How Do You Self Study Technical Things Well Enough to be Employable?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03.360 | All right.

00:00:08.160 | Moving on, we have a question from Omar.

00:00:12.440 | Omar asks, how do you study self-study technical things

00:00:18.800 | well enough to be employable?

00:00:19.960 | For example, programming or data analysis.

00:00:24.680 | He elaborates that he currently works in sales,

00:00:26.840 | but is looking to make the switch over

00:00:28.440 | to software engineering.

00:00:31.080 | In his sales job, he's doing a bunch of just emails

00:00:33.160 | and following up with prospects.

00:00:36.440 | So Omar, I'm going to say--

00:00:37.960 | I mean, I see in your elaboration

00:00:39.000 | you say you don't want to spend a ton of money.

00:00:40.200 | You don't want to go back to school.

00:00:41.120 | I think that's OK.

00:00:41.880 | I think you should spend some money.

00:00:44.800 | You should spend some money so that you are making yourself

00:00:47.220 | accountable.

00:00:48.720 | Hey, I spent money on this training I'm about to do,

00:00:51.200 | so I'm going to show up.

00:00:52.320 | Also, I'm signaling to myself that I take this seriously.

00:00:54.600 | I'm not dabbling.

00:00:55.360 | I really do want to pick up this skill.

00:00:57.680 | I would say spend some money.

00:00:59.480 | So what do I mean by some money?

00:01:00.840 | Well, probably in this case, some sort of boot camp.

00:01:04.120 | It's going to take place over a fixed amount of time.

00:01:07.740 | You're going to master a particular language.

00:01:09.660 | You're going to get a particular certification.

00:01:12.080 | You probably need to do an introductory boot camp,

00:01:14.240 | and then you're going to need to do some sort of training

00:01:16.240 | at a higher level after that.

00:01:17.360 | Spend some money on that.

00:01:18.400 | Don't do something that's free.

00:01:19.600 | Again, you want to signal to yourself

00:01:21.140 | you take this seriously.

00:01:23.320 | Two, ultimately, you need to produce real things.

00:01:25.880 | It's the best way to learn.

00:01:26.960 | It's the best way to show other people

00:01:28.840 | you know what you're doing.

00:01:30.880 | So you're going to need some sort of actual projects

00:01:34.360 | that you're doing on the side, perhaps,

00:01:37.320 | to show I can actually program.

00:01:39.320 | But more importantly, that's how you're really

00:01:41.160 | going to learn how to do it.

00:01:42.560 | I built this project.

00:01:44.360 | This took me a long time.

00:01:46.040 | I was constantly Googling things.

00:01:48.040 | It's constantly on Stack Overflow.

00:01:49.960 | Oh, but then I did this next project.

00:01:51.880 | Wasn't so hard.

00:01:53.040 | And the third one I did on my own,

00:01:55.200 | I think it looks pretty nice.

00:01:56.400 | OK, now I think I'm ready.

00:01:58.320 | The final thing I'm going to say is

00:02:00.600 | be ready to begin at a basic level if you switch jobs.

00:02:06.600 | A lot of good coders out there, a lot of people

00:02:09.480 | to choose from for these jobs.

00:02:10.720 | So that you might be actually starting at a pretty low level,

00:02:14.400 | technically speaking.

00:02:16.280 | And say, that's OK, because here's my plan.

00:02:19.240 | I'm going to get after it once I have that job.

00:02:21.480 | I'm going to crush the low level stuff they tell me to do,

00:02:24.000 | the easier programming.

00:02:25.480 | I can do it really, really well with a level of skill

00:02:28.760 | and polish that they don't quite expect.

00:02:30.400 | And then I'm going to use that to leverage up

00:02:31.880 | to the next level, the next level.

00:02:32.840 | So I'm going to leverage myself level to level to level.

00:02:35.800 | So in a year, I will actually be at a pretty good spot.

00:02:39.240 | So you want to be coming into this being like,

00:02:42.280 | I want to learn enough to get a technical job that

00:02:46.680 | would allow me in one year to be in the job I want.

00:02:51.600 | So to be in a job and be working your way up

00:02:54.120 | to a higher position is much more productive than just being

00:02:57.200 | on your own for that time, just trying to on your own polish

00:02:59.800 | your skills.

00:03:00.560 | So let's summarize the three points here.

00:03:02.260 | One, spend some money.

00:03:03.400 | I'm not talking about tuition and to get

00:03:06.560 | a separate undergrad degree.

00:03:09.560 | But spend some money for a non-trivial boot camp.

00:03:11.800 | You probably need to do two levels of training.

00:03:13.760 | Two, build things.

00:03:15.840 | Build things until you can build things that look pretty good,

00:03:18.880 | at a pretty high quality, and it wasn't like pulling teeth.

00:03:22.200 | You're not Googling where does the semicolon go in a C++ for

00:03:28.480 | loop.

00:03:29.000 | You have that stuff.

00:03:31.040 | You're not praying and compiling,

00:03:34.120 | compiling and praying, something we

00:03:35.840 | see a lot in intro computer science classes.

00:03:37.680 | You're like, I don't know, compile.

00:03:38.800 | Ah, errors.

00:03:39.520 | Let me just change things randomly.

00:03:40.980 | Still errors?

00:03:41.520 | Like you're past that stage.

00:03:42.680 | Fine.

00:03:43.200 | And then get hired not for the job you want,

00:03:45.760 | but for the job that will make it possible for you

00:03:47.920 | to get the job you want a year later if you get after it,

00:03:50.080 | if you deliberately practice, if you prove your worth.

00:03:52.080 | All right?

00:03:53.040 | So Omar, I'm glad you're making the shift.

00:03:55.760 | I haven't read all the details on air

00:03:57.920 | that you sent me here about your current job,

00:04:00.680 | but man, it sounds like it's just context switching central.

00:04:03.160 | It's just email all day long.

00:04:05.720 | Yeah, let's get out of there.

00:04:06.920 | Let's get you somewhere better, somewhere deeper.

00:04:09.320 | I love the way you're thinking.

00:04:10.720 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:04:13.760 | [Music]

How Do You Self Study Technical Things Well Enough to be Employable?

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