03: Common Misconceptions About Programming

I've been creating programming education courses for about 10 years, and during that time I've seen many students give up because of simple misconceptions and incorrect perceptions of programming as a craft. In this module I explain these misconceptions and the patterns of behavior I see that thwart (or enable) your success.

1: "You Have to Quit Your Job"

The fantasy peddled by many Coding Bootcamps is you quit your job to study full time and after just six months you're making $250k/year at Google. Another similar fantasy peddled by computational education con artists is you can quit your job to study programming full time and then create the next Facebook. What none of these people tell you is the people that can quit their job to study full time are people who already have money or support. You'll hear about someone quitting their job, but they don't tell you how their spouse kept working to pay for their dream, or how that person happened to have plenty of money in savings, wealthy parents, or some other form of golden parachute.

If you don't have a similar support network then there is absolutely no way you can pull off quitting and studying full time. I'm telling you right now do not quit your job. That's a childish fantasy that does not match reality. The reality is you need a job in order to make money to support yourself and your family while you work on this course and quitting your job will cut off that supply of money. The smart thing is to keep working, and adjust your life and work schedule so you can study.

You may be thinking, "It will be so stressful to work a full time job and also try to study full time!" You know what's more stressful? Being thrown out of your house or not being able to buy food because you quit your job thinking you'll be the next Mark Zuckerberg. Having to get up a few hours earlier to study before work is far less stressful than being homeless. In fact, if you aren't willing to give up some of your activities to work on this then how can you be dedicated enough to quit your job and focus on this full time? If you can't sustainably put in 2-4 hours of your own free time every day while working a job then quitting your job isn't magically going to make you more motivated. It'd be better to prove to yourself you're into this by sustaining a 2-4 hours a day coding schedule for at least 6 months before you even think about doing anything drastic.

I'll also admonish you to really go study your business heroes to see if they really are "self made." 90% of the time these supposedly "self made" business types actually had quite a lot of luck and wealthy relatives or connections. If you don't have their similar background and access to the same capital then you're not being realistic about your chances of success when trying to copy their story. In fact, I'll bet you a crisp $100 bill their story is a complete lie anyway and mostly told to investors to get investment. The reality is they had rich parents who loaned them $250k to get "started in their garage" while their spouse worked full time to put food on the table.