Game dev't or Web Dev't? Career issues..yet again.

Hi Gabino,

Ask yourself: What do I like doing? What lifestyle do I want to have?

Great skills and great results are rarely achieved overnight. I have not heard about anybody who has learnt programming in 24 hours. Acquiring a worthy skill requires time, dedication and interest. If it were that easy to learn programming, everybody would be a programmer. Eventually programmers would end up earning very little and therefore would start looking for a different career option. You cannot expect to be able to learn programming in a week and getting paid immediately. I have been with Treehouse for more than 6 months and still would not be able to get a job with my current skills. However, if I compare what I could do six months ago (Frontpage, table-layout) and what I can do now (HTML, CSS, some Javascript, JQuery, build a responsive and easy-to-maintain layouts), I would say I have made a big progress. Yes, Javascript/JQuery/AJAX and also PHP which I am going through at the moment are still a source of confusion to me, but it was the same was when I was learning skills like reading or English/Spanish. At the beginning most worthy skills seem overwhelming, but if you are willing to acquire them, they will become your second nature.

I think it is useful to go through font-end (HTML, CSS, Javascript, JQuery) courses as well as through back-end courses (PHP, Ruby, etc) or even some webdesign here on Treehouse. This way you can find out what you would like to focus on and become a master, lets say, of back-end development. Still, having an idea of front-end and design would be useful for cooperating with others. And this is when I am getting to another part of your question:

Do not think that you can do everything on your own, because you would always be beaten by those who cooperate. If you wanted to learn all skills to create a neat web, it would take you ages and you would never be as efficient/profficient as a team of specialized individuals. Gone are the times when an individual could acquire all knowledge of their time. I think the last person was Leonardo da Vinci and yet I doubt it. We live in the age of internet, when cooperation is extremely easy world-wide, so why to do everything just yourself? At the same time, when working in a team, you can inspire each other and achieve the unexpected.

Bottom-line: Ask yourself what lifestyle you would like to have. If this lifestyle can be achieved by programming, go for it - go through the courses here at Treehouse and find what you like most - front, back, design, android, ios, whatever it is. Then focus your time and energy on a specific area and become a master at it.

My reason to learn programming is to have an independent lifestyle - I wish to move from a place to place every few years or anytime I want. I also have a lots of ideas for online businesses which I would like to build and that is what I need programming for. Yes, I could hire people and have it done for me, but I want to understand it and be able to modify it and improve - I cannot do it without the knowledge.

My future looks like this: I am an online entrepreneuer who can build the core of his projects and who can move freely around the world, discover its beauties and meet people. What does your future look like?

If I can recommend an amazing book on goal-setting and understanding what you want, check "Goals!" by Brian Tracy.

Te deseo mucho suerte y creo que puedes encontrar el trabajo y vida de tu corazón.

Ivan

hello mate, that was an inspiring speech, I want to thank you. I am 16 years old and am located in the UK. I have started last night at treehouse and have already learned most of the basics and am really enjoy it, I have similar goals to yours, including building my own online business, I had started a drop-shipping e-commerce business with the Shopify platform and had a decent income but come to realise I'm 16 and if learnt code can do great things in life (hopefully). At the moment I have closed my online store and am spending my time on treehouse instead and after I learn the web design section I will make my own drop-shipping site. I also plan on leaving school as of now as I don't enjoy subjects there but have a passion for coding, I could take on an apprenticeship or even move out to the USA (a big dream of mine) as it is compulsory to stay in education here to 18 years of age. The way I see it, I'm still young and if I spend my time honing on coding then I can be a good coder in the futrue, ps am planning on doing the 'techdegree' on Treehouse, is it better than a computer science uni degree? ps, I love the way treehouse teaches and is better than being sat in a classroom, I would much appreciate if you can assist me here, thanks a lot and any tips etc would be very helpful and also if my ideas are good?