with a sort of bootcamp, then realized I was just going to he learning all different types of technologies, it exposed me to ideas that I wasnt aware of, but as I progressed, I realized the things I enjoyed, and the things I didn't enjoy(front-end vs back-end etc...). Therefore, I have considered dropping the bootcamp to pursue the things that I actually enjoy doing so as to land my first tech job in that particular thing (for me this is front-end web development as I just find it super easy, and not complicated, and it just clicks with me). Then after I get a job in that, ive thought about financing a CS degree with the money I make in my tech career and getbinto something like Cyber Security, or perhaps something else I will discover. Thanks again for writing that piece. Would love to stay in contact, if possible I can give you my Instagram or something?
I started as a self-taught and then went for a CS degree at a university. I was so glad I did because it had added not only a depth but also a breadth to my knowledge. Before the CS degree I was a coder and after I became an engineer. I feel there is a tremendous difference between the two. It's like driving a car and being able to build a car. Or, using a framework (coder) and being able to build a framework (engineer). Sure, some folks with CS degrees end up with jobs confined to a certain scripting language. Self-taught or boot-camp might had been enough for that. However, if you need to think heap, stack, cpu cache, multi-threading, distributed synchronization, etc, ... analyze heap dumps, resolve locking threads, understand wireshark output etc, it's better to have a CS degree.
I did all 3 so here's my take: CS Degree: did this for 3 years before switching into a different major (while staying in B.S and eventually graduating with the new major). It offers more in depth concepts on things outside of just coding alone. In fact, most of my units didn't code at all. The ones that did involve coding utilized languages such as SQL, Pascal, C, C++, C#, R and Java. Other units were BIS, Stats, Comm. for Scientists, etc. As the name of the major displays, it is the overall science of computers. But keep in mind that if you're just into coding, this isn't for you. It's also very expensive. After graduation, debt comes rolling in... Bootcamp: took two courses. In this case, price varies. Some can be as low as $20 on discount specials or others can be $1000. You get to learn at your own pace and it's also a shorter course. Regardless, it does not yield as much regard as CS degrees given one is a "real" certification. On top of which, they can sometimes be more broad as they cater to complete beginners. You miss out on so much crucial info that can help you better apply concepts for solving problems. And you will still be spending money (as little as you are paying). Self-taught: Cheapest option as it's free. This works best if you already have some kind of idea on what you're trying to learn. This is generally a difficult path. You need discipline and you are working on your own. I found this option helpful only because I previously undertook a CS degree which gave me an idea on what kind of curriculum to learn. Bonus (Grad. Cert. in Cybersecurity): After graduating with my double Bachelors, I got into a Grad. Cert. which is intended for 1yr. Content is so good. In the first few weeks, you learn way more than you ever would as an undergrad. However, it is also harder as you need to stay on top of things. Fall behind and you're screwed. Why? There's more risk. The cost of one unit in Grad. Certs. are 4 times as expensive as undergrad units. You don't want to fail a unit. You'll be taking out a huge student loan... Hopefully this helps y'all make a decision! ;)
@Will theReaper that's a very nice summary, so what is your advice to a CS student in 3rd year (who has been lazy for the last two) wants a boost in self teaching? could you give me a specific guidelines to areas he(" I ")focus on?
@@Ab-vt2vr Cheers. Well, as someone who was pretty lazy myself, I realized how behind I was by the time I got to my later years. During the "school holidays" I would brush up on some of the things I was "bad" at or something that was gonna be used in my upcoming unit for the next semester. Here's the thing with self-teaching. It's hard. The content is just boring and you'd rather do something else. But one thing that worked for me was actually just working on a project as I went along. If I got stuck I would either find it online or ask a friend who might be better than me. It beats reading theory and the project itself adds to your portfolio.
Very informative and concise video and I think the criteria used by Clement to rank the three options of becoming a software engineer are quite relevant. My opinion is if you want to become a SE first you should begin with the self-taught route. Why? Because when coding bootcamps or unis say that you can admit the classes without any previous coding or technology knowledge is simply not true. If you want to understand the classes you will need to have certain knowledge about technology. If you haven't ever heard about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, object oriented languages, loop, functions, classes, SQL, Mongo DB, Unix/Linux, computer networks etc, then hardly can you enjoy the lessons, but guaranteed that you will struggle to apply the learnings. Self-taught method is not only the key to succeeding at the very beginning of your journey, but also it remains your best partner during your further studies and even your career. So, I wouldn't separate the study methods so sharply from each other as I can see them rather the parts of an ecosystem wherein the elements can enhance each other.
I think one thing that can be implied about "self-taught" is that (at least from my experience), those people are very passionate about coding; they will likely go further. I was mostly self-taught and coding was all I did even when I was younger for at least 12hrs a day 7 days/week.
It's about motive. If you want a job go to bootcamp. If you want a career go to college. If you love programming, go to the library. I think the most important thing is be sure to learn a musical instrument in parallel with whatever choice you make.
@@natekane-mcclaren9201 You mean the bit about the musical instrument? It's about not becoming too narrow, loosing your humanity, or forgetting that you can have a broad range of enjoyments and expressions. The demands of coding professionally can become all consuming.
As a 25y old male with a full-time job, a girlfriend, family and a second job(happens to last few days a month), coding all day is not that easy or an option. What I do is code after work for 1-3 hours, between 4 and 6 days a week. It is not all sunshine and rainbows over here, but hey, I am not going to give up just because there are ppl with plenty of time to code and get jobs in 6 months. My time will come eventually. Just wanted to say, do not give a shit about the longevity of your learning period to getting a job, be focused to succeed. I hope you get there, I hope I get there. Cheers. Also, thanks for the video.
I am a self-taught Machine Learning engineer and I love being a self-dependent programmer. I have to depend more on the books and internet to understand the logic behind but in the end I get a holistic view of the subject referring different resources from the internet and It get more and more addictive during the process of learning. I think in the age of internet any individual can access high quality content such as mit open-learning, coursera, udemy, github, youtube, khan-academy, medium, any many more.
Unfortunately with AI you need at least a MSc in AI/CS or MSc Applied Math/Stat to be able to get a job or even freelance contract , unless you're working on your own start up , that's one of the reason why I switch from DL to web dev/app dev , will try to gain some $$$ then later go back to my true passion AI.
@@ivoriankoua3916 Actually to become Machine Learning engineer you do not need any ML/PhD although it is good to have if you're looking for researcher role. I have Electrical Engineering background and I am working as ML engineer in one of the big tech company. You only need to have solid foundation of Data-Structure and Algorithm because in ML you need be good at coding which include writing good amount of vector arithmetic programs.
@@sandyz1000 I'm not talking about the learning journey , anyone can learn ML/DL on his own with all the available ressource on the internet for free , what I mean is that without a degree you won't be able to get a position as a ML engineer even if you had the skill. You indeed have an Electrical Engineering degree and it's definetely better than a CS degree. I'm also curious about how you get your ML position.
So I’m doing all THREE.... lol -Self learning as we speak (UA-cam and websites ) -In college for a CS degree and web development - going to do a Bootcamp once I graduate college next year since military pays for it for free .. good refresher
CS degree will always help you throughout your career when you go through extreme lows. Also for senior positions, industry is biased towards CS degree. And it's not just about coding. It's about engineering which you get from CS degree. I don't have CS degree. I am a mix of self taught and coding bootcamp. But in my opinion, CS should have got highest points.
Yes, most of the companies see the degree like an achievement. When you don't have a degree, the initial filters don't used to take you into consideration.
Yeah, one thing I picked up on in this video is that the words software engineer, and like just a web application developer are kind of used interchangeably when they really shouldn't. Web devs are like one specific kind of engineer, I would argue it's the least engineering-focused type of software engineer. I would argue the video should be more focused like 'easiest way to become a web developer', because I would argue that someone who is self taught in 6-1 year or has taken a coding Bootcamp have very focused software development skills yes, but likely not a lot of broad engineering knowledge that can be transferred to any software engineering jobs.
I am a CS degree student, I couldn't finish the video because I can't relate with some of the points he made about CS degree. He's talking about a degree he has never taken himself. I think they should get a MIT CS graduate, The best boot camp graduate and a confident self taught person. Then we will hear from people who have experienced all who is the best.
I have been studying at university, attended several bootcamps and spend ~6h/week on self-education. What can I tell so far: every good student is automatically a self-educated person. You study at university for 30-60h a week, but then you find another 5-10h for self education (yes, its tough). And you try to attend online seminars or bootcamps after your degree, just to stay up to date. In university I learned to be a good programmer, in bootcamps or conferences I performed deep dives, and self-learning helps to keep the brain fit and the knowledge not too outdated. Most self-educated ppl. lack the Academic base. They are good only at a couple of things, but have issues with complex topics, which limits the possibilities of carrier growth. I would recommend this path only to those who lack money and time, so that they can get a job to save some money for some camps and conferences, which will open you new doors and probably positively impact your income. Then you can decide to save more money and attend a university. The knowledge and experience from self-learning will make bc, confs, seminars easier for you. And I know what I am talking about, since this is exactly what I did! I started learning IT at school, then started to educate myself and do some smaller projects. I did lots of networking and administration. Then I realized that some of administrative tasks can be automatized and started to study coding. As I saved some money, I took a short break and attended several seminars, including php, sql, css+html and python. Then I continued to earn money, and I was earning more, because of increased productivity. And, one day, I went to the university and attended classes there..... A totally different world.....
The biggest problem about being a self-taught programmer is the lack of network to get an opportunity. It does not matter your coding skill or good personal projects, referral is more important than never to get an interview. I believe that CS or Coding Bootcamp are ways to make this network.
Also, you tend to get lost or miss things that dont seem important when self-taught. Seriously, if college is a no-go cause amurica, then I recommend bootcamp.
@@thepurplepanda4 That problem 100% depends on the person and happens even when you go to college. It’s part of the job, you can’t remember everything.
This is so refreshing and really interesting cause I've seen these talks all over the net the past decade. I can't speak for boot camps but I can speak for self-taught and CS degree (because I have one). College is really a journey and you get a much broader foundation in it, you can't replace the fundamental math, problem solving, and computer science knowledge and skillsets you gain under good professors and curriculum. Or the tons of soft/research skills you'll develop and networking with people, making friends that self-taught would rarely give you since you'll spend most of the time working hard by yourself and being resourceful (although you can meet people online or locally at events of course). CS degree is variable, I doubt anyone who went to MIT or Caltech regrets getting theirs but a poor program with weak CS courses probably isn't all that beneficial (college does carry a lot of useless classes too but I enjoy broad knowledge and learning myself). Taking courses in math and physics changed my way of thinking and approaching problems, it was truly beautiful and I treasure it. You don't need those to program, but "computer science" isn't programming. It's problem solving through computation with lots of math and formulas mixed in at the root. Naturally you can venture out to do all of this on your own, but it is truly hard and very few can follow through with it. It takes not just a lot of will and energy, but direction and knowing WHAT to study and HOW to study it for periods of time. That being said you have to teach yourself no matter what or you won't get very far either way, learning any significant skill requires lots of outside practice and studying (music, art, programming, etc.). CS degree gives you a clear objective and makes your path much easier because you have professors to assist you in your growth, peers to network with (that can help you land jobs in the future, that happened for me), and having a set of core classes dedicated to refining your problem solving and analysis skills. I just wouldn't spend a TON of money on a CS degree though. I had a lot of financial aid to assist me and I'm thankful for it...........so only do what you can afford period. If you can't pay for degree, put in the muscle and elbow grease to will yourself the self-taught route as it will pay off but stay focused and try to get a mentor if you can. I assume boot camps are somewhere between CS degrees and self-taught route. Worst thing about degrees are clearly the junk classes slid into programs, which could shave a year off of college at least. Employers want a strong specific set of skills and knowledge base, along with good projects to showcase your work ethic, logic, creativity, passion, and discipline. A lot of students who go to school don't have impressive skillsets or portfolios. Colleges would be much better if they cut fluff in certain programs and stuck to the main course.
Hey, im a little late to the party lol, you sound like you got experience in the self taught department, im very interested in coding and will take the self taught path, currently im doing the csx50 course at harvard (which is about 12 weeks) after that im not really sure where to go from, is there anything you recommend i should focus more on as a begginer? I'd appreciate some guidance 😅
I didn't mean to get emotional when I started typing this reply. I apologize in advance. To be honest, I disagree with some points from my own experience. I have failed college. I had no friends and have extreme social anxiety. Getting support from people in college was a no go for me and I ultimately failed after my parents spent +$50,000 on my tuition fees. I would rank CS degree in terms of "support system" and "difficulty" at last place, but I can see why the majority of more "normal" people might view it otherwise. In my third-world country, Coding Bootcamps don't exist. So while it may rank 2nd in terms of access in developed countries, it's a definite 3rd in others. FreeCodeCamp was my saving grace. What I had learned in 3 months surpasses what I had learned in college in 4 years, ten times over. The curriculum is insanely well thought out and guides you all the way through. Whenever I have any problems whatsoever, even non-coding related, I get instant replies. The community is so lovely it always drives me to tears whenever I think about it (as I do now)... I would've been a NOBODY if it weren't for FreeCodeCamp. It literally saved my life. All I was thinking about was suicide after I failed college. I had no friends, had no skills to speak of, disappointed my family, I had nothing to lose at that point in time. I might still be a nobody even now, but at least now I have hope that keeps me living and determination to code all-day-everyday and rapidly improve as a programmer.
Hey I am facing the same issues I have social anxiety No friends Failed in college. I still have option to continue, but I wasted a couple of my academic years, which makes my 4 years degree to be of 7 or 8 years. I am thinking of becoming a self thought software developer. What is your advice as you have went through the same problems?
@@mohammedehtesham2661 Hey! Sorry for the late reply. FreeCodeCamp walked me through from start to finish with the JavaScript and web design courses. The community responses super fast whenever I get stuck somewhere. I apply what I learn (JavaScript wise) by solving kata challenges in the CodeWars site. That site is extremely fun and addictive, and I definitely grow rapidly every day by checking other people's solutions even though I know all of the syntax at this point. You can add me on Discord "-Solace-#5499" if you want to have a coding buddy for extra motivation and help. :) Where are you from btw?
