Welcome to the Treehouse Community
Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.
Looking to learn something new?
Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.
Start your free trial
Anna M
Courses Plus Student 961 PointsAm I able to make this a career with no degree?
I am about a year from graduating with my psychology degree, however we recently moved due to my husbands position with the air force and I found out I am not good with online learning. We are now expecting our first child and I was hoping to pursue this after a discussion with a Team Treehouse alumni. So far in my training I understand everything, but I realized the other day that she has a degree and I have not completed mine. Can I make a career out of this without completing my degree?
3 Answers
Fernando Gomez
18,527 PointsI believe you can if you really put your mind to it. You do have to have lots of patience and accept that you're going to fail on the process. I still don't have a job but I'm confident something will come up.
Tim Knight
28,888 PointsHi Anna,
Is this a 4 year degree you're trying to finish up? I would say that if you're only a year away that you should try to do what you can to keep pushing forward with your degree—even if it's trying to push yourself through online classes. An understanding of psychology specifically can be a great asset in the technology world. Particularly in areas of cognitive psych, developmental, and even the less popular engineering psychology. Now that being said you definitely don't need a degree to be successful in this field (I've been in it professionally since 1999 and do plenty of hiring). I would say use your time at Treehouse to build up a portfolio of the skills and projects you've developed even if it's just student work you've done for fun. Let that speak to your skill set. Write case studies that outline your thinking and problem-solving ability in why you made the decisions you made in those projects.
You're going to have to invest a good amount of time in learning and working to apply these skills to be able to communicate efficiency, but you can definitely do it.
Anna M
Courses Plus Student 961 PointsHi Tim, Thank you so much for your answer. At the risk of seeming completely inept, I was curious about the portfolio you mentioned. I don't have any friends or families in this field and have never been advised about starting one of these. Do I just save website URL or print out the pages? I really appreciate your willingness to share!
Tim Knight
28,888 PointsIf you're going to be working primarily with the web I would say you want something online that can highlight your work. Printing it isn't really necessary. We use to do that before responsive web design became the standard because sites didn't adjust, but now I don't recommend actually printing anything.
Now I'll say that primarily the work I do is in User Experience so I tend to highlight more technical information and research within my case studies that you might find unnecessary depending on the scope of what you want to discuss about the project. There is a great online book called "Crafting Your UX Portfolio — A Weekend Guide to Getting It Done" that's free (or $9 for a PDF). While it focuses on UX I think much of the information that I'd want to see in a portfolio still exists there.
Just think of it like screenshots of the work you've done with a write up detailing the project... why does it exist, what was your problem-solving process, and if you worked with other on it—what was your role? Here are some random examples I found that give you a better idea:
https://edenpulse.com/ http://www.timofeybak.com/
Both of those sites actually use a WordPress theme made for designers to create showcases of their work called Semplice at http://www.semplicelabs.com/
You can also look at company portfolios, I like:
http://www.dtelepathy.com/work/ http://focuslabllc.com/our-work https://www.viget.com/work
Hopefully that'll give you some ideas.
Anna M
Courses Plus Student 961 PointsThank you very much, this has been incredibly helpful!
Anna M
Courses Plus Student 961 PointsAnna M
Courses Plus Student 961 PointsThank you! I hope you get something soon.