Published on 04 Jul 2023 by Dave Regg
It's been a looooong decade but I finally did it! As of June 12, 2023, my new title is Associate Software Engineer!
It all started with Code Academy, then it went to FreeCodeCamp and The Odin Project. I then went to YouTube tutorials, learning from people like The Net Ninja and Brad Traversy. I went through tutorial hell, I read documentation until my eyes bled, I Google'd until the search terms were perfect, and I even opened physical programming books!
The best part about these courses was building my own projects. That's what you get from FreeCodeCamp and The Odin Project. They give you prompts with some idea of what they want, but then you build it yourself with the help of Googling and the community. You get feedback, you refactor, and you continue.
Then with YouTube tutorials, you learn new technologies, a professional workflow, and clean code. After I went through those tutorials, I then went back and refactored my own code to make it look sparkling clean. I simplified my designs, modified my code, and made my own little projects look incredibly professional.
I was proud!
That's when I foolishly started applying for positions. I didn't have any experience working on a team, let alone using Git with another person. I never went through LeetCode, and my own experience with algorithms consisted of some FreeCodeCamp prompts. The truth is - teaching yourself with pet projects can only take you so far. I didn't end up with a job after that, but I did learn a lesson... I had to grow past where I was. I hit a wall and to get where I wanted to go, I needed something else.
I looked into Associate degrees, bootcamps, and second Bachelors. I knew people who had experience in all three, and all three ended up where I wanted to be - a Software Engineer.
Ultimately, I chose to go with a second Bachelors degree. I applied for an online degree with Auburn University. It's an accelerated program with four courses per semester, two in semester A and two in semester B, with semesters consisting of Spring, Summer, and Fall. The lighter, but more intensive workload, allowed roughly 30 hours of school work on top of my 40 hour full time job while still giving me some time off to socialize. The alternatives - an Associates for less money but less pay in the long run or a more intensive bootcamp that was more hours per week and a "guaranteed job" only at certain establishments - weren't for me.
The best part about going back to a University were the job resources. Resume and interview prep, access to job boards and networking, plus being able to get an internship. And yes, I paid an extra $30k+ to get an internship - a foot in the door to be able to work on an Engineering team and see what it's like to create a pull request and get your code into production.
My internship was the most valuable piece of experience I got from my degree. Most of my course work was less work than what I did on my own as I was teaching myself. I did learn Machine Learning, Python, XCode and Swift, and Cloud Computing. I also learned networking, parts of the computer, database, and other technical courses that are important for building blocks of engineering.
In reality, hands-on experience with professional engineers was the best. I was part of an intern project where we, as a group of interns, built something from scratch for the business. I also got to work on an engineering team and be a part of daily stand ups, put code into production, and learn from professionals!
And that's what I'll be building on. Last summer was my internship, and now I'm back with the same company and on the same team learning completely new technology. I found out last summer that I was capable of being part of the team. Now I am excited to learn AEM and contribute more than just a couple of lines of code into production.
I'm excited to see what the future holds from this point forward - now that I have achieved this goal, where am I going from here? What other technologies am I going to learn? Will I move from Software Engineering to something different - DevOps, Cybersecurity, or Cloud Engineering?
I have so much to be thankful for in getting to where I am today. I will definitely not take this for granted, and I am excited for what the future brings!