Self taught is really good & easy when you have like a parent or an older sibling Software Engineer that is willing to teach you for a year like a professor would in a university.
Depends on the professor. My professor is a total waste of time xD. Doesn't teach me shit and rather confuses me even more. Also something interesting is how we did a test 20 days ago... .We had 2 things to do . One was about the number system and the other was about a program that we had to do. He promised our marks 3 days after the test xD... We've been reminding him even since then. OOOOh also before doing the test he said that he'll send us a file that we should read so we can prepare for the test. That was supposed to give us 1 week of preparation time... . He sent it the day before the test at 4:00PM xD
I believe being self taught is best when you have a keen interest in something. You tend to have clear idea what you want to achieve and motivation to do it too. CS degree seems the least useful thing when you want actual skills required for a specific field. And bootcamp that is for people who just got interested in coding at a later stage (after some other degree).
I tried self-taught and it's hecka demoralising. I tried learning basics of C++ but it went nowhere since I barely know what I was doing. I'm now a final year CS student and honestly this route taught me to teach myself the stuff that actually matters.
As a self taught coder, I think the only time you might have a more difficult time is finding the first job, after that, you have credentials from the companies you work at, also I think it’s important to go to a place where you can have a good mentor or authority to learn from
So you're saying that after a self-taught coder gets over the hurdle of getting their first job, they can have just as rewarding a career as a CS grad?
An important thing to note is that if you have multiple unique projects in your portfolio and some of them are relevant to the job, then there's no denying you're the right person for it. I'd say that's even better proof of skill than any university diploma
I have the GI Bill - I'm self taught since 2010, but only treated it as a hobby and took breaks throughout the 10 years. Throughout that time I've learned Lua script, Java, C++, C#, and as of lately I've been knocking out "Freecodecamp" 's 300hr certs. I've currently completed the basic CSS/HTML, and working on the javascript cert now. I would prefer not to go to university to get the CS degree purely because I'm over 30yrs old, and would rather not wait another 3-4 yrs.... I've looked at coding boot camps but none of them in my state accept the GI Bill. Staying motivated is key, and being part of a group of self taught people has done just that for me. For instance I am part of a team that is and has been working on an MMORPG Emulator that uses Lua,C++, and Java.
Having the degree makes you far more knowledgeable than going to a boot camp or being self taught. The trick to this fields is understanding the underlying principles and being able to apply them to anything. An experienced person with a good foundation in CS can learn any language in a short amount of time and do pretty much anything.
Still trying to figure out what they taught CS students in school because I have yet to see much value from college grads that are years behind the industry.
This made a lot of sense actually. I'm not a software engineer by title, but literally half my job is writing/improving code in C++ and LabView. I taught myself the basics of C and C++ in high school and college, but by no means close to super proficient at a bunch of different things. However I've still been teaching myself in the workplace since it's part of my responsibility, and it really gets you moving forward quickly -- I learnt so much in a short space of time, and now I have some support because two of my co-workers are true software engineers with years of experience, and it is super beneficial to have them around to ask questions when I'm stuck and the internet wasn't much help. Being self-taught definitely isn't the easiest, but I think it can work out well once that motivation is there.
I'm self-taught right now. The usefullness idea of veing the most efficient is sort-of false. It's hard to know what to learn so I spent many years diving deep into things like web design without ever learning how to program. I've been dabbling on and off on the side for about 5 years and I'm just starting to break the barrier of understanding CS. Although, now that I'm here it's very exciting and I'm starting to figure out what is worth diving deep into. Looking forward to what the future brings. Learning Flutter now btw. Who agrees with that choice?
for me im doing a cs degree but i would say 101% of my knowledge is self taught remember that a cs degree is not a programming degree, its abstract knowledge to help you maybe me a software engineer, or many other pathways
I think to have a really fair assessment here, things can't be equally weighted. One big thing too to consider is that a degree takes about 4 years, a boot camp can take several months to years, and self taught can be weeks to months. I was self taught. Two months after starting I was working at FANG. I was able to have a full time job working in an engineering field and studying at night over two months to switch. Time is a huge investment
The problem here is that you are very limited with the bootcamp and self-taught. It would be very difficult to work in advanced computer vision, software test, parallel computing, advanced AI, robotics (for robotics is almost impossible without a degree) and many other fields without a CS or related subject (here also math, physics, engineering) degree.
When I hire I consider pedigree second and look for qualities like: - initiative - self starter - problem solver - perseverance Cause regardless of your education it will always fallback to those qualities. Also, the learning never stops.
I was self taught when I started programming, but now I have recently completed an apprenticeship in Software Engineering and am currently working towards a degree while working full time. I think there is a lot of benefits from being self taught, but there are also a lot of skills I learned through my apprenticeship that I wouldn’t have gained from self-teaching. Currently I’m very early into my degree, so I haven’t learned anything new, however I see it as necessary in order to improve my first impression to employers.
Tnx Clement. I like how you rate them. Very informative. In my opinion, the most preferable route is: - to go solely to coding bootcamp Or - to attend college while perusing certain language as self-taught. I googled 'Unbiasedly' afterwards🤪.
I wanted to add that the most important skills to learn is first and foremost the ability to learn and stay teachable and than the ability to apply your knowledge to solve problems using computers. Those are the key things a potential employer will look for. I did almost 4 years into an electrical engineering degree with a minor in mathematics so I had a good background and now I am self-taught. I have a clear path I want to pursue in data science and machine learning so I focus my learning around that using freely available resources such as MIT open coarseware, Coursera, youtube, wikipedia, w3school, freecoding boot camp, spinup, openAI, reddit, google, stackoverflow, and GitHub. Not to mention I try and network with as many people as I possibly can. When doing a project I do the project on my own using the available resources to guide me if I get stuck. I never ever copy and paste code. The coding is always done in my own way. I'll take notes on my notepad and work out a problem on paper before I ever try to code it on my computer. This has so far worked out for me really well and I have learned so much of the problem solving skills. I am currently using Python 2.7.13 installed on a Windows computer. I don't use any frameworks or notebooks at all currently but will later begin using frameworks once I feel I am solid on my data structures and algorithms. I believe having a clear and concise path along with a host of resources available to learn from has helped me. Once I feel solid in my learning than I will apply the same methodology to land a job in my chosen path. I hope this information will help some people who are also on the self-taught pathway.
5:37 Can't agree more. Finishing up my CS degree with a 3.92 GPA, and I am thinking about going through a bootcamp after graduation. Why? It's complicated.
This is the path that I did and to be honest after going through this, I've been praising this kind of route to my university buddies who still have difficulty landing a job.
I know quite a few people doing that. It is because the curriculum did not teach you any useful, in demand skills in college. It is NOT complicated it is just hard for outside people to believe.
@@Bobxchen333 Interesting. I've heard that very thing before, that the technology you learn in a CS degree will possibly be outdated by the time you graduate.
I have a computer science degree, but was mostly self-taught before university. I probably didn't need a degree in Computer Science, but wanted to do something I would enjoy. I think the biggest benefit of a degree is that it really introduces you to a wide scope of different areas of computing, which you may not have come across. Most of my day to day job uses knowledge I gained before university. I'm a graphics engineer, and spent years in high school doing game development, making my own engines, learning about GPU programming, shaders etc; Though I am still very glad that I did a degree, aside from being an enjoyable life experience, I think the biggest value versus being self-taught is that increased level of discipline which comes from having progressive goals and targets. Plus, you also build up a cool portfolio of projects and demo's from the various modules you do. For people on my degree, I'd say around 25% of people were very experienced at programming coming in, 50% had dabbled in a limited sub-set, e.g. web dev, python, or did IT/Computing at high school, with the remaining 25% being new to programming entirely.
How is it going. I bet you might have finished already and with the pandemic how were the classes can you tell a bit about your experience. Regards from the uk
@@boliviabba3520 Once I got accepted into Fullstack. I defer my cohort by a month just to get some extra preparation. So I’ve been attending Fullstack for two months now. I’ll be finishing Junior Phase today! As far as school. It is absolutely the hardest thing I’ve done in my entire life. Constant 11-14 hour days of studying just to NOT feel like you’re drowning in information. BUT I do have to say, I’ve learned so much in the last two months that I feel fully capable of making a full stack application by myself. It is ridiculous how much I know now compared to two months ago. Here’s the thing though. Like I said, it’s a daily 11-14 hours. School is only 7 hours long. Which means that most of us spent another 4-7 hours doing our own research. The topic that were taught in class only really make sense after you’ve done you’re own studying. Not to say they don’t teach you well during class. But there’s just so much to learn about each topic that it’s impossible to just include it all in school. Here’s the thing though. This school is 19K usd. It’s expensive. And while I feel like it would have taken me a full year or more of self teaching to get to where I’m at right now. I probably would have had a better understanding of the topics I’ve learned if I went slow and steady. But, for me, I needed to change careers fast. So it’s definitely worth it for me. Also. I’ve made some really cool friends here too. And the school connects your to other cohorts too so you can network more. But basically. If you’re considering going to a bootcamp. Ask yourself this. Do I NEED to change careers in less than half a year? If you’re not under time constraints and assuming your disciplined enough to self study, I would recommend the self study route. If the money is no issue and you don’t mind putting in 11-14 hours of studying daily and CONSTANTLY feel like you there’s not enough time to learn everything. Then yeah. Go bootcamp. And like I said, I feel completely ready to build anything I want. I just saw a senior project where they built an online shooting game in vr. It’s impressive because that project is supposed to be completed in two weeks. I’ve seen another project where someone built themselves a dj set in vr. I’ve seen someone built a speech app which helps you correct your pronunciation of English words. Those guys are hoping it can help people learn another language easier in the future. Anyways, These are higher level projects for entry level job and I feel capable of making some of those projects even though I still have one more month left of school. Just a disclaimer though. I have no idea how ever other bootcamp is. Fullstack is considered to be one of the best so I’m not sure if going to another bootcamp would make you feel as confident in your skills as this school has made me. But yeah. That’s it for my review. I gotta go in for my final day of Junior Phase now!
@@Isaac-eh6uu The guy before you asked for an update The day I completed the Junior Phase... And you asked me for an update the day finished Senior Phase and graduated. What a funny coincidence. Senior Phase was mostly structured around group projects with the focus on learning new frameworks and libraries. There was hardly any lessons. We had the freedom to choose whatever we wanted to create, except for group project, at the beginning of Senior Phase, which was meant to reinforce everything we had learned in Junior phase. After that project was done. We literally had the entire day to ourselves and our teammates. I personally created a iOS and Android messaging app that allows you to text with people who spoke different languages. Like I could be texting a person in English and I would receive their messages in English. But on their screen, they would receive my text in another language and send their own text in that language. I also made a top down zombie-horde survival video game. It was inspired by an old flash game called Boxhead that I used to love. My game is just a modernized version of it that includes live multiplayer, better graphics and better game mechanics. There was some other really cool projects done by my friends. One group created a fitness app that tracks your body position and teaches you proper form for exercises. Another group created an application that allows you to to drag and drop 3D shapes (that each represented certain sounds) into a visual metronome. You could connect with friends and mess around with each other shapes to make different beats. There was a ton more awesome projects. So as you can see, Fullstack really did teach us how to expand past our regular PERN stack. I feel fully capable of not only building a full stack application. But also really confident in being able to quickly and efficiently learn any other framework or library that I want. With that said. Algos and Data structures are still pretty hard. Fullstack tries to teach these things by having students do mock interviews each day among ourselves. But I strongly believe that time should have been a lesson instead. I think most of us are leaving Fullstack with intermediate knowledge of Algos and data structures. Luckily, Fullstack does provide a full year membership of AlgoExpert. A service created by none other than Clement here. I think most of the cohort plans on doing AlgoExpert while applying to jobs for the next couple of months. My job search is expected to last anywhere from 3 - 6 months. I guess I’ll give a final update once I land a job as a Software Engineer. Wish me luck.
I'm self-taught and working at a FinTech company. I started at a kid and did networking on forums and ICQ to make connections that later helped me get my foot in the door in the industry many years later. Fortunately I had 110% support from my parents but outside of that I must have been really motivated because many of the freely available resources now didn't exist then.
Great information. Thank you!. I was actually in the mids of talking to a university career counselor to enroll in their web development degree they offer. I was a total of 69k cost. Having this information you just shared made me reconsider the whole thing and definitely will be exploring the option of a bootcamp.
Started off learning at a boot camp and I really loved the experience, but recently shifted to self learning during the pandemic so best of both worlds.
Love the vid, I just think there’s some flaws in your logic. You keep bringing up “In an ideal scenario” for self taught giving it the best possible outcome, but then you compare those to the real world for bootcamps and university. The real world scenario is people can’t afford to take 9 months off without a job to learn on their own. They don’t have the financials to take the risk for a bootcamp or university so the point is working and then study during free time. Most of the time that’s like 6 hours a day, even less if you have a family. It becomes stacked against you when the market is flooded with “Teach Yourself” courses and sooo many variations of what’s important. Plus using “what you know now” as a supportive claim is a cop out. If everyone starts from 0, self taught will spend hours, days, weeks possibly researching which direction to go, what technology is truly important, which can I avoid, who do I trust to teach me for videos, which books are current to industry, etc. You get that guidance from the other options like you said. I’m all for self taught, that’s what I was doing before I joined a bootcamp so don’t get me wrong I do support self taught. But if you already have all this “what you know now” knowledge then you aren’t start from the same point everyone else may be starting from and by that point you shouldn’t be considered self taught
Finished a coding bootcamp this year, no degree, looking for a job. From what I observe so far, your ranking is correct. With all my knowledge now, I could teach myself or someone how to do the basic work, however, without bootcamp experience that would take me 7-8 years to learn everything I need myself, perhaps. So, bootcamps are definitely worthy. When it comes to a degree and diplomas, it helps, and it does open doors for you, but not as much as one would hope. People with diplomas still get rejected and crapped on. Especially if you did not teach yourself anything after or during college, it will be a mission impossible to find a job. In summary with the rest, you will get an offer significantly faster with a diploma, that's it. No 6 figure pays upfront, no instant offers. Does it worth the price? You tell me.
