adpoe

Here's what I did when was in my late teens & early 20s, and taught myself.

1. Copy famous artworks that you admire -- even just drawing in a notebook is great, to start.

2. Once you can copy art that you really like, start adding your own flair to things, develop a personal style

3. Experiment more & more

Just like with programming -- there are a ton of great books about how to paint, how to mix colors, etc.

You can buy books and work through them, whatever is most fun.

There are 2 key points, though:

  * The only way to get better is by painting... you'll have to paint a lot

  * You'll want to paint a lot +only+ if you're having fun.

And try everything you can -- watercolor, oil, gouache, ink brush, encaustic, using the palette knife only, mixing with collage, pastels, all will teach you something. Just be consistent, and you will get good.

I transitioned into software development in my late 20's, and am very happy with the decision. I went back to school at ~27, and graduated just a few months short of 30.

34 is definitely not too old. While in school, I had classmates ranging in age from early 20s to late 40s. Everyone I graduated with is now employed and doing well. (Including those who started a decade later than either of us.)

Getting a 2nd Bachelor's degree in Computer Science worked for me. It only took 2 years, because I had a prior bachelor's degree, and it sounds like you'd be in the same situation.

Employers have generally been respectful of my prior experience as well (it was business focused, project management), so I don't think having worked in a different field is a bad thing at all.

Moreover, I work with plenty of software developers who started off in other scientific fields and made a transition to software more organically -- so it certainly can be done.

Ultimately, if you can pass programming interviews, you will be able to get a software dev job. It will be challenging, but you'll be happy you invested the time. Wishing you the best of luck!

Last time I traveled internationally (~10 years ago), I had to buy a separate international cell phone.

Not for privacy reasons -- but instead because my US-based phone wouldn't work in some of the other countries I'd be in. (At the protocol level, I suppose.)

Assuming it's not prohibitively expensive, why not do the same thing, now?

I agree that this is a troubling policy. But it seems simple to get around, if you were interested in doing so. It's also possible that this suggestion is naive, and feel free to let me know why, if so. =)

After some searching online, I wasn't able to come up with anything for Pope's Common Lisp music tools.

But it sounds really interesting.

Any pointers to help find it/them?

Good question.

I was looking into this a few years back, and ended getting my BS in-person, at the big state school nearby. It paid off well.

That said, these are other online options I considered.

Portland State University -- has a BS in CS that's fully online. They also have an option for people who are getting a 2nd BS, from another field. * https://www.pdx.edu/computer-science/progrgam-preparation

Harvard Extension - Bachelor's in CS * https://www.extension.harvard.edu/academics/undergraduate-de...

Arizona State - BS in Software Engineering * https://go.asuonline.asu.edu/

I had a co-worker during one of my internships going through this program, at SNHU, fully online & remote, and he liked it a lot: https://www.snhu.edu/online-degrees/bachelors/bs-in-computer...

Just some food for thought. There are many more options. Good luck!

I would agree with this.

FWIW, the most concise and straightforward critical theorist that I've read is Vilem Flusser: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vil%C3%A9m_Flusser

There's a short compilation of his essays called "Writings" that is a great place to start, for anyone interested. Most essays are < 15 pages long, IIRC.

Very simple, elegant arguments, with little fluff. One of the few philosophers I know whose writing is absent the usual obscurantist cruft.

Which Benjamin?

I've read some of his more famous articles (i.e. - "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"), but I remember them being very political. Sort of an art-historical and aesthetic-theory application of Marx.

Which, personally, I enjoyed. But was surprised to see Benjamin's work referenced in that context. Could be that I'm missing something, or mis-remembering, though. This was years ago, now. =)

One positive thing about being in a fraternity -- it provides experience in dealing with and resolving conflict in a large organization.

For better or worse, navigating the internal politics of a clique such as a college fraternity is often similar to what many people later experience in the wilds of the corporate world.

You also get a lot of practice meeting & building rapport with a wide variety of peers (both male and female), if your fraternity socializes frequently.

These 'soft' social skills are just as much of a factor in determining salary as technical ones. And for all their warts and downsides, fraternities do provide you with good practice. Of course, you need to be wealthy enough to pay the dues, etc...

However -- more time socializing means less time for studying. So GPA goes down, but interpersonal skills go up. These new interpersonal skills pay off dividends later, though.

Just an extremely non-rigorous hypothesis.

Just an opinion:

It's not that it's hard to learn this stuff. More so, it's tiresome and hard to care after watching the JS community re-inventing the same wheel(s), repeatedly.

Personally, I'd rather see the JS community solve a wider variety of problems.. instead of the same ones, over and over.

The amount of talent focused on building JS tools really is incredible. But it seems like the tools that generate the most hype always do the _same_ things, just in a shinier newer package. Which is frustrating.

I wasn't around at the time, but reading about programming languages past -- it seems like these are the same kinds of problems that fractured Lisp, back in the day.

The problem is this: It's fun, exciting, and relatively simple to roll your own X. So everyone does it. That's good. But too much fractures the community, instead of uniting it. Which.. may be more harmful than helpful, in the long-run. Time will tell. But the strongest & most productive communities typically converge on 'best-practices', once a problem is solved well enough. JS doesn't seem to do that. (At least not yet.)

So, I worked as a PM for about 3.5 years, in total. That was in the past, and now I work as a developer (not a manager anymore).

My guess is that a lot of this depends on the organization, and product/projects.

But as an opinion...

The politics/posturing & social aspects of the job are integral to shipping products, making positive incremental changes, and "getting things done".

As a PM, I definitely was not the boss. (Even though the success of the project was ultimately my responsibility.)

This meant I had to lead, persuade, and _negotiate_ very effectively -- always arguing what's best for the product, or the end-user.

So I guess I'd say that these sorts of politics aren't separate from building a good product. They're sort of the process for getting things done.

But again, that's limited & personal experience. My companies were relatively small (20 - 50 people). In essence, I was figuring things out as I went along. (These were small businesses, and we all were.) Big organizations with lots of really established process may be different.

That's a very long story... But here's the essence.

I got a degree totally unrelated to CS. (Think "arts". Decent school. Top 50. But not prestigious.) Bounced around at not-great jobs for awhile, living in NYC and barely making ends meet.

Then I managed to get a job at an online media startup (essentially a management role), which was a very lucky break.

That got me into software, and I was able to use that experience to move into product/project management. I did that for a few years at some boutique companies, working crazy hours but learning a lot.

Then I decided to go back to school and study CS (starting at undergrad level again)... so I spent a few years re-learning everything from the ground up. That includes all the math, stats, etc... that you'd expect from a typical undergrad engineering program. It took awhile to finish, and was frustrating at times, but it was worth