Doubts of changing careers

How passionate are you about it? Do you look forward to coming home, sitting down, and learning to code? Or is that hour you eek out take every last ounce of desire you have to do it?

I'd start with that self-evaluation. If after you decide that your overall response to those questions is positive...continue.

And hour a day is a lot...that is 28hours of school a month. Every once in a while you might be able to put more in.

I am only 6 months in to this. But, from talking to the community it seems like there is work out there if this is your passion. I say passion because some employers may not necessarily look at just experience or a degree/certificate from a boot camp. If you have passion you don't stop at the degree and your conviction for development pours out in your speech/actions/work. Employers may see that and say hey, "this guy doesn't have the experience...yet. If we give him a shot he has the basic foundation to start on and we KNOW he will build on it."

Or do what I do...forget employers. Find your own clients. Build your own projects.

Most importantly though, do what is best for your family first and then for you. Not sure if that helps. And just so you know, I can only put in about 8 hours a week too. However, I have made some money and I love doing it.

Hi Eric!

It can be really difficult to find the amount of time to devote to pursuing a web design/development/front-end job. I think you are on the right track because you are willing to carve out at least an hour a day to learning.

Once you get a few Treehouse courses under your belt the best thing you can do is to start making things. Ultimately, you will want a portfolio or something for employers to look at on Github or Codepen. This will demonstrate that you know how to perform the necessary work. Keep building on your portfolio and other projects whenever you can put time into it. Writing a blog about what you're coming across can help you out (Codepen and Tumblr are free options).

After you have some work created you need to get it in front of people. When you meet people let them know that you do web design/development/etc. in your free time and ask them if they want to take a look.

Last step: don't give up. This process is very time consuming but keep after this. If you love doing this stuff it will be well worth it.

This should hopefully get you a few side projects/freelancing gigs depending where you are in the country if not a decent shot at a full/part time position.

I hope this helps!

Thank you both for your feedback. I do feel excited about the time I spend learning about this. The overall scope of learning this field and learning it well enough to actually earn a living with it is overwhelming.

Mark - Do you work with newer FE developers much in your FT job? Do many of them come from the "self taught - on the side" group or are most coming from schools (universities and boot camps, etc)?

Thanks Again, Eric