While I can see that this was a good effort of being unbiased, there were deffinitely some points that I felt were very innacurate. Generally speaking, I think you missed so many points and ended up being biased against Computer Sciece by having a grading criteria thats generally against them. For example, you mention "quickest route" as a criteria. Having a quick route is not a "good thing" per say. Software development and computer science are a craft that requires alot of discipline and areas of teaching for proper understanding. This inevitably takes time. Also, the value of getting a College degree is incomaprable to the other 2 options, let alone the breadth of the knowledge gained. I think the other 2 routes are simpler shortcuts into getting into the field but they dont guarantee the person has the knowledge to become a sufficient computer scientist. Also, saying that Bootcamps and comp sci programs are similar by the environment you are surrounded in, is completely false. Coding bootcamps can simply be taught by anyone who is an experienced coder and knows how to teach the bare minimum (tech stack) for a person to land a job. Whereas most college institutions hire professors who are experts in their fields, conducted research and usually have a ph.d, if not atleast a Masters...
I did feel the bias as well, but keeping in mind that this is in the US and that US colleges and universities are stupid expensive and sometimes not even very good, I think I have to kind of agree.
@@MrPlaneCrashers Thats true. US education system has many flaws and some schools dont have good curriculums. But there are many really good colleges and programs as well that people can choose if they do more research. I just dont think traditional the value they bring compare to a 4 month bootcamp... Plus, bootcamps are unfair to students who put in a strenious 4 years of preperation against someone who just put in a couple of months..
The breadth of the knowledge learned is mostly...useless. After an CS degree you don't gain any knowledge to be employable whatsoever, and you've spent 4 years of your life... And in the fast moving world of tech 4 years is alot. So I wouldn't call other two shortcuts, rather just way more 'effective' paths to take. Effectiveness is what makes them short.
@@lakizmaj5679 You're thinking through a keyhole perspective, thinking of its benefits only for software engineering. Which is true, many of the comp sci courses arent practical in modern software engineering. But computer science isnt meant to just make you a software engineer. Its meant to give you a thorough understanding of how computers function, their principles and foundations and how to use them to solve modern problems. Most of the programming courses are still thrown in there with a proper low-level understanding behind the language. This makes you a better scientist. Not a code monkey.
I am a self-taught SWE, but I do have a MS in AeroEng and currently working on a PhD. My master allowed me to get my foot in the door, as a modeling and simulations engineer and from there, I was able to transition to software development for physical modeling applications. I agree as a self-taught programmer I learned the skills that I needed to succeed on my job, I don't regret it but if I could start again, I would have never done Eng. I would have done a combination of Math with Physics and a CS minor. I think in the CS world most a lot of what is out there is about websites, servers, etc. but my interest lies on the physical and research modeling, which is a different set of skill, the languages that we use are C++, for the calculation, python for compiling; and I have also used Fortran, which as far as I am aware is not a very popular language.
I think it's important to mention that the Price is really depending on your country and that here in the video, it's US view only. For example, there are a lot of really good universities in Europe that you can go (if you are a local) for almost free as per support from the government. As it's a tight final score in the end, I think the axis and global insights of the video are relevant, but there are a lot of variables that will balance the choice depending on your global situation (age, experience, country, family situation, etc).
@@saraha.1336 I cant speak for all European countries and I don't think it's being European is enough but for example in Belgium - if your are belgian - price of university is 'almost free' (less 1keuro/year) and then you have different pricing based if you are European or not but it's never reached US university price anyway as far as I know.
I'm self taught, mostly from before there was an abundance of resources. I learned in the late 90's from books and trial and error. I had a passion project website I built entirely by hand with PHP and MySQL and I made many iterations over the years before I eventually retired it. I did a lot of other side projects as I got better, including some for bits of pay. Most of my learning was old books, then reading books at Barnes and Noble, as well as W3. Eventually I managed to get a developer adjacent job and paid attention to what the devs were doing in terms of process, what tools and frameworks they used, etc. I eventually moved into a dev role and I've been in dev/consulting since then. Self taught is what you make of it. It generally takes a long time to come to fruition unless you are grinding at it like a full time job, then get a break somewhere. It's easier than ever to do this route, but it still requires you to be a self starter and figure out what matters.
I couldn't decided which one to choose(bootcamp vs self-teaching). You gave very clear vision. You are an angel for those who wants to be a programmer.
I think he kind of went the wrong route with the CS degree. The thing is..... even though a coding bootcamp and self taught route can be faster and get you that job a lot quicker than a 4 year degree while also saving money, a CS degree gives you a lot more understanding of how computers work, and even provides you with fundamental resources and getting a job won't be as hard. Plus with a CS degree you can do research in topics such as AI, and security if you're really into that, and it teaches you everything you need to know, like networks, security, operating systems, data-mining, databases, algorithms, data structures, etc.. So in reality if you're just trying to get into software development than a CS degree isn't really necessary but it is necessary for what goes beyond software engineering. Plus if you get a CS degree you can do software engineering and everything else beyond that. So a CS degree really isn't as bad as most people make it out to be, in fact, it might even be the better option. But to each their own.
In the motivation category for self taught: I am picking this up for fun. Started by doing a small free course on html. then css. got bored. few years later did a small course on c++ and discovered i love thinking about problems. Now i sometimes spend an entire afternoon thinking about ways to code something. Maybe i'll pick up java so i can mod slay the spire. What i'm saying is that when on the self taught route intrinsic motivation is a huge part of the process. I learn things because i encountered a problem i couldn't solve, causing me to be really interested in possible solutions. I noticed that when i am required to learn stuff i feel way less motivated (usually) then when i actually WANT to find a solution. For context i am studying chemistry atm, and while i find it interesting and fascinating, the classes don't spark the same curiosity.
9:20 This one really hit me hard I'm self taught and 3 months into learning web development and suddenly i just feel unmotivated to pursue that career i said to myself, is this what i want to do? and quit after that. After 1 year i got motivated again and regret that i quit during those time I wish that i can keep myself motivated.
That's a great talk. Thanks 🙏. I fell into the pitfalls of self-taught. I've been doing it for 6 years and struggled with direction (what to study) and also lost confidence and stopped at one point because I was doing it alone. Now I'm back at it but losing confidence damn near sank the ship for me.
I think you miss the mark on this. If you're self taught, you don't know what you don't know. I'd wager that this is why there is so much buggy insecure software out there. Also, with a CS degree, you'll be forced to learn things that you wouldn't necessarily learn if you were left to do it on your own. While assembly programming is useless, you learn what's happening with memory management and will probably write more efficient code. In database management courses you'll learn about creating efficient and scalable databases. I've seen self taught engineers build stuff that works great with a few rows, but when it hits 100,000 rows fails.
Self-Taught programmers learn about scalability, space and time complexity too. There are also many UA-camrs that cover Assembly, like Ben Eater and many others, to show what's happening underneath the hood. All process from preprocessing, compiling, assembling and linking can be found online. Self-Taught programmers who are dedicated to learning will likely find many sources on the fundamentals of CS, erasing the "you don't know what you don't know" by actively searching for such an overview. Though it is true that self-taught programmers who aren't as dedicated or interested in having a more complete overview will be allowed to skip a lot of steps that would normally mandate a certain level of quality. I think it's more of a Unity game-engine vs Unreal Engine game-engine thing. The one that is most accessible to everybody will most likely have the most amount of shitty games, which doesn't mean that you cannot make great games in the Unity game-engine. I think it's more of an accessibility thing than a know what you don't know thing.
@@alwaysinagoodshape5327 the CAN learn that stuff, but most learn the bare minimum to complete a task they are trying to do. There's always a stack of books we are going to read, but for a lot of people, they never get to it. The CS degree kind of forces you to do the hard work and learn things you wouldn't normally take on. How many self taught programmers actually know assembly. So, yes the body of knowledge is available. You can probably learn brain surgery from you tube, but should you be employed as a brain surgeon because you saw the video? In software development, there is the risk of data breaches, service downtimes that could have wide reaching implications, cybersecurity issues, and scalability problems on software. Our industry probably should be more regulated. Doctors, accountants, nurses, any kind of engineer, lawyers, plumbers, electrictions, all need professional certifications or licenses to operate. Why not software engineers?
@@tommurphy8596 Because software Engineers have portfolio's to prove competence. A surgeon cannot randomly start cutting in people just to prove that they would have survived.
Many community colleges would cost less than a bootcamp, but you might not be able to only take coding classes. If you need to be in a degree program to get financial aid, you might not be able to take a full course load of just coding related classes: programming languages, web design, web development, Photoshop, databases, security, Linux, or what have you. However, you might benefit from a slate of technology classes to broaden your tech horizons (if you have the time). Using a private university, or almost any state / commonwealth flagship university, might not accurately reflect the competitiveness (cost wise) of community college. You may not even have to pay out of pocket to go to community college (grants / scholarships / student loans). Cost Score: Self-taught: 3 College: 2 Bootcamp: 1
If you want to grow a lot, I would suggest to contribute to open source projects. They are incredibly useful for starters, because you get a lot of review on your code. Also, if you contribute a moderate amount to a well known project, you can add it to your CV
Ive been on the the self taught route since May of this year. Learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript and now learning React. Everything sounds spot on about this path.
I am in the middle of a CS degree and now I feel like dropping out. I agreed strongly when you said about not so important courses, because I am not interested in learning how to use rhetoric appeal(its pretty cool though), or learning about ethnic culture(how will I ever apply this + I don't like it very much). I love puzzles, riddles and problems that gives me a headache. That I think I can get if I drop out. Although, I come from a place where dropping out is not an option. So, 3 years and 10 months and two weeks more to go. btw, python is 3x slower than C++ on codeforces, even if I use the same logic.
I agree with you but on the other hand self-taught tends to be a backbone to the degree and the bootcamp because you will never learn everything to the fullest but generally give you a good research guide.
A lot of people are saying it but I'll say it again: You should make a self taught curriculum. I'm teaching myself to code right now and it's very difficult to know what exactly I'm supposed to be doing and what milestones I should be hitting.
Self taught way has worked beautifully for me till now. It has its initial struggles but once you are able to master one programming language even though it may take time you become confident and are able to go from strength to strength
Thanks a lot for your help, but i always have an inner gut feeling that Clement is being biased as at the end of the day his primary goal is to sell us his products.
I know this is just one person’s opinion, but it’s very comforting to see the results of this video after signing my bootcamp enrollment agreement yesterday 😂
@@intenzi69 not really, better poor knowing it and being happy with what you got or knowing you want to change it than being poor and living in a fake bubble that makes you think enslaving yourself is called freedom
Hi, Clement! I am 12 years old and I am learning to code. (3-4 months in now) Would you recommend attending IT classes at a school, or would you rather recommend self-learning programming? Thanks in advance. I really like your videos. Keep up!
Nice job for starting young fam. IMO I would learn myself at that age, IT classes are okay but tbh at that age they won’t really be teaching coding :(. Also bad idea stating your age online. Edit your comment.
@@chennn958 I mean, 2h in and nothing bad happened. I think it is fine. Although OP* is very young, this is a perfectly normal comment to me, and I think it is going to be fine. @videodude As for learning IT, it really depends. Where I live they don't offer programming classes at that age, but there are some pretty good courses online (a lot of them are free) that would help get a better understanding of IT in general. But I really think that if you want to keep pushing in the computer science field, the best option is to do stuff. Making projects and doing interesting things is the best way to keep going. The hard part about that though is that you need to learn to avoid bad practices, which can be hard when self-teaching. Just have fun doing stuff and learning what you want to learn. Every time you have to learn a new language (for example, you will probably end up learning sql later), try finding official references to avoid doing bad practices. If you ever need a generic reference, look inside this list, these are good ones: www.edx.org/ docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/ developers.google.com/training/ www.coursera.org/ developer.mozilla.org/en-US/ www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming code.org/ www.w3schools.com/whatis/default.asp www.freecodecamp.org/
I'm from a country where 90% of software engineering jobs require a bachelor's degree. Even though I have enrolled for a degree in CS but most of the things I've learnt, is either from UA-cam or Geeksforgeeks. Degree isn't worth the money but if anyone is getting a scholarship or can afford the tuition, I would recommend to go for one.
I have observed that self-taught/bootcampers do not have a strong grasp of the technology they are using. They are fish out of water once their newest framework cannot do something. Bootcamps are designed to output something on the screen in the shortest amount of time without depth. They have difficulty debugging because they do not really know what is happening in the first place. They become good code monkeys at best but not exceptional engineers in the long run. Add that to the way bootcamps are marketed and their instant-gratification appeal, you get 'framework users' rather than solid engineers. Frankly, web development is the lowest barrier of entry in development. Anybody with internet and time can deploy some todo app to Heroku with a $15 course from Udemy. :)
In India, CS degree is just a certificate that helps you to qualify to sit for the job interview, to get a job you need to have be self taught because you don't learn anything in college.
This is Exactly what I was thinking. Although he was a little biased towards the Bootcamp Option. Doing a CS Degree and Self Learning things on the Side will bring the best Output.
Why to choose when you can have it all? Degree as proper foundation, self-thought as a professional lifestyle to keep your skills always up to date, bootcamps as an extra to get ahead of the game.
Even though I have a computer engineering degree, a lot of what I've learnt is still self-taught
I think people like you with this argument miss the whole concept of getting a college degree. It is not to teach you specific technologies but rather to develop and enforce your critical thinking and problem solving abilities as a programmer.
Same here , Ideal is Self taught and worst is CS degree
Same here
The motto is we teach you how to teach yourself.
In college you learn how to learn
As an employed "self taught" SWE with no degree, my two cents is that ANY degree makes it way easier to get your foot in the door with any employer.
