How to Become a Programmer

You can become a computer programmer by going to college to study computer science or management information systems and beginning an entry level computer programmer job after college. However, if you cannot afford to spend years in college before you begin your programming career, you can learn programming from experienced developers or teach yourself computer programming using affordable textbooks, training courses and or coaching programs. While you are on your way to becoming a programmer you need to think about what programming languages and platforms you are going to learn. Consider learning: C#, C++, Visual Basic.Net, ASP.Net, Java, Perl, SQL and HTML. In this article I will show you how to become a computer programmer without the benefits of a traditional computer science college education.

Do I Need a College Degree To Get a Programming Job? Programmers have the skill set of being organized, creative, persistent, analytical, paying attention to detail, communicating effectively, thinking logically, and using deductive reasoning. If you have some of those skills then you are already on your way to becoming a computer programmer. Do you love solving problems or like to know how things work? You may already have the mind set of a computer programmer already and you didnt know it. Assuming that you have some of that mindset, lets look at how you can translate that into a computer programming job. Its really not that difficult because you can get hired in todays programming job market without a college degree. This is because when it comes to programming, employers put more emphasis on your ability to write good quality code than your educational credentials. Many programmers have taken advantage of this to forgo college and focus on developing their programming skills to the best of their ability. This is why the term practice makes perfect is true in software development careers. You see, you need lots of practice in order to write good quality code that employers are interested in paying for. When I started learning programming more than a decade ago, I didnt go out immediately and invest money on development tools, instead I downloaded free compliers and IDEs (Integrated Development Environment) and you can too! There are free editions of Visual Basic.Net, C#, C++ and SQL Server to get you going in your programming career. Next, put the effort into writing useful software or web applications. You will learn a lot about design, adding software features, taking requests from users, business analysis, project management, requirements analysis, coding and debugging that way.

What Do Employers Want? Youve made over your resume, submitted it and begun preparing for programming interviews; but you should slow down and ask yourself What do the employers really want? Are they looking for a diploma, certificate, bachelors degree or masters degree? Or real world experience with C#, Visual Basic.Net, SQL? No matter if you taught yourself programming from home or learned it from college or a correspondence training course, employers want to see good competent software development skills and interpersonal skills more than anything else. They are also placing more emphasis on newer object oriented languages and tools such as C# and Java. After you are hired your employer will expect you to be able to document and design software applications and write good quality code regardless of where you learned the skills. They will also expect you to keep up with the changes in technology and continuously update your development skills and technical knowledge.

It Is Easy To Study Computer Programming and Get a Job One of the best kept advantages of becoming a computer programmer is that you can learn computer programming at home and advance your skills to a competent level without first getting a programming job. When I realized this more than 12 years ago that I could just buy a computer, connect it to the internet and learn as much programming as I wanted without having to get a job first, I was excited. Of course, I realized that I would still need to invest in programming books, software development tools, and invest in training packages that would allow me to learn programming on my own. I figured out that the total cost of my investments in computer programming training would pale in comparison to how much I would earn as a programmer and how much more time it would take me to study medicine or law in college. I took my developer training and got a well-paying contract programming job within 6 months, an opportunity I knew I would not have had with any other high paying career.

How to Begin a Software Development Career after High School? You can get a programming job without a college degree and heres how. You will need to communicate your programming knowledge and development experience. Knowledge and experience is the key. Show your prospective employer that you have just as much knowledge as the guy who did go to college and go into the specifics about the applications you have built using software development tools. Talk about the problems you ran into when building an application and how you solved the problems. Do all that you can to show your prospective employer that even without a college degree you are an asset to anyone who hires you!

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