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What do want to do in life?
I would like to go into the IT field and start a career doing software and web development. #technology
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Nischal’s Answer
If you are interested in IT, data science is a burgeoning field. The entire world IT infrastructure is all moving towards automation backed by general Artificial intelligence. For automation to work, it needs a ton of data to be analyzed in Realtime. If you strengthen your knowledge on data science, it will help your professionally. There are so many free/paid online tools that you can leverage to embark on your journey like LinkedIn, Udemy etc.
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Brendon’s Answer
The following done in this order should help you a lot:
- Ask a guidance counselor to help you with your search.
- Take a career test, here is one from an Ivy league uni I used myself: https://www.princetonreview.com/quiz/career-quiz
- Set aside time to make sure you really figure out what you truly want to do.
- Research the job(s) you are interested in by watching a day in the life videos, reading the job descriptions online and asking questions to people in the profession you would like to get into.
Best of luck!
- Ask a guidance counselor to help you with your search.
- Take a career test, here is one from an Ivy league uni I used myself: https://www.princetonreview.com/quiz/career-quiz
- Set aside time to make sure you really figure out what you truly want to do.
- Research the job(s) you are interested in by watching a day in the life videos, reading the job descriptions online and asking questions to people in the profession you would like to get into.
Best of luck!
Updated
Luis’s Answer
Hi Nathan! If you are interested in college/university getting a degree in computer science/engineering would be a great asset to start you on your path to web or software development. There are certain colleges that will also offer in particular software engineering streams and if you are sure software is what you want to be working on, I suggest going directly into one of those. As far as courses you should be taking when in uni, there are all the usual software eng courses (intro to software engineering, advanced software engineering or something like that) as well you'd be surprised how essential algorithm and math-based theory courses can be in both landing you a job and in your day to day work.
Outside of pursuing a university degree if that's not an option for you there are many courses online (some provided free by universities) that can have you on your way learning the skills necessary to find a job. One set of these I would suggest is Harvard's free courses they put out during quarantine about software development and computer science. They all go mostly in-depth in whatever topic you would like and are free Harvard courses! https://online-learning.harvard.edu/subject/computer-science
The last thing I would say apart from working on your own skills is to try out different aspects of software development to see what you would actually like a career in! There are many different streams that you could try, like web development which you mentioned, but there is also game development, Front-end development, Back-end development, and Full-stack development just to name a few. All of these different streams require somewhat different skills to get into and I suggest if you find something you really like, get comfortable using all the required software and languages that are commonly used and you should be on your way!
Remember to stay motivated and to keep applying to different jobs. The truth is, that getting a software engineering job isn't particularly easy, but with enough determination and work on your own skills, it is definitely super achievable!
Outside of pursuing a university degree if that's not an option for you there are many courses online (some provided free by universities) that can have you on your way learning the skills necessary to find a job. One set of these I would suggest is Harvard's free courses they put out during quarantine about software development and computer science. They all go mostly in-depth in whatever topic you would like and are free Harvard courses! https://online-learning.harvard.edu/subject/computer-science
The last thing I would say apart from working on your own skills is to try out different aspects of software development to see what you would actually like a career in! There are many different streams that you could try, like web development which you mentioned, but there is also game development, Front-end development, Back-end development, and Full-stack development just to name a few. All of these different streams require somewhat different skills to get into and I suggest if you find something you really like, get comfortable using all the required software and languages that are commonly used and you should be on your way!
Remember to stay motivated and to keep applying to different jobs. The truth is, that getting a software engineering job isn't particularly easy, but with enough determination and work on your own skills, it is definitely super achievable!
Updated
Megan’s Answer
If you are interested in the IT field, may I recommend Cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is used in various companies at various levels so you will have the flexibility to be in the IT field without having to stick to working strictly for IT companies. Cybersecurity will always be in demand, so this is a skill set that could really help establish a solid career, where as other technologies and departments tend to become obsolete over time. There are also several ways to receive free training for the IT field. Stanford University, Harvard University, LinkedIn Learning, Digital Defynd, Udemy, Coursera, UC Berkeley, Skillshare, Google, Udemy, edX, Udacity, Microsoft, and MIT all offer free training. Once you have received training, look into companies that have intern programs or entry level openings such as Visa. These types of companies tend to be more open to those who can execute, than those with a degree.