Agree, but the cost is too high for something that just makes it easier. If you get an AWS certification, it can also help. But cost of getting AWS certification is less than 1/10 the cost of a degree. ( time & tuition). So is a degree worth it?
I disagree, 99% of the companies I applied for as a self-taught didn't even care about the degree. You need to have outstanding projects and a good energy.
@@Bobxchen333 if you are switching careers and I wouldn't drain my savings for a degree. If you're young with lots of time on your hands I would highly recommend getting the degree.
@@martinsalamanco6595 same here, but we're the exceptions imo, most "self taught" no degree folk these days, even bootcamp grads are having a really hard time. So I think it's kind of frustrating to those guys to hear it's "easy" when it really isn't until you're years into it
@@FatherPhi It's not easy, it takes around 8mo - 1yr of hard work to land your first job.
currently learning by myself while stuck in quarantine 🙌 anyone else in the same boat?
Not in quarantine but "yes"
Same! @Brian Design, add me on ig: ouvrirlesyeux
Yeah bud. Honestly the 2020 web development bootcamp by Angela yu on udemy is excellent. Especially for trying to get a react job and break into the field. Highlyyyyyyyyy recommend. Google a discount code. Cost me $8 🤙🏻
Yup...apparently I'm doing competitive programming questions.....and ...I even find it difficult to do most of the cake walk questions....can u help me with what to do???...in such a situation...
@@Shelly888-s1r Which platform are you using?
I'm a self-taught SWE working in Google. I learned coding in a startup company which is only way you can work although you are not qualified. Every stage, I made more efforts than others and I progressed to next level while most of them stayed in same place.
If I'm 19 again, I'll go to CS degree in university. self-taught journey is very difficult and demanding. With same efforts, I'm sure I can easily land top prestige university and have more comfortable journey. Don't self-taught if you have another option. Failure rate is very high. I'm out of distribution.
Thanks for sharing!
.. I'm a computer engineering student, I took some basic cs course in college but never the advanced algorithms and data structures, most of the courses are hardware related such as integrated circuit and assembly code.... I learned all of the software engineering knowledge by myself on my senior year with online/offline resources such as leetcode/150 coding interview questions/geeks for geeks and now it's my 5th year working at Google...
my personal issue with the traditional route is the time it takes, with enough dedication you can become employable as a self-taught developer in 6 to 12 months or maybe even a year or 2 vs 4 YEARS!.
Not only that, but it'll also teach you extreme self-discipline which is an invaluable skill to learn since you can obviously transfer that to all parts of your life. Yes, I know the hardest part is getting employed but honestly from all the research I've done, make sure all the projects in your portfolio are relevant to the jobs you are applying too along with a pretty website presenting it all. How could an employer even deny you an interview since your skills are laid out in the open?
Apply a ton and chance will be on your side by that point, the more jobs you apply too than the better chance you'll get a call-back.
@@NVMINDEAF Do you have any other good resources?
@@Terracraft321 I know they have interview prep bootcamp now that teaches how to solve algo/ds/system design questions, those generally takes over 6~month for proficient cs students (or even over a year if you don't have much coding experience) It's no easy route and takes a lot of effort but a lot of the peop I know attended those bootcamps and ended with jobs at FANG companies. I don't know which ones to recommended though since I never attended one.
I think Computer Science degree is still the best way to go for most of people who wants to know the fundamental of programming and computers since it gives the clearest direction compared to self-taught and bootcamp. Self-taught is the hardest approach because it requires self-discipline, otherwise you will get lost when you look up any resources without right selection.
P/s: I prefer a hybrid approach combined computer science degree and self-taught, it works very well with my scenario.
Absolutely true..
I am mechanical engineering graduate want to start in software stream. What is the best path to get a job?
@@treali Absolutely true.
Self taught isn't hard at all, college would be much more difficult since in college you have to be dedicated and disciplined for 4 years compared to a much shorter time as a self taught person. Also to the other guy, university won't make you "100%" better than a self taught person at all. Imagine someone self teaches for a year then gets jobs and is a paid developer for 3 years. Compare that to a fresh grad. On average, I'm pretty sure the person who already has 3 years of professional experience will be better than a fresh grad who has maybe done some internships.
@@021bethineedilakshmideepak4 If you already have a degree in stem related field, boot camp is definitely the way to go for you
I think that from an HR's point of view, he/she will always start with those who finished the CS degree and then if there any positions left they'll continue to other CV's. A CS degree shows you can continue in the company to Algorithm development and more serious R&D roles.
I started my CS degree and dropped it when I started working, but now when I'm trying to look for jobs today the first question I get is about my degree and then "Sorry, they require a CS or other relevant degrees".
I think you underestimate your math degree which probably opened more doors to you than any other self-taught/bootcamp experience you had.
ivy league math degree at that, combined with coding Bootcamp, beast projects, and passion. I'm still gonna say the barrier of ease of entry is a stem degree.
His Math degree is equivalent to a CS degree to some Employers..
You guys are forgetting that with a cs degree,you are eligible as different area of jobs like programming, cybersecurity,data science, software Engineering,operating system design, databases, computer networking, cloud computing etc much much more.....so with a cs degree it is thought that a person can work in any of the above field with very descent amount of skills.
Your comment is literally more helpful for me than the video
There is no such thing like "Algorithm development". Knowledge you get in a cs program is useless. Only the piece of paper you get after graduation have a value.
Some problems with your analysis:
1. Not necessarily, these dimensions you’ve listed have the same weight, e.g: is it more important to finish fast my training or be able to land a job at a huge company?
2. You should consider other dimensions: initial salary, career possibilities, career speed, access to S&P 500 companies, etc;
3. Would your story be different if you had only your coding bootcamp and not your math degree? I think you have a huge bias here. Your math degree definitely helped you with problem solving skills, something much needed in CS;
To your points:
1. Agreed; I did briefly mention at the end of the video that weights would make the analysis more accurate. For instance, I think the difficulty of the self-taught route should have a heavy weight.
2. Yeah, there are indeed some other dimensions we could have compared.
3. I actually don't think so. While my math degree may have helped with access to opportunities, which I addressed in the video (though by the way, when I was applying to jobs and ignored by 95% of companies, it certainly didn't feel like it helped), I don't think that it helped that much as far as problem solving skills; I made a video on this topic here in case you never saw it: ua-cam.com/video/eSM1JATtGEg/v-deo.html
@@clem Thank you for the response!
Regarding item 3, I just finished watching the video you mentioned. And I have to say that yeah, your points make sense.
I just think that having a solid knowledge of the fundamentals of CS, will eventually help you dive more deep in the profession. I applause people that are fine with coding CRUDs for the rest of their life, but the CS field is much richer than that.
In my point of view, if you are looking to reach more senior engineering positions (not necessarily management), I think that self-taught people will have real trouble getting through the complexity of the problems they face. Thats why career opportunities is an important dimension not discussed in this video.
Either way, great content!
The problem is that far too many boot camps are crap and there are far too few self taught devs that persevere.
My experience is that the degree programs produce more useful devs and engrs than the BCs. More often than not, those who graduate will be able to provide value out of the gate. Even at a junior level.
Each path depends on the individual as you mention. But this ranking may miss some viable categories (mentioned in other comments).
Also, I fear far too many will hear your words and think they are one of the few who will defy the odds going the boot camp/self taught route.
Degree programs teach problem solving skills that take years to hone. Some boot camps offer that type of training but it can’t be honed in 6 weeks, or however long the boot camp is.
My advice, as a Software Engr Team Lead with 7+ years of exp and a MS in Comp Engr is to understand yourself and be ready to work hard.
Be ready to be exposed to a breadth of useful subjects in the degree path and to still find yourself lacking both hard and soft skills when you graduate. And be prepared to learn those skills for yourself with the lifelong learning and problem solving skills acquired through your degree.
For BC devs, be prepared to be green for some time after you exit the BC and be ready to relearn much of what you thought you learned correctly in software school. I’ve seen you many BC grads come out with the idea that they are full stack developers even tho they aren’t ready to take on full stack projects. I’ve seen a few good BC guys but most are sadly delusional about their actual skills.
Both the degree programs and BCs tend to expose their students to projects that are good experience. This is helpful! But both need to get project experience. And this leads me to the self-taught guys.
To the ST devs, get some project experience!!
The fact of the matter is this: the money never lies. The degree program devs get paid more than the BC devs, who get paid more than the ST devs. Generally speaking. Let’s not kid ourselves on which is the more lucrative route.
I also second all of Abilio’s points.
@@tstratton2007 hey Timothy…I’m a current computer science master degree student . I was wondering if you’d be okay with having a quick chat. I see you mention you also have a master’s degree and experience. I would love to pick your brain a little about a few questions I have. Thanks I’m advance.
I am self-taught and I can share my story.
My first contact with programming was during my studies (logistics studies). We didn't have any programming classes, but one project made me start automating a lot of things with visual basic in excel to make my job easier. After some time, I came to the conclusion that I was interested in this more than in "logistic". I quit my studies and started researching the market and the technologies that are worth learning. After 3 months of intensive self-study, I managed to get my first job as a programmer.
If not for these studies, I probably would not have started programming, but if I had graduated, I would probably have a problem finding a job now or I would be doing what I don't like.
Now I am under 25, I have several years of experience in the industry and well-paid job, and I am thinking about resuming my studies.
you got a job after 3 months of studying???? I'm in month 2 and I still google like crazy for fairly simple challenges. I'm not even sure if I have a complete mastery of the basics of my language. Good shit bro.
Self taught: if you don't want to go to college
and want to be a coder.
Bootcamp:if you went to college (non cs)and
want to be a swe.
CS degree : select this option if you hadn't
selected the previous ones.
Actually, I would say that in my particular case, a CS degree is the best option. I do not live in a place where there is a lot of boot camps, so it is actually far less expensive to go to a college than to go to a boot camp (I live in my mother's basement and pay nothing for college because I don't live in the US). Plus, going to a college you learn *a lot* of stuff a boot camp does not have time to teach you. I feel like over someone who did a boot camp, I know a lot more stuff. (But it also took me longer, but that's whatever)
@@MrPlaneCrashers Yes,you know more things but you won't use those things at work.Code bootcamp teach what you do at work won't waste time on something you won't use.
CS degree is 4 years bootcamp is 1 year.
In my opinion the best option is self-taught has a lot of free tutorials you can learn everything you don't need a course at all.
@@amarimsirovic4472 Yeah, I have to agree because colleges where I live include generic courses (like English, Phys-Ed and Philosophy) but a lot of it is useful to know.
@@amarimsirovic4472 CS degree is the way to go. CS degree is important in my perspective because if you wish to work abroad then you defiantly need a degree for recognition.
I'm taking cs courses as extra curricular and they're absolutely useless; we're still learning java and the questions on the exam don't make any sense
Like who knows that you can use polymorphism ON INTERFACES as a way to upcast a class in java... I know no one
I'm self-taught who got a CS degree later in my career. I started my career in software as a self-taught. I had struggles in the beginning for almost a year just to get a grasp of what I should be learning or doing. this was back in 2011. but out of infinite passion I got through and learned web development and worked as a web developer then taught myself mobile, then lots of other stuff.
Then later in 2016 I started a CS degree and got it done. It helped me better shape the world of CS and organized knowledge in my mind.
I like how you think about evaluating things. and I totally agree with how you see the differences between the 3.
I am mechanical engineering graduate want to start in software stream. What is the best path to get a job?
@@021bethineedilakshmideepak4 i think that web dev is the most powerful skile , by learning this you may even learn mobile dev
if your knowledge is stile getting collected i would advice to start the harvard cs50 course
@@ayoubZaZen Thanks man. I just checked it. Basic and informative will complete soon.
why did you go back to college? did you feel like you did not know enough? or was something missing?
@@johneyoute I went back to learn CS in depth in kinda organized way. So the college recommended an order of classes for example: you need to learn about assemblers and compliers before operation systems. And you need discrete math before algorithms. So with that order I started studying each topic in depth regardless of what the professors do in their classes. So you can say that college was a way to enforce order and not get distracted by trying to learn everything at once or jump steps before learning the requirements.
Hey thanks for doing this. Not a software engineer, but I am a tech recruiter and a pathway program manager for under represented communities into tech. I believe weighing these characteristics would change the rankings and there is value in that conversation.
I can tell you from inside the tech recruiting world access to opportunity is huge. We'll have 200 "software engineers" apply for each position.
If your goal is having a career in software engineering then access to opportunities matters (brand affiliations) and technical capability matters. Self-taught even with an excellent portfolio is basically impossible to get in the door. A few unique individuals will have pathways through self-taught, but the masses will not. Self-taught is the pathway of curiosity and upskilling capability.
As far as brand affiliations go, Bootcamps will only get you into the doors that they partner with, and then usually only the top 10%. CS degree is more universal and carries greater weight for the other 90%.
(P.S. I partner with a number of Bootcamps for career placement. Bootcamps are significantly more accessible, and the right ones have amazing support and placement systems.)
I have the best supporting-system as a self-thought it's called StackOverflow!
Who else?
Thanks for that. I am self teaching, going on my 3rd year in ML and Deep Learning. I practice by writing answers on Stack Overflow. I find it a tremendously efficient learning experience to focus on a Python library and look for questions from new users.
I think the only big thing that university has over the others is the variety of knowledge offered, so you really find what aspect of software development you enjoy. From what I know about bootcamps, you pick a speciality and this might not be what you're best at and you wouldn't even know! Also, I think coding bootcamps are only a big thing in the US, all jobs I've seen in both the UK and NZ required you to have a degree in computer science
True for Canada too, it's actually more annoying because a lot of jobs now even require graduate level studies and it's such a waste of time.
This is a legit point.
I started out in a sort of bootcamp(it was structured like a bootcamp, but it was put on by an actual software company that also helps place their graduates into the field).
And since I've seen their resource material where they were teaching us front-end, and back-end, I started noticing the things I like, and the aspects I didn't like.
I noticed I enjoy doing front-end web dev more than other things, so I've seriously considered dropping the bootcamp (that I spent only like $350 on), where I am supposed to learn a little of everything, but master none, I've thought about dropping that, so I can laser focus on the things that I enjoy and would like to have a job in(front-end web dev), so that would mean I should be learning HTML, CSS, Javascript, and a solid JS library like React or Angular.
