Why Coders Can Skip College

0 0 Tuesday, March 13, 2018 Edit this post

By David Biden,Semesterz

If it’s always been your dream to become a coder then you’re probably debating a computer sciences college degree… Maybe you’re even in the middle of one right now. What we’re about to tell you may make you rethink spending (wasting) all of that money. You see, coders can skip college, and still make a decent wage. We’re not pulling you leg.

The Price of a Degree

[post_ads]Let’s take a look at the average cost of a computer science degree in America right now. With tuition fees rising all the time, it can cost on average $35,000 per year. And that doesn’t take into account your living expenses – or Spring Break parties. A graduate coder can expect to make around $45,000 on average when they finish college. Meaning it’s gonna take quite some time to claw back what you’ve spent. So, what if you could skip college, learn to code, and still end up on the same wage. If not more?!

Coders Without College Degrees

There are some pretty impressive examples of coders who have managed to wing their way through the murky computer science world, without having to get a degree. Look at Mark Zuckerberg! He left Harvard in his sophomore year, after creating the basics of Facebook. Shlomo Zippel was just 15 when he landed his first programming job. David Karp was 15 when he dropped out of school and created Tumblr. A site he later sold to Yahoo for an impressive $1 billion. The world is filled with computer geniuses who have managed to skip college altogether and still make more than most of us had ever dreamed of.

Learning to Code

You see, when it comes to learning code there is nothing you can’t do at home. Nothing they can teach you in college that you can’t learn yourself. If you’ve got the brains to become a programmer then you’ll know all too well how to pick up a book and teach yourself. You’ll know about the dozens of online courses and thousands of tutorial videos. If you’ve got the mind for it then coding will become a breeze. There is nothing you will learn at college that you wouldn’t be able to teach yourself. And, the more hands-on practice you get the better you’ll become. Who needs to sit through hours of presentations to learn how to code? No one. You need to practice and learn, make mistakes and rectify them. That is how people such as Shlomo Zippel and David Karp managed to take on the programming world at just 15 years old.

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The Coder’s Mind

There is one drawback, however. If you don’t have the kind of mind that is right for coding, then you’re unlikely to get very far. College degree or not. Coders are programmed (excuse the pun) in a certain way. They’re analytical and logical. They can crack codes and solve logic puzzles. They know how to find bugs and fix faults. If your mind doesn’t function like this, then coding is going to be pretty difficult to learn.

Of course, anyone could learn coding if they really put their mind to it. But that’s also like saying anyone could learn Sanskrit if they really wanted to. If you’ve got the passion to pursue a life of coding then there should be nothing stopping you. Read the books, watch the videos, get hours of practice in every single day. Unless you want to experience the college life, there is nothing stopping you from forgoing the degree and becoming the next Zuckerberg. Or at least maybe working for him, in any case.