Education is one of the essential aspects of every person’s life. For many years it was believed that getting a good and well-paid job was impossible without a diploma. It is partly true because if you plan to connect your life with medicine, architecture, or, for example, nuclear physics, then not having a higher education will be equivalent to harming other people. You probably wouldn’t want to go to a dentist who learned from YouTube videos, and you probably wouldn’t be terrified of living in a house designed by an amateur, even with years of experience. It’s not even worth mentioning the work at the nuclear power plant of people without the appropriate education. But it is worth recognizing that over the past couple of decades, many professions have appeared for which higher education is not a prerequisite. For example, a content manager or an expert in writing services. Of course, if you see that the writer doing your job is a Harvard Ph.D., you will probably have fewer questions from the series “is writers per hour legit?” or “Will my work be of good quality?”. However, if we see a positive review, we use the service of this writer and are satisfied. We do not care if they have a diploma because a person can be talented and write competently even if he did not attend college. But is this true for all modern professions, such as web developer? In this article, we will look at the reasons for the popularity of this profession and find out whether higher education is necessary to be a good developer.
Why is the profession of a web developer so popular?
There are several main reasons. One of the most important is that job prospects for developers are better than for all other professions and, in the nearest future, it will grow by 20% in accordance with forecasts. Well, basically, the demand for this profession is high and will grow, and it will always be relatively easy to find a job. An attractive salary is another reason. The approximate wage for a developer is around $ 33-37 per hour, but experts say that the actual values can be considerably higher. To work as a developer, you don’t have to go to the office. You can sit on the beach somewhere on Phuket Island, eat exotic fruit, and write code. And both you and your both will be happy. For many people, after the outbreak of Covid-19, it is essential whether you can work remotely.
Do you need a degree to be a developer?
If you need a short answer, it will be no. According to recent survey results, less than half of currently working developers have computer science degrees, around 70 % are partly self-taught, and some are entirely self-taught. Of course, it doesn’t mean that in order to be a good developer, you have to learn everything by yourself and find any possibility not to go to college. The learning process is usually much easier and smoother if you go to college; you don’t have to struggle to find answers to different, sometimes very easy, questions. The teachers are always there for you; they can help solve some problems in a couple of minutes, but finding the answers yourself might take hours.
And, of course, don’t forget about this eternal question “What is more important, qualifications or experience?”. If we talk about web developers, experience is more important. In college, you study the basics of any profession, but only during practice, you can see how to implement the received knowledge in real life. But to become a good developer, you don’t need to know the history of web design or the biographies of famous developers; you don’t need to learn programming languages for a long time, as they don’t have a lot of dialects, thousands of words and they don’t change that quickly as spoken languages. In many cases, 3 or 4 months are enough to learn the basics, and after that, you can learn from practicing and interacting with other developers.
For some people, a classical education method is unsuitable because they understand and memorize everything better when trying to apply their knowledge to real projects.
How can you teach yourself?
Well, it’s relatively self-teaching, but you can attend boot camps. It’s viral in the US, but other countries are also starting to organize them. Boot camps can last a few months, sometimes even weeks, and give their participants essential programming information. At the same time, the received data is enough to start working in a junior developer position. The great thing about boot camps is that IT companies usually organize them, and if they notice your potential, you might get a job offer. In conclusion, we can say that whichever decision you make, to go to college or study “in the field”, do your best to become a professional, and then you will not have any problems finding a good job.