Because I don't want to graduate this bootcamp and be a jack of all trades, but master of none, if that makes sense?(sorry for the long message).
@@Kryptiik This is a good point. I would like to mention though that I have found a lot of work experiences in certain areas are different at work than how I learned it through whatever form of education where I was first exposed to it. So maybe you like learning front-end which is awesome but how is it when you work on front-end at a job? It might be different when you don't have the lee way when learning it on your own. Just food for thought :) I think the bootcamps can provide more of a foundation in a lot of things related to that area rather than a specialization in one specific part.
@@zachadolphe3633 You make another good point.
Since messaging you the first time, I decided to merely place the bootcamp on hold (they will allow me to do this) and just stay in their system since I've already bought it, and then if I wish, I can come back later and complete the bootcamp, as well as I still have access to the resources they are teaching me.
I plan on learning full-stack web development for now, so I can focus on just a few things, and then once I get a job in tech, I will probably use that to help fund a CS degree in something else.
i don't now why people think cs degree is about coding only their are 58 subjects that we study in cs degree which will start from how computer made how computer works some mechnical stuff that will use in animations and game development how to code to low level like tv remote self driving cars to AI web development to app development you should select what you wanna do if you wanna become only programmer go for self tought or bootcamp but if you want to become a person who can combine 2 3 field like software with electronic or mechnical or something else or wanna study AI than i think you should choose cs degree
Why do you not use periods? You write your codes with syntax but you can't be bothered to write with periods in English? Dude.
Game: spot the Python programmer
your stupid, you can be self-taught and still learn everything you just mentioned, lol.
@@jordixboy compare your knowledge now with your knowledge if u had a cs degree. It's not the same thing.
@@vic__5378 ofcourse it is, why not? I can read the same books, make the same practices, everything. My point is, a Degree doesnt give you the knowledge, LEARNING give you the knowledge, and Learning can be either in school or by yourself. People think that self-education is worthless or not the same as school, in fact, its the superior way of learning.
Even B.S. degrees are >50% self-taught. I think the most important theme here is that you're willing to teach yourself and always improve no matter what path you take
The best option is actually having a CS Degree + learning everyday by yourself. Just my opinion. I know a CS degree in USA is very expensive but if you live in europe university is free or very cheap.
Is an IT degree important?
@@moutasemhussain That depends of the job imo. The accessible ones can be reached without a CS degree, but a more advanced/technical one will be harder to reach without a CS degree. Also that depends of the country but where I live in Europe, they give quite a lot of importance to CS degrees for jobs depending of their complexity. Now if you live in a country where it's cheap and accessible, I'd definitely give it a try before taking another path unless the door is closed to you. I'm attending one atm and I can confirm that you also get some networking from there as well (from the university itself or, rarely, from teachers themselves).
Free degree?? Is it a scam?? LOL
I don't think it is free. Some people I know went to European universities and it is very very expensive compared to where I live.
@@abhirammadhu2973 not all universities are public. Private ones are expensive. Public one are free, you just pay around 100€ for the inscription process. Now, you do not have the same advantages if you are part of UE or come from somewhere else. Being from UE offers a lot of economical advantages, and then each country handles it differently.
@@musicncode2130 Oh I see. But the main comment is misleading. It basically says almost every European universities are cheap/free. 😅
I recently finished a bootcamp at Georgia Tech, while it felt like way too much too fast at times I think it was the right call for me since I'm a little bit older and a CS degree part time would've taken several years. I've been really satisfied with the support after graduation too, career fairs, interview and resume advice, invaluble information for someone transitioning from another field. Also group projects are a great introduction to the entire development process. I'm very optimistic as I begin my job search after graduation
How is the job hunting going for you??
DId you get a job?
I would argue that attending a college has a lot of benefits, not regarding technical skills but rather the life lessons you get by meeting different people, cultures, networking, some of your classmates might end up being your business partners etc. Also, you mature a lot especially if you come from a low to mid tier family with lower income, and you have to work a lot to pay your studies. This lifestyle makes a person grow a lot; whereas, Bootcamp is shorter, and people might not be as close as you are in a college, and also self-taught is pretty lonely. With both of these you miss the point of university which is not getting only technical skills but this broad spectrum of life.
@@treali As an incoming freshman to a college under a CS degree, I totally agree and this is why I chose university.
Bro you are wrong
I completely agree with this. I come from a low-income area&family and have noticed how much I’ve changed since coming to school personally, academically, and professionally. The connections you make at universities are amazing-UC San Diego rising 3rd yr here.
Bro
You will spend $100000 just to be mature.
Bro
I am a senior college student. I have to say I agree with you. Going to college has a lot of value.
I'm not currently an Engineer, but I can tell you my experience job hunting as a Self-Taught vs. job hunting with CS Degree.
After CS Degree... all doors magically open up to you. Going through universities, I've had access to a massive network, clubs, career fairs, etc. It also helps to have access to Internships to pad my resume with something other then personal projects and open-source contributions. Being around so many like-minded people is useful because it increases the chances that you'll come across a job opportunity that you'd be totally unaware of otherwise.
Just to give you one example, at my computer science club, a recruiter for fin tech company came and presented one day and I happened to be one of 3 people in that meeting. They sent us a hackerrank quiz via email -- I finished it and sent it back and I have an interview for their internship next week. That interview FELL IN MY LAP, and I wouldn't have had that without being at Uni.
If you're thinking about self-taught or bootcamp, I'd like to end this post with this: What's missing from this YT video is that in all three cases, you get what you put in. If your doing self-taught, you're going to hit the point of diminishing returns for your effort a lot sooner than bootcamps. And you're going to hit diminishing returns a lot sooner for bootcamps than Uni. At Uni, the more effort you put in, the easier the job hunt becomes.
I think one characteristic that might be interesting to consider is breadth of knowledge. With a CS degree you're going to get introduced to different branches of CS and programming. Before I studied CS I didn't realize how many different kinds of Software Engineers there were (Parallel and Distributed, Machine Learning/Data Science, More DevOps centered programming, Embedded Systems Software Engineer, Bioinformatics, etc). Also with a CS degree you have the requirements for non-CS courses, which you could look at as an opportunity gain more domain knowledge in an area you're interested in.
Why not craft an ideal self taught curriculum then? 😏 A lot of us here could find it super useful yunno.
Well that's the whole point of a self taught curriculum, unless you're interested in learning the exact same thing Clement has, it'll be useless for the majority imo
The point is that as a self taught person you won't know which curriculum to follow, it doesn't matter if he makes one or not a totally new person will still have no idea if they should follow his or a different one.
Kind off agree with what u said. I mean I am in the middle of cs degree but still most of the time, I learn through self curriculum as my classes are not so much worthy so if he makes it, its gonna help me somehow
There are a lot of resources like this online, just don't be lazy and search it online
Check out The Odin Project
I think going to college kinda makes you lose motivation to learn on your own because of all the unnecessary malarkey they make you "learn" and it makes you more dependent on others for resources to learn.
Self taught here. Went from $10hr internship > 40k salary > 80k salary in 2 years since the day I decided to learn to code. It's definitely harder to get your first gig, but after that you're set.
Glad to see a self taught dev here. I’m also a self taught who’s doing an unpaid internship hoping that’s it’s gonna help me land a paying dev job.
bro how you manage to get this differenet gig would be interessing to get some insight.
@@ivoriankoua3916 Getting your first job is the hardest part. It progressively gets easier the longer you've been in the industry.
-Job #1 I got from networking. It was temporary.
-Job #2 I got from the shotgun approach of sending out 100s of applications online
-Job #3 a recruiter reached out to me on linkedin. Once you have a year+ , recruiters start seeking you out.
@@ryanbooth2309 Thanks
@@ryanbooth2309 what did you do? frontend? backend? did you specialise in something specific?
I'll give my 2 cents here. I have just graduated from Systems Engineering, which is a career option akin to CS. I will say this, a university degree in CS or Systems Engineering will provide you with plenty of life lessons and will help you acquire knowledge that will later allow you to broaden your understanding of how computers work.
I am not the same person I was when I first enrolled into college. The amount of different old and new technologies that I was forced to work in, the amount of mathematics that I had to learn and even Physics has really helped me alot not only in understanding how to code, but how machines actually work, something that would otherwise not be offered in a bootcamp, but you are able to learn it if you are self taught.
I will also argue that, for the most part, if you are partaking a CS degree or a similar degree like Systems Engineering, you will not go very far if you do not have the ability to become self taught.
Now if you just want to get a job as a web developer, or a mobile developer, yeah you dont really need a degree, I agree with that 100%, in that case, however, a CS degree will still be a huge complement, but it'll be much more of an addition to your knowledge than to your resume, and many do not understand this.
Lastly I'd like to say this, I understand why people trash degrees to oblivion, but for those who do, they either did not complete a CS degree or did not go to university at all, for the most part ofcourse. The amount of things you are exposed to in university, if you know what you want, will payoff in the future.
Depends on country, there are countries in Europe where you can study at university for free, which makes it cheaper than the self-taught route I guess...
Cheaper and easier
Free universities offer less education quality I think like the one that I attend.
@@abdelkhalekzellat7920 Not necessarily, I can't speak for other countries, but in Czech Republic and Slovakia, the top universities are free.
That's a fair point! I only based myself on U.S. universities in my pricing analysis.
They are only free if you don't value your time. With a CS degree you will have to take some courses that you will never use. You are also subject to what ever tempo the course runs on, they might go to slow or to fast for you.
The value of a cs course for me is mainly that they do offer a curriculum to follow and you get a piece of paper when you finish, that many employers unfortunately still require to hire someone
The best pathway was the one you took Clément a math degree which gives you all the logic and the problem solving trainning + the bootcamp which provides the actual tools are being used in the real world, good video thanks for sharing.
This is basically what a CS degree is anyways lol. A lot of math and some practical stuff as icing on the cake
Getting a CS degree, attending code bootcamps and self taught at the same time is still the best
Especially going to hackathons all at once
As a self-taught programmer, I can say that the way you made the comparison between the three situations is purely brilliant. Thank you very much, Clément.
Before I begin, I should mention that I'm a community college CS instructor, just in case some bias sneaks through here despite my attempts to be objective.
(1) Even if you take the bootcamp or CS degree route, you will need to learn to be self taught. This industry changes on a seemingly daily basis, so if you want to be good at your job, you need to continually learn new things, and you'll generally need to do that yourself.
(2) If you do choose the CS degree route, and you live in a state with a good community college system, consider taking the first two years at a community college. You'll get the same courses at a fraction of the cost (where I teach the courses are 40% the cost of the local major university).
(3) The CS degree will introduce you to topics you may not think to study on your own, and which will not be taught in a bootcamp (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Where I teach, an AS degree requires courses in computer architecture and discrete math, both of which give you new and interesting insights into programming.
(4) Getting a CS degree will require you to take courses in other subjects as well. Whether that's a plus or minus, I'll leave to you. But if nothing else, you'll need to take a course that will teach you to write. In my 30+ years in industry, nothing drove me crazy more than co-workers (and managers) who could not write a coherent email.
(5) There's no reason you can't mix and match these options. For example, use a bootcamp to get your first job, and then, if you're interested in learning more, use that job to finance a CS degree. Your employer may even pay for it.
(6) No matter which route you choose, check out algoexpert.io to get some good problem-solving practice.
Okay, that last one was just to see if Clem would actually read this entire (longer than I intended) comment :-).
Such valid points. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
As someone who started out with a sort of bootcamp, then realized I was just going to he learning all different types of technologies, it exposed me to ideas that I wasnt aware of, but as I progressed, I realized the things I enjoyed, and the things I didn't enjoy(front-end vs back-end etc...).
Therefore, I have considered dropping the bootcamp to pursue the things that I actually enjoy doing so as to land my first tech job in that particular thing (for me this is front-end web development as I just find it super easy, and not complicated, and it just clicks with me).
Then after I get a job in that, ive thought about financing a CS degree with the money I make in my tech career and getbinto something like Cyber Security, or perhaps something else I will discover.
Thanks again for writing that piece.
Would love to stay in contact, if possible I can give you my Instagram or something?
I started as a self-taught and then went for a CS degree at a university. I was so glad I did because it had added not only a depth but also a breadth to my knowledge. Before the CS degree I was a coder and after I became an engineer. I feel there is a tremendous difference between the two. It's like driving a car and being able to build a car. Or, using a framework (coder) and being able to build a framework (engineer). Sure, some folks with CS degrees end up with jobs confined to a certain scripting language. Self-taught or boot-camp might had been enough for that. However, if you need to think heap, stack, cpu cache, multi-threading, distributed synchronization, etc, ... analyze heap dumps, resolve locking threads, understand wireshark output etc, it's better to have a CS degree.
To some degree we are all self-taught even if you have a degree
I did all 3 so here's my take:
CS Degree: did this for 3 years before switching into a different major (while staying in B.S and eventually graduating with the new major). It offers more in depth concepts on things outside of just coding alone. In fact, most of my units didn't code at all. The ones that did involve coding utilized languages such as SQL, Pascal, C, C++, C#, R and Java. Other units were BIS, Stats, Comm. for Scientists, etc. As the name of the major displays, it is the overall science of computers. But keep in mind that if you're just into coding, this isn't for you. It's also very expensive. After graduation, debt comes rolling in...
Bootcamp: took two courses. In this case, price varies. Some can be as low as $20 on discount specials or others can be $1000. You get to learn at your own pace and it's also a shorter course. Regardless, it does not yield as much regard as CS degrees given one is a "real" certification. On top of which, they can sometimes be more broad as they cater to complete beginners. You miss out on so much crucial info that can help you better apply concepts for solving problems. And you will still be spending money (as little as you are paying).
Self-taught: Cheapest option as it's free. This works best if you already have some kind of idea on what you're trying to learn. This is generally a difficult path. You need discipline and you are working on your own. I found this option helpful only because I previously undertook a CS degree which gave me an idea on what kind of curriculum to learn.
