Have any of these articles actually addressed HOW software developers are supposed to retrain for good jobs? Personally I have neither the money nor the years to go back to college to get a livable job.
So obviously each college is different. And your experience is not mine.
But my college did not train me to get a job the first time. Indeed they explicitly explained to us that that was not their goal. That was helpful because up to then we did think they were doing job training.
What they actually set out to do was make us "smarter" people. In the sense that they taught us to analyze problems, work in teams, find creative solutions. They taught us about research and critical thinking, and logic and so on. How to hypothesize, test, evaluate, adapt.
You don't need to go back to college to learn all that again. You already know it. Skills are easily, and quickly taught and learned. That's the easy part. The hard part is approaching a job as a problem to solve- how and where to add value. Value people will pay for.
Look around you. See unmet needs. Figure out what you need to do to meet those needs. That's the real challenge we face going into this next era.
Did you graduate yesterday? Have you actually lived in the world?
My unmet needs are $2.5k rent and $2k childcare, per month. Then there's food, healthcare, car payments. There is pretty much zero wiggle room for us.
If you're unemployed, you won't need to pay 2 grand/month for someone else to watch your children, and you don't have to pay San Francisco rents if you're not working there.
I don't think "just give up your existing community and move" is a viable option. That defeats the whole point since at that point the retraining isn't allowing you to maintain your quality of life.
It is a viable option. "Quality of life" is a luxury and programmers no longer belong to the class that can afford it. Do what everyone else does and go wherever the jobs are and live at whatever quality the market decides that you deserve.
San Francisco is where the jobs are, and dropping your entire social network on the floor at exactly the moment you need it the most to help you is not good advice.
harimau777 · · focus · HN ↗
bruce511 · · focus · HN ↗
But my college did not train me to get a job the first time. Indeed they explicitly explained to us that that was not their goal. That was helpful because up to then we did think they were doing job training.
What they actually set out to do was make us "smarter" people. In the sense that they taught us to analyze problems, work in teams, find creative solutions. They taught us about research and critical thinking, and logic and so on. How to hypothesize, test, evaluate, adapt.
You don't need to go back to college to learn all that again. You already know it. Skills are easily, and quickly taught and learned. That's the easy part. The hard part is approaching a job as a problem to solve- how and where to add value. Value people will pay for.
Look around you. See unmet needs. Figure out what you need to do to meet those needs. That's the real challenge we face going into this next era.
dmkolobov · · focus · HN ↗
My unmet needs are $2.5k rent and $2k childcare, per month. Then there's food, healthcare, car payments. There is pretty much zero wiggle room for us.
ForHackernews · · focus · HN ↗
harimau777 · · focus · HN ↗
krapp · · focus · HN ↗
munificent · · focus · HN ↗
krapp · · focus · HN ↗
munificent · · focus · HN ↗