How to Become a Programmer

Not everyone can afford to spend years in college before beginning their programming career. You can gain knowledge of programming from experienced developers or teach yourself computer programming using reasonably priced textbooks, training courses and or coaching programs. Becoming a computer programmer by going to college to study computer science is a wise choice, but in this article I will show you that you can gain the same knowledge without having to invest a fortune in a college education.

Do I Need a College Degree To Get a Programming Job?

Programmers have the skill set of being organized, creative, persistent, analytical, paying attention to detail, communicating effectively, thinking logically, and using deductive reasoning. If you have some of those skills then you are already on your way to becoming a computer programmer. Do you love solving problems or like to know how things work? You may already have the mind set of a computer programmer already and you didn’t know it. Assuming that you have some of that mindset, let’s look at how you can translate that into a computer programming job. It’s really not that difficult because you can get hired in today’s programming job market without a college degree. This is because when it comes to programming, employers put more emphasis on your ability to write good quality code than your educational credentials. Many programmers have taken advantage of this to forgo college and focus on developing their programming skills to the best of their ability. This is why the term practice makes perfect is true in software development careers. You see, you need lots of practice in order to write good quality code that employers are interested in paying for. When I started learning programming more than a decade ago, I didn’t go out immediately and invest money on development tools, instead I downloaded free compliers and IDE’s (Integrated Development Environment) and you can too! There are free editions of Visual Basic.Net, C#, C++ and SQL Server to get you going in your programming career. Next, put the effort into writing useful software or web applications. You will learn a lot about design, adding software features, taking requests from users, business analysis, project management, requirements analysis, coding and debugging that way.

Do You Have What Companies Are Searching For?

So, you have prepared a resume, sent it over to hiring managers and are now getting ready for your technical interviews. Have you thought about what those employers are looking for? It’s essential to your programming career to be able to answer that question. In the programming job market, employers want to see that you can apply your skills to real business problems. They are looking for competent software development skills and to see if you can write good maintainable code.

Learn a Top Paying Computer Programming Skill and Get a Tech Job Easily

In any job market, no matter what type of job you are trying to get, having knowledge and experience with a particular skill can get you a job relating to that skill. Programming is not any different, if you have working knowledge of programming and experience programming you can get a job programming. Knowledge of programming can be gained from many sources. College is the first source that comes to mind, but the alternatives are to learn programming on your own or from a subject matter expert. Now days, you can read up on just about anything on the internet and it’s free; but you should probably invest in many different programming books that go into more detail so you can advance your skill level. Programming experience doesn’t strictly have to be from a previous job you have had. You can gain experience working with software development tools or from hands on training.

How to Begin a Software Development Career after High School?

You can get a programming job without a college degree and here’s how. You will need to communicate your programming knowledge and development experience. Knowledge and experience is the key. Show your prospective employer that you have just as much knowledge as the guy who did go to college and go into the specifics about the applications you have built using software development tools. Talk about the problems you ran into when building an application and how you solved the problems. Do all that you can to show your prospective employer that even without a college degree you are an asset to anyone who hires you!

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