Bonus (Grad. Cert. in Cybersecurity): After graduating with my double Bachelors, I got into a Grad. Cert. which is intended for 1yr. Content is so good. In the first few weeks, you learn way more than you ever would as an undergrad. However, it is also harder as you need to stay on top of things. Fall behind and you're screwed. Why? There's more risk. The cost of one unit in Grad. Certs. are 4 times as expensive as undergrad units. You don't want to fail a unit. You'll be taking out a huge student loan...
Hopefully this helps y'all make a decision! ;)
@Will theReaper that's a very nice summary, so what is your advice to a CS student in 3rd year (who has been lazy for the last two) wants a boost in self teaching? could you give me a specific guidelines to areas he(" I ")focus on?
@@Ab-vt2vr Cheers. Well, as someone who was pretty lazy myself, I realized how behind I was by the time I got to my later years. During the "school holidays" I would brush up on some of the things I was "bad" at or something that was gonna be used in my upcoming unit for the next semester. Here's the thing with self-teaching. It's hard. The content is just boring and you'd rather do something else. But one thing that worked for me was actually just working on a project as I went along. If I got stuck I would either find it online or ask a friend who might be better than me. It beats reading theory and the project itself adds to your portfolio.
Very informative and concise video and I think the criteria used by Clement to rank the three options of becoming a software engineer are quite relevant. My opinion is if you want to become a SE first you should begin with the self-taught route. Why? Because when coding bootcamps or unis say that you can admit the classes without any previous coding or technology knowledge is simply not true. If you want to understand the classes you will need to have certain knowledge about technology. If you haven't ever heard about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, object oriented languages, loop, functions, classes, SQL, Mongo DB, Unix/Linux, computer networks etc, then hardly can you enjoy the lessons, but guaranteed that you will struggle to apply the learnings. Self-taught method is not only the key to succeeding at the very beginning of your journey, but also it remains your best partner during your further studies and even your career. So, I wouldn't separate the study methods so sharply from each other as I can see them rather the parts of an ecosystem wherein the elements can enhance each other.
Thank you so much
I think one thing that can be implied about "self-taught" is that (at least from my experience), those people are very passionate about coding; they will likely go further. I was mostly self-taught and coding was all I did even when I was younger for at least 12hrs a day 7 days/week.
It's about motive. If you want a job go to bootcamp. If you want a career go to college. If you love programming, go to the library. I think the most important thing is be sure to learn a musical instrument in parallel with whatever choice you make.
Is it just the ability to grasp new concepts? I'm genuinely curious as to why you think so.
@@natekane-mcclaren9201 You mean the bit about the musical instrument? It's about not becoming too narrow, loosing your humanity, or forgetting that you can have a broad range of enjoyments and expressions. The demands of coding professionally can become all consuming.
As a 25y old male with a full-time job, a girlfriend, family and a second job(happens to last few days a month), coding all day is not that easy or an option. What I do is code after work for 1-3 hours, between 4 and 6 days a week. It is not all sunshine and rainbows over here, but hey, I am not going to give up just because there are ppl with plenty of time to code and get jobs in 6 months. My time will come eventually. Just wanted to say, do not give a shit about the longevity of your learning period to getting a job, be focused to succeed. I hope you get there, I hope I get there. Cheers. Also, thanks for the video.
How's your journey going?
I am a self-taught Machine Learning engineer and I love being a self-dependent programmer. I have to depend more on the books and internet to understand the logic behind but in the end I get a holistic view of the subject referring different resources from the internet and It get more and more addictive during the process of learning.
I think in the age of internet any individual can access high quality content such as mit open-learning, coursera, udemy, github, youtube, khan-academy, medium, any many more.
Unfortunately with AI you need at least a MSc in AI/CS or MSc Applied Math/Stat to be able to get a job or even freelance contract , unless you're working on your own start up , that's one of the reason why I switch from DL to web dev/app dev , will try to gain some $$$ then later go back to my true passion AI.
@@ivoriankoua3916 Actually to become Machine Learning engineer you do not need any ML/PhD although it is good to have if you're looking for researcher role. I have Electrical Engineering background and I am working as ML engineer in one of the big tech company. You only need to have solid foundation of Data-Structure and Algorithm because in ML you need be good at coding which include writing good amount of vector arithmetic programs.
@@sandyz1000 I'm not talking about the learning journey , anyone can learn ML/DL on his own with all the available ressource on the internet for free , what I mean is that without a degree you won't be able to get a position as a ML engineer even if you had the skill. You indeed have an Electrical Engineering degree and it's definetely better than a CS degree.
I'm also curious about how you get your ML position.
So I’m doing all THREE.... lol
-Self learning as we speak (UA-cam and websites )
-In college for a CS degree and web development
- going to do a Bootcamp once I graduate college next year since military pays for it for free .. good refresher
CS degree will always help you throughout your career when you go through extreme lows. Also for senior positions, industry is biased towards CS degree. And it's not just about coding. It's about engineering which you get from CS degree. I don't have CS degree. I am a mix of self taught and coding bootcamp. But in my opinion, CS should have got highest points.
Yes, most of the companies see the degree like an achievement. When you don't have a degree, the initial filters don't used to take you into consideration.
Yeah, one thing I picked up on in this video is that the words software engineer, and like just a web application developer are kind of used interchangeably when they really shouldn't. Web devs are like one specific kind of engineer, I would argue it's the least engineering-focused type of software engineer. I would argue the video should be more focused like 'easiest way to become a web developer', because I would argue that someone who is self taught in 6-1 year or has taken a coding Bootcamp have very focused software development skills yes, but likely not a lot of broad engineering knowledge that can be transferred to any software engineering jobs.
I am a CS degree student, I couldn't finish the video because I can't relate with some of the points he made about CS degree. He's talking about a degree he has never taken himself. I think they should get a MIT CS graduate, The best boot camp graduate and a confident self taught person. Then we will hear from people who have experienced all who is the best.
I have been studying at university, attended several bootcamps and spend ~6h/week on self-education.
What can I tell so far: every good student is automatically a self-educated person. You study at university for 30-60h a week, but then you find another 5-10h for self education (yes, its tough). And you try to attend online seminars or bootcamps after your degree, just to stay up to date.
In university I learned to be a good programmer, in bootcamps or conferences I performed deep dives, and self-learning helps to keep the brain fit and the knowledge not too outdated.
Most self-educated ppl. lack the Academic base. They are good only at a couple of things, but have issues with complex topics, which limits the possibilities of carrier growth. I would recommend this path only to those who lack money and time, so that they can get a job to save some money for some camps and conferences, which will open you new doors and probably positively impact your income. Then you can decide to save more money and attend a university.
The knowledge and experience from self-learning will make bc, confs, seminars easier for you.
And I know what I am talking about, since this is exactly what I did! I started learning IT at school, then started to educate myself and do some smaller projects. I did lots of networking and administration. Then I realized that some of administrative tasks can be automatized and started to study coding. As I saved some money, I took a short break and attended several seminars, including php, sql, css+html and python. Then I continued to earn money, and I was earning more, because of increased productivity. And, one day, I went to the university and attended classes there.....
A totally different world.....
The biggest problem about being a self-taught programmer is the lack of network to get an opportunity. It does not matter your coding skill or good personal projects, referral is more important than never to get an interview. I believe that CS or Coding Bootcamp are ways to make this network.
There's meet ups you can find online.
I feel like the problem with being self taught is that, you won't know what is actually important if your a beginner.
Also, you tend to get lost or miss things that dont seem important when self-taught. Seriously, if college is a no-go cause amurica, then I recommend bootcamp.
@@thepurplepanda4 That problem 100% depends on the person and happens even when you go to college. It’s part of the job, you can’t remember everything.
Your Algoexpert plugs are so damn smooth 🤯
This is so refreshing and really interesting cause I've seen these talks all over the net the past decade. I can't speak for boot camps but I can speak for self-taught and CS degree (because I have one). College is really a journey and you get a much broader foundation in it, you can't replace the fundamental math, problem solving, and computer science knowledge and skillsets you gain under good professors and curriculum. Or the tons of soft/research skills you'll develop and networking with people, making friends that self-taught would rarely give you since you'll spend most of the time working hard by yourself and being resourceful (although you can meet people online or locally at events of course). CS degree is variable, I doubt anyone who went to MIT or Caltech regrets getting theirs but a poor program with weak CS courses probably isn't all that beneficial (college does carry a lot of useless classes too but I enjoy broad knowledge and learning myself). Taking courses in math and physics changed my way of thinking and approaching problems, it was truly beautiful and I treasure it. You don't need those to program, but "computer science" isn't programming. It's problem solving through computation with lots of math and formulas mixed in at the root.
Naturally you can venture out to do all of this on your own, but it is truly hard and very few can follow through with it. It takes not just a lot of will and energy, but direction and knowing WHAT to study and HOW to study it for periods of time. That being said you have to teach yourself no matter what or you won't get very far either way, learning any significant skill requires lots of outside practice and studying (music, art, programming, etc.). CS degree gives you a clear objective and makes your path much easier because you have professors to assist you in your growth, peers to network with (that can help you land jobs in the future, that happened for me), and having a set of core classes dedicated to refining your problem solving and analysis skills. I just wouldn't spend a TON of money on a CS degree though. I had a lot of financial aid to assist me and I'm thankful for it...........so only do what you can afford period. If you can't pay for degree, put in the muscle and elbow grease to will yourself the self-taught route as it will pay off but stay focused and try to get a mentor if you can. I assume boot camps are somewhere between CS degrees and self-taught route.
Worst thing about degrees are clearly the junk classes slid into programs, which could shave a year off of college at least. Employers want a strong specific set of skills and knowledge base, along with good projects to showcase your work ethic, logic, creativity, passion, and discipline. A lot of students who go to school don't have impressive skillsets or portfolios. Colleges would be much better if they cut fluff in certain programs and stuck to the main course.
Hey, im a little late to the party lol, you sound like you got experience in the self taught department, im very interested in coding and will take the self taught path, currently im doing the csx50 course at harvard (which is about 12 weeks) after that im not really sure where to go from, is there anything you recommend i should focus more on as a begginer? I'd appreciate some guidance 😅
@@ydavids1655 is that expensive?
@@jermainemyrn19 no, its a free course bud
@@jermainemyrn19 you can find it on edx
I didn't mean to get emotional when I started typing this reply. I apologize in advance.
To be honest, I disagree with some points from my own experience. I have failed college. I had no friends and have extreme social anxiety. Getting support from people in college was a no go for me and I ultimately failed after my parents spent +$50,000 on my tuition fees. I would rank CS degree in terms of "support system" and "difficulty" at last place, but I can see why the majority of more "normal" people might view it otherwise.
In my third-world country, Coding Bootcamps don't exist. So while it may rank 2nd in terms of access in developed countries, it's a definite 3rd in others.
FreeCodeCamp was my saving grace. What I had learned in 3 months surpasses what I had learned in college in 4 years, ten times over. The curriculum is insanely well thought out and guides you all the way through. Whenever I have any problems whatsoever, even non-coding related, I get instant replies. The community is so lovely it always drives me to tears whenever I think about it (as I do now)... I would've been a NOBODY if it weren't for FreeCodeCamp.
It literally saved my life. All I was thinking about was suicide after I failed college. I had no friends, had no skills to speak of, disappointed my family, I had nothing to lose at that point in time. I might still be a nobody even now, but at least now I have hope that keeps me living and determination to code all-day-everyday and rapidly improve as a programmer.
Hey I am facing the same issues
I have social anxiety
No friends
Failed in college. I still have option to continue, but I wasted a couple of my academic years, which makes my 4 years degree to be of 7 or 8 years.
I am thinking of becoming a self thought software developer.
What is your advice as you have went through the same problems?
@@mohammedehtesham2661
Hey! Sorry for the late reply.
FreeCodeCamp walked me through from start to finish with the JavaScript and web design courses. The community responses super fast whenever I get stuck somewhere. I apply what I learn (JavaScript wise) by solving kata challenges in the CodeWars site. That site is extremely fun and addictive, and I definitely grow rapidly every day by checking other people's solutions even though I know all of the syntax at this point.
You can add me on Discord "-Solace-#5499" if you want to have a coding buddy for extra motivation and help. :)
Where are you from btw?
Self taught is really good & easy when you have like a parent or an older sibling Software Engineer that is willing to teach you for a year like a professor would in a university.
Depends on the professor.
My professor is a total waste of time xD. Doesn't teach me shit and rather confuses me even more.
Also something interesting is how we did a test 20 days ago... .We had 2 things to do . One was about the number system and the other was about a program that we had to do.
He promised our marks 3 days after the test xD... We've been reminding him even since then. OOOOh also before doing the test he said that he'll send us a file that we should read so we can prepare for the test. That was supposed to give us 1 week of preparation time... . He sent it the day before the test at 4:00PM xD
I believe being self taught is best when you have a keen interest in something. You tend to have clear idea what you want to achieve and motivation to do it too. CS degree seems the least useful thing when you want actual skills required for a specific field. And bootcamp that is for people who just got interested in coding at a later stage (after some other degree).
I tried self-taught and it's hecka demoralising. I tried learning basics of C++ but it went nowhere since I barely know what I was doing.
I'm now a final year CS student and honestly this route taught me to teach myself the stuff that actually matters.
As a self taught coder, I think the only time you might have a more difficult time is finding the first job, after that, you have credentials from the companies you work at, also I think it’s important to go to a place where you can have a good mentor or authority to learn from
So you're saying that after a self-taught coder gets over the hurdle of getting their first job, they can have just as rewarding a career as a CS grad?
An important thing to note is that if you have multiple unique projects in your portfolio and some of them are relevant to the job, then there's no denying you're the right person for it. I'd say that's even better proof of skill than any university diploma
I have the GI Bill - I'm self taught since 2010, but only treated it as a hobby and took breaks throughout the 10 years. Throughout that time I've learned Lua script, Java, C++, C#, and as of lately I've been knocking out "Freecodecamp" 's 300hr certs. I've currently completed the basic CSS/HTML, and working on the javascript cert now. I would prefer not to go to university to get the CS degree purely because I'm over 30yrs old, and would rather not wait another 3-4 yrs.... I've looked at coding boot camps but none of them in my state accept the GI Bill. Staying motivated is key, and being part of a group of self taught people has done just that for me. For instance I am part of a team that is and has been working on an MMORPG Emulator that uses Lua,C++, and Java.
Having the degree makes you far more knowledgeable than going to a boot camp or being self taught. The trick to this fields is understanding the underlying principles and being able to apply them to anything. An experienced person with a good foundation in CS can learn any language in a short amount of time and do pretty much anything.
Still trying to figure out what they taught CS students in school because I have yet to see much value from college grads that are years behind the industry.
This made a lot of sense actually. I'm not a software engineer by title, but literally half my job is writing/improving code in C++ and LabView. I taught myself the basics of C and C++ in high school and college, but by no means close to super proficient at a bunch of different things. However I've still been teaching myself in the workplace since it's part of my responsibility, and it really gets you moving forward quickly -- I learnt so much in a short space of time, and now I have some support because two of my co-workers are true software engineers with years of experience, and it is super beneficial to have them around to ask questions when I'm stuck and the internet wasn't much help. Being self-taught definitely isn't the easiest, but I think it can work out well once that motivation is there.
Hey man love from india. I watching your videos since more then one year. You are my motivation brother..keep rocking🥰
Hi dude , I am from India too
@@ZERO-uy8tv hi bro
TN
GREEK WARRIOR SK i am also Tn
Vera lvl bro
I'm self-taught right now. The usefullness idea of veing the most efficient is sort-of false. It's hard to know what to learn so I spent many years diving deep into things like web design without ever learning how to program. I've been dabbling on and off on the side for about 5 years and I'm just starting to break the barrier of understanding CS. Although, now that I'm here it's very exciting and I'm starting to figure out what is worth diving deep into. Looking forward to what the future brings. Learning Flutter now btw. Who agrees with that choice?
for me im doing a cs degree but i would say 101% of my knowledge is self taught
remember that a cs degree is not a programming degree, its abstract knowledge to help you maybe me a software engineer, or many other pathways
I think to have a really fair assessment here, things can't be equally weighted.
One big thing too to consider is that a degree takes about 4 years, a boot camp can take several months to years, and self taught can be weeks to months. I was self taught. Two months after starting I was working at FANG. I was able to have a full time job working in an engineering field and studying at night over two months to switch. Time is a huge investment
The problem here is that you are very limited with the bootcamp and self-taught. It would be very difficult to work in advanced computer vision, software test, parallel computing, advanced AI, robotics (for robotics is almost impossible without a degree) and many other fields without a CS or related subject (here also math, physics, engineering) degree.
When I hire I consider pedigree second and look for qualities like:
- initiative
- self starter
- problem solver
- perseverance
Cause regardless of your education it will always fallback to those qualities.
Also, the learning never stops.
I was self taught when I started programming, but now I have recently completed an apprenticeship in Software Engineering and am currently working towards a degree while working full time.
I think there is a lot of benefits from being self taught, but there are also a lot of skills I learned through my apprenticeship that I wouldn’t have gained from self-teaching.
Currently I’m very early into my degree, so I haven’t learned anything new, however I see it as necessary in order to improve my first impression to employers.
Tnx Clement. I like how you rate them. Very informative. In my opinion, the most preferable route is:
- to go solely to coding bootcamp
Or
- to attend college while perusing certain language as self-taught.
I googled 'Unbiasedly' afterwards🤪.
You can have a Degree but you can still be useless if you don't have the proper discipline or attitude to try to learn things by yourself.
I wanted to add that the most important skills to learn is first and foremost the ability to learn and stay teachable and than the ability to apply your knowledge to solve problems using computers. Those are the key things a potential employer will look for. I did almost 4 years into an electrical engineering degree with a minor in mathematics so I had a good background and now I am self-taught. I have a clear path I want to pursue in data science and machine learning so I focus my learning around that using freely available resources such as MIT open coarseware, Coursera, youtube, wikipedia, w3school, freecoding boot camp, spinup, openAI, reddit, google, stackoverflow, and GitHub. Not to mention I try and network with as many people as I possibly can. When doing a project I do the project on my own using the available resources to guide me if I get stuck. I never ever copy and paste code. The coding is always done in my own way. I'll take notes on my notepad and work out a problem on paper before I ever try to code it on my computer. This has so far worked out for me really well and I have learned so much of the problem solving skills. I am currently using Python 2.7.13 installed on a Windows computer. I don't use any frameworks or notebooks at all currently but will later begin using frameworks once I feel I am solid on my data structures and algorithms. I believe having a clear and concise path along with a host of resources available to learn from has helped me. Once I feel solid in my learning than I will apply the same methodology to land a job in my chosen path. I hope this information will help some people who are also on the self-taught pathway.
5:37 Can't agree more. Finishing up my CS degree with a 3.92 GPA, and I am thinking about going through a bootcamp after graduation. Why? It's complicated.
True
This is the path that I did and to be honest after going through this, I've been praising this kind of route to my university buddies who still have difficulty landing a job.
James Benitez That's good to hear! Congratulations for getting so much of this path!
I know quite a few people doing that. It is because the curriculum did not teach you any useful, in demand skills in college. It is NOT complicated it is just hard for outside people to believe.
@@Bobxchen333 Interesting. I've heard that very thing before, that the technology you learn in a CS degree will possibly be outdated by the time you graduate.
I have a computer science degree, but was mostly self-taught before university. I probably didn't need a degree in Computer Science, but wanted to do something I would enjoy. I think the biggest benefit of a degree is that it really introduces you to a wide scope of different areas of computing, which you may not have come across. Most of my day to day job uses knowledge I gained before university. I'm a graphics engineer, and spent years in high school doing game development, making my own engines, learning about GPU programming, shaders etc; Though I am still very glad that I did a degree, aside from being an enjoyable life experience, I think the biggest value versus being self-taught is that increased level of discipline which comes from having progressive goals and targets. Plus, you also build up a cool portfolio of projects and demo's from the various modules you do.
For people on my degree, I'd say around 25% of people were very experienced at programming coming in, 50% had dabbled in a limited sub-set, e.g. web dev, python, or did IT/Computing at high school, with the remaining 25% being new to programming entirely.
I JUST GOT ADMITTED TO FULLSTACK ACADEMY OMG
Awesome!
How is it going. I bet you might have finished already and with the pandemic how were the classes can you tell a bit about your experience. Regards from the uk
@@boliviabba3520 Once I got accepted into Fullstack. I defer my cohort by a month just to get some extra preparation. So I’ve been attending Fullstack for two months now. I’ll be finishing Junior Phase today!
As far as school. It is absolutely the hardest thing I’ve done in my entire life. Constant 11-14 hour days of studying just to NOT feel like you’re drowning in information. BUT I do have to say, I’ve learned so much in the last two months that I feel fully capable of making a full stack application by myself. It is ridiculous how much I know now compared to two months ago.
Here’s the thing though. Like I said, it’s a daily 11-14 hours. School is only 7 hours long. Which means that most of us spent another 4-7 hours doing our own research. The topic that were taught in class only really make sense after you’ve done you’re own studying. Not to say they don’t teach you well during class. But there’s just so much to learn about each topic that it’s impossible to just include it all in school.
Here’s the thing though.
This school is 19K usd. It’s expensive. And while I feel like it would have taken me a full year or more of self teaching to get to where I’m at right now. I probably would have had a better understanding of the topics I’ve learned if I went slow and steady. But, for me, I needed to change careers fast. So it’s definitely worth it for me. Also. I’ve made some really cool friends here too. And the school connects your to other cohorts too so you can network more.
But basically. If you’re considering going to a bootcamp.
Ask yourself this.
Do I NEED to change careers in less than half a year? If you’re not under time constraints and assuming your disciplined enough to self study, I would recommend the self study route.
If the money is no issue and you don’t mind putting in 11-14 hours of studying daily and CONSTANTLY feel like you there’s not enough time to learn everything. Then yeah. Go bootcamp.
And like I said, I feel completely ready to build anything I want. I just saw a senior project where they built an online shooting game in vr. It’s impressive because that project is supposed to be completed in two weeks. I’ve seen another project where someone built themselves a dj set in vr. I’ve seen someone built a speech app which helps you correct your pronunciation of English words. Those guys are hoping it can help people learn another language easier in the future.
Anyways,
These are higher level projects for entry level job and I feel capable of making some of those projects even though I still have one more month left of school. Just a disclaimer though. I have no idea how ever other bootcamp is. Fullstack is considered to be one of the best so I’m not sure if going to another bootcamp would make you feel as confident in your skills as this school has made me.
But yeah. That’s it for my review. I gotta go in for my final day of Junior Phase now!
@@Isaac-eh6uu The guy before you asked for an update The day I completed the Junior Phase... And you asked me for an update the day finished Senior Phase and graduated. What a funny coincidence.
Senior Phase was mostly structured around group projects with the focus on learning new frameworks and libraries. There was hardly any lessons. We had the freedom to choose whatever we wanted to create, except for group project, at the beginning of Senior Phase, which was meant to reinforce everything we had learned in Junior phase. After that project was done. We literally had the entire day to ourselves and our teammates.
I personally created a iOS and Android messaging app that allows you to text with people who spoke different languages. Like I could be texting a person in English and I would receive their messages in English. But on their screen, they would receive my text in another language and send their own text in that language.
I also made a top down zombie-horde survival video game. It was inspired by an old flash game called Boxhead that I used to love. My game is just a modernized version of it that includes live multiplayer, better graphics and better game mechanics.
There was some other really cool projects done by my friends. One group created a fitness app that tracks your body position and teaches you proper form for exercises. Another group created an application that allows you to to drag and drop 3D shapes (that each represented certain sounds) into a visual metronome. You could connect with friends and mess around with each other shapes to make different beats.
There was a ton more awesome projects. So as you can see, Fullstack really did teach us how to expand past our regular PERN stack.
I feel fully capable of not only building a full stack application. But also really confident in being able to quickly and efficiently learn any other framework or library that I want.
With that said. Algos and Data structures are still pretty hard. Fullstack tries to teach these things by having students do mock interviews each day among ourselves. But I strongly believe that time should have been a lesson instead. I think most of us are leaving Fullstack with intermediate knowledge of Algos and data structures. Luckily, Fullstack does provide a full year membership of AlgoExpert. A service created by none other than Clement here. I think most of the cohort plans on doing AlgoExpert while applying to jobs for the next couple of months.
My job search is expected to last anywhere from 3 - 6 months. I guess I’ll give a final update once I land a job as a Software Engineer. Wish me luck.
@@OneOhNine How is it going?
I'm self-taught and working at a FinTech company. I started at a kid and did networking on forums and ICQ to make connections that later helped me get my foot in the door in the industry many years later. Fortunately I had 110% support from my parents but outside of that I must have been really motivated because many of the freely available resources now didn't exist then.
Great information. Thank you!. I was actually in the mids of talking to a university career counselor to enroll in their web development degree they offer. I was a total of 69k cost. Having this information you just shared made me reconsider the whole thing and definitely will be exploring the option of a bootcamp.
Started off learning at a boot camp and I really loved the experience, but recently shifted to self learning during the pandemic so best of both worlds.
Love the vid, I just think there’s some flaws in your logic. You keep bringing up “In an ideal scenario” for self taught giving it the best possible outcome, but then you compare those to the real world for bootcamps and university. The real world scenario is people can’t afford to take 9 months off without a job to learn on their own. They don’t have the financials to take the risk for a bootcamp or university so the point is working and then study during free time. Most of the time that’s like 6 hours a day, even less if you have a family. It becomes stacked against you when the market is flooded with “Teach Yourself” courses and sooo many variations of what’s important. Plus using “what you know now” as a supportive claim is a cop out. If everyone starts from 0, self taught will spend hours, days, weeks possibly researching which direction to go, what technology is truly important, which can I avoid, who do I trust to teach me for videos, which books are current to industry, etc. You get that guidance from the other options like you said. I’m all for self taught, that’s what I was doing before I joined a bootcamp so don’t get me wrong I do support self taught. But if you already have all this “what you know now” knowledge then you aren’t start from the same point everyone else may be starting from and by that point you shouldn’t be considered self taught
Finished a coding bootcamp this year, no degree, looking for a job. From what I observe so far, your ranking is correct. With all my knowledge now, I could teach myself or someone how to do the basic work, however, without bootcamp experience that would take me 7-8 years to learn everything I need myself, perhaps. So, bootcamps are definitely worthy.
When it comes to a degree and diplomas, it helps, and it does open doors for you, but not as much as one would hope. People with diplomas still get rejected and crapped on. Especially if you did not teach yourself anything after or during college, it will be a mission impossible to find a job. In summary with the rest, you will get an offer significantly faster with a diploma, that's it. No 6 figure pays upfront, no instant offers. Does it worth the price? You tell me.
While I can see that this was a good effort of being unbiased, there were deffinitely some points that I felt were very innacurate.
Generally speaking, I think you missed so many points and ended up being biased against Computer Sciece by having a grading criteria thats generally against them. For example, you mention "quickest route" as a criteria. Having a quick route is not a "good thing" per say. Software development and computer science are a craft that requires alot of discipline and areas of teaching for proper understanding. This inevitably takes time. Also, the value of getting a College degree is incomaprable to the other 2 options, let alone the breadth of the knowledge gained. I think the other 2 routes are simpler shortcuts into getting into the field but they dont guarantee the person has the knowledge to become a sufficient computer scientist. Also, saying that Bootcamps and comp sci programs are similar by the environment you are surrounded in, is completely false. Coding bootcamps can simply be taught by anyone who is an experienced coder and knows how to teach the bare minimum (tech stack) for a person to land a job. Whereas most college institutions hire professors who are experts in their fields, conducted research and usually have a ph.d, if not atleast a Masters...
I did feel the bias as well, but keeping in mind that this is in the US and that US colleges and universities are stupid expensive and sometimes not even very good, I think I have to kind of agree.
@@MrPlaneCrashers Thats true. US education system has many flaws and some schools dont have good curriculums. But there are many really good colleges and programs as well that people can choose if they do more research. I just dont think traditional the value they bring compare to a 4 month bootcamp... Plus, bootcamps are unfair to students who put in a strenious 4 years of preperation against someone who just put in a couple of months..
@@atift5465 Do you have a CS degree?
The breadth of the knowledge learned is mostly...useless. After an CS degree you don't gain any knowledge to be employable whatsoever, and you've spent 4 years of your life... And in the fast moving world of tech 4 years is alot.
So I wouldn't call other two shortcuts, rather just way more 'effective' paths to take. Effectiveness is what makes them short.
@@lakizmaj5679 You're thinking through a keyhole perspective, thinking of its benefits only for software engineering. Which is true, many of the comp sci courses arent practical in modern software engineering. But computer science isnt meant to just make you a software engineer. Its meant to give you a thorough understanding of how computers function, their principles and foundations and how to use them to solve modern problems. Most of the programming courses are still thrown in there with a proper low-level understanding behind the language. This makes you a better scientist. Not a code monkey.
I am a self-taught SWE, but I do have a MS in AeroEng and currently working on a PhD. My master allowed me to get my foot in the door, as a modeling and simulations engineer and from there, I was able to transition to software development for physical modeling applications. I agree as a self-taught programmer I learned the skills that I needed to succeed on my job, I don't regret it but if I could start again, I would have never done Eng. I would have done a combination of Math with Physics and a CS minor. I think in the CS world most a lot of what is out there is about websites, servers, etc. but my interest lies on the physical and research modeling, which is a different set of skill, the languages that we use are C++, for the calculation, python for compiling; and I have also used Fortran, which as far as I am aware is not a very popular language.
I think it's important to mention that the Price is really depending on your country and that here in the video, it's US view only. For example, there are a lot of really good universities in Europe that you can go (if you are a local) for almost free as per support from the government. As it's a tight final score in the end, I think the axis and global insights of the video are relevant, but there are a lot of variables that will balance the choice depending on your global situation (age, experience, country, family situation, etc).
What if you move to Europe and become a European resident. Will it be free than?
@@saraha.1336 I cant speak for all European countries and I don't think it's being European is enough but for example in Belgium - if your are belgian - price of university is 'almost free' (less 1keuro/year) and then you have different pricing based if you are European or not but it's never reached US university price anyway as far as I know.
I'm self taught, mostly from before there was an abundance of resources. I learned in the late 90's from books and trial and error. I had a passion project website I built entirely by hand with PHP and MySQL and I made many iterations over the years before I eventually retired it. I did a lot of other side projects as I got better, including some for bits of pay.
Most of my learning was old books, then reading books at Barnes and Noble, as well as W3. Eventually I managed to get a developer adjacent job and paid attention to what the devs were doing in terms of process, what tools and frameworks they used, etc. I eventually moved into a dev role and I've been in dev/consulting since then.
Self taught is what you make of it. It generally takes a long time to come to fruition unless you are grinding at it like a full time job, then get a break somewhere. It's easier than ever to do this route, but it still requires you to be a self starter and figure out what matters.
Seriously, where do you get those immaculate jet black v-neck T-shirts?
Online bro😎
From Banana Republic: Luxury-Touch V-Neck T-Shirt (Black) 😎
I couldn't decided which one to choose(bootcamp vs self-teaching). You gave very clear vision. You are an angel for those who wants to be a programmer.
Thanks Clem! Making me feel bad about my CS degree as usual!
I think he kind of went the wrong route with the CS degree. The thing is..... even though a coding bootcamp and self taught route can be faster and get you that job a lot quicker than a 4 year degree while also saving money, a CS degree gives you a lot more understanding of how computers work, and even provides you with fundamental resources and getting a job won't be as hard.
Plus with a CS degree you can do research in topics such as AI, and security if you're really into that, and it teaches you everything you need to know, like networks, security, operating systems, data-mining, databases, algorithms, data structures, etc..
So in reality if you're just trying to get into software development than a CS degree isn't really necessary but it is necessary for what goes beyond software engineering. Plus if you get a CS degree you can do software engineering and everything else beyond that.
So a CS degree really isn't as bad as most people make it out to be, in fact, it might even be the better option.
But to each their own.
Some doesn't maximize their CS degree. If you do, then you shouldn't have regrets.
In the motivation category for self taught: I am picking this up for fun. Started by doing a small free course on html. then css. got bored. few years later did a small course on c++ and discovered i love thinking about problems. Now i sometimes spend an entire afternoon thinking about ways to code something. Maybe i'll pick up java so i can mod slay the spire.
What i'm saying is that when on the self taught route intrinsic motivation is a huge part of the process. I learn things because i encountered a problem i couldn't solve, causing me to be really interested in possible solutions.
I noticed that when i am required to learn stuff i feel way less motivated (usually) then when i actually WANT to find a solution.
For context i am studying chemistry atm, and while i find it interesting and fascinating, the classes don't spark the same curiosity.
9:20 This one really hit me hard I'm self taught and 3 months into learning web development and suddenly i just feel unmotivated to pursue that career i said to myself, is this what i want to do? and quit after that. After 1 year i got motivated again and regret that i quit during those time I wish that i can keep myself motivated.
That's a great talk. Thanks 🙏. I fell into the pitfalls of self-taught. I've been doing it for 6 years and struggled with direction (what to study) and also lost confidence and stopped at one point because I was doing it alone. Now I'm back at it but losing confidence damn near sank the ship for me.
I think you miss the mark on this. If you're self taught, you don't know what you don't know. I'd wager that this is why there is so much buggy insecure software out there. Also, with a CS degree, you'll be forced to learn things that you wouldn't necessarily learn if you were left to do it on your own. While assembly programming is useless, you learn what's happening with memory management and will probably write more efficient code. In database management courses you'll learn about creating efficient and scalable databases. I've seen self taught engineers build stuff that works great with a few rows, but when it hits 100,000 rows fails.
Self-Taught programmers learn about scalability, space and time complexity too. There are also many UA-camrs that cover Assembly, like Ben Eater and many others, to show what's happening underneath the hood. All process from preprocessing, compiling, assembling and linking can be found online. Self-Taught programmers who are dedicated to learning will likely find many sources on the fundamentals of CS, erasing the "you don't know what you don't know" by actively searching for such an overview.
Though it is true that self-taught programmers who aren't as dedicated or interested in having a more complete overview will be allowed to skip a lot of steps that would normally mandate a certain level of quality.
I think it's more of a Unity game-engine vs Unreal Engine game-engine thing. The one that is most accessible to everybody will most likely have the most amount of shitty games, which doesn't mean that you cannot make great games in the Unity game-engine. I think it's more of an accessibility thing than a know what you don't know thing.
@@alwaysinagoodshape5327 the CAN learn that stuff, but most learn the bare minimum to complete a task they are trying to do. There's always a stack of books we are going to read, but for a lot of people, they never get to it. The CS degree kind of forces you to do the hard work and learn things you wouldn't normally take on. How many self taught programmers actually know assembly.
So, yes the body of knowledge is available. You can probably learn brain surgery from you tube, but should you be employed as a brain surgeon because you saw the video?
In software development, there is the risk of data breaches, service downtimes that could have wide reaching implications, cybersecurity issues, and scalability problems on software. Our industry probably should be more regulated. Doctors, accountants, nurses, any kind of engineer, lawyers, plumbers, electrictions, all need professional certifications or licenses to operate. Why not software engineers?
@@tommurphy8596 Because software Engineers have portfolio's to prove competence. A surgeon cannot randomly start cutting in people just to prove that they would have survived.
The reality is "you don't know what you don't know" applies to CS grad too. We look at stackoverflow for answers just like Self taught developers.
Many community colleges would cost less than a bootcamp, but you might not be able to only take coding classes. If you need to be in a degree program to get financial aid, you might not be able to take a full course load of just coding related classes: programming languages, web design, web development, Photoshop, databases, security, Linux, or what have you. However, you might benefit from a slate of technology classes to broaden your tech horizons (if you have the time).
Using a private university, or almost any state / commonwealth flagship university, might not accurately reflect the competitiveness (cost wise) of community college. You may not even have to pay out of pocket to go to community college (grants / scholarships / student loans).
Cost Score:
Self-taught: 3
College: 2
Bootcamp: 1
Can we hear more about how to get involved in projects as a self taught developer? I don’t know where to start!
i would advice to start the harvard cs50 course
If you want to grow a lot, I would suggest to contribute to open source projects. They are incredibly useful for starters, because you get a lot of review on your code. Also, if you contribute a moderate amount to a well known project, you can add it to your CV
Just pick something easy to start with and progressively make more involved projects.
Ive been on the the self taught route since May of this year. Learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript and now learning React. Everything sounds spot on about this path.
Do you have email/Twitter etc.? I'm trying to build a curriculum to become a self-taught fullstack dev - would love to pick your brain.
How is the learning going?
I am in the middle of a CS degree and now I feel like dropping out. I agreed strongly when you said about not so important courses, because I am not interested in learning how to use rhetoric appeal(its pretty cool though), or learning about ethnic culture(how will I ever apply this + I don't like it very much). I love puzzles, riddles and problems that gives me a headache. That I think I can get if I drop out. Although, I come from a place where dropping out is not an option. So, 3 years and 10 months and two weeks more to go. btw, python is 3x slower than C++ on codeforces, even if I use the same logic.
I agree with you but on the other hand self-taught tends to be a backbone to the degree and the bootcamp because you will never learn everything to the fullest but generally give you a good research guide.
College in the US is extremely expensive, I live in Uruguay, a small country in South America, and I pay 100 USD per month for a very good education
40 bucks a year in Austria^^
small country, laughs in slovenian
bro we have a shity education system in the world , i live in morocco self thought ways are the best for us
Of course it's cheap your country is very poor compared to the US. It's all relative.
@@davide4607 id rather live in a "very poor" country that has free education and free healthcare
A lot of people are saying it but I'll say it again: You should make a self taught curriculum. I'm teaching myself to code right now and it's very difficult to know what exactly I'm supposed to be doing and what milestones I should be hitting.
2:39 - say no more ( like button -> right click -> style css display none ) 👍🤣
Self taught way has worked beautifully for me till now. It has its initial struggles but once you are able to master one programming language even though it may take time you become confident and are able to go from strength to strength
did you have to learn IT Fundamentals first?
Thanks a lot for your help, but i always have an inner gut feeling that Clement is being biased as at the end of the day his primary goal is to sell us his products.
I know this is just one person’s opinion, but it’s very comforting to see the results of this video after signing my bootcamp enrollment agreement yesterday 😂
I'm Sorry for the US Citizens that need thousands of Dollars to be able to attend colleges or universities.
better off than poor asian countries
@@intenzi69 not really, better poor knowing it and being happy with what you got or knowing you want to change it than being poor and living in a fake bubble that makes you think enslaving yourself is called freedom
IDK how it works but i think your enthusiasm has some sort of motivational power ,and love your videos
Hi, Clement! I am 12 years old and I am learning to code. (3-4 months in now) Would you recommend attending IT classes at a school, or would you rather recommend self-learning programming? Thanks in advance. I really like your videos. Keep up!
Nice job for starting young fam. IMO I would learn myself at that age, IT classes are okay but tbh at that age they won’t really be teaching coding :(. Also bad idea stating your age online. Edit your comment.
I am 14 and I'm self-taught
Both!! The more you immerse yourself the better off you'll be 👍
@@chennn958 I mean, 2h in and nothing bad happened. I think it is fine. Although OP* is very young, this is a perfectly normal comment to me, and I think it is going to be fine.
@videodude As for learning IT, it really depends. Where I live they don't offer programming classes at that age, but there are some pretty good courses online (a lot of them are free) that would help get a better understanding of IT in general. But I really think that if you want to keep pushing in the computer science field, the best option is to do stuff. Making projects and doing interesting things is the best way to keep going. The hard part about that though is that you need to learn to avoid bad practices, which can be hard when self-teaching. Just have fun doing stuff and learning what you want to learn. Every time you have to learn a new language (for example, you will probably end up learning sql later), try finding official references to avoid doing bad practices.
If you ever need a generic reference, look inside this list, these are good ones:
www.edx.org/
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/
developers.google.com/training/
www.coursera.org/
developer.mozilla.org/en-US/
www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming
code.org/
www.w3schools.com/whatis/default.asp
www.freecodecamp.org/
Next Bill Gates right here
I'm from a country where 90% of software engineering jobs require a bachelor's degree. Even though I have enrolled for a degree in CS but most of the things I've learnt, is either from UA-cam or Geeksforgeeks. Degree isn't worth the money but if anyone is getting a scholarship or can afford the tuition, I would recommend to go for one.
Hi bro i also want to be a web developer, can you help me?
I got a lot of questions about development
I have observed that self-taught/bootcampers do not have a strong grasp of the technology they are using. They are fish out of water once their newest framework cannot do something. Bootcamps are designed to output something on the screen in the shortest amount of time without depth. They have difficulty debugging because they do not really know what is happening in the first place. They become good code monkeys at best but not exceptional engineers in the long run. Add that to the way bootcamps are marketed and their instant-gratification appeal, you get 'framework users' rather than solid engineers.
Frankly, web development is the lowest barrier of entry in development. Anybody with internet and time can deploy some todo app to Heroku with a $15 course from Udemy. :)
In India, CS degree is just a certificate that helps you to qualify to sit for the job interview, to get a job you need to have be self taught because you don't learn anything in college.
For me, the best approach would be a hybrid approach of both cs degree and self-taught.
This is Exactly what I was thinking. Although he was a little biased towards the Bootcamp Option. Doing a CS Degree and Self Learning things on the Side will bring the best Output.
Why to choose when you can have it all? Degree as proper foundation, self-thought as a professional lifestyle to keep your skills always up to date, bootcamps as an extra to get ahead of the game.