Self -Taught VS Boot-camp route

If you’ve always wanted to venture into the tech industry I am sure you have at least once debated amongst yourself on which path will guarantee you the desired results. Luckily, you are not alone and today I will attempt to cover what both mean their pros and cons, and hopefully give you my preferred approach.

Self-taught route

First of all, being a self-taught does not mean that you did not go to any school or you did not follow any instructor.

It means you did not wait for anyone to show you what you need to learn and took that task upon yourself to find everything that you need. From, the technologies to the platforms being used.

Being self-taught is however not for the fainthearted and it requires one to be double dedicated and double motivated. Remember here, you are your support system.

So does being self-taught have any pros? To hiring managers, a self-taught person presents themselves as an asset. Imagine you have accomplished so much without any formal curated path for you. What if you had that formal well-structured course? you’d shine trust me.

Being self-taught, however, presents some cons as well. Being self-taught may not give you the experience needed to have a deep understanding of your work. Some of the programming concepts never sink in until someone more experienced breaks them down to you in more digestible forms.

Boot-camp route

Boot-camps are accelerated intensive study programs that enable students to learn the skills that are in high demand.

We have several boot camps a personal favorite is Microverse which is an online school for remote software developers where you pay nothing until you land a life-changing job as a software developer.

Boot-camps come with tons of pros to the individual learner and I will mention the key advantages in my opinion. You get the chance to have a structured curriculum enabling you to focus more on bettering your skills as a developer and leaving the issue of quality learning resources taken care of.

We can all attest that learning to code alone can be a daunting task. Boot-camps such as Microverse solve this by giving you weekly partners who keep you motivated and accountable as you learn to code.

But does this mean that boot-camps are all rosy? I guess not. Boot camps with their nature are fast paced. This model of learning might not fit everyone keeping in mind we have different comprehension abilities and some of us may tend to take longer than others to grasp some of the concepts.

So now, which route can I advise you to take? well, just like beauty, the choice lies in the beholder. We are all different and my path might not be your preferred path.

After trying to learn how to code for five months and not making tangible progress I decided to try out the boot-camp route and I have been making strides at my software development skills.

You could try both routes for a while and do a self-assessment of which route suits you best.

I hope this was useful information for you. See you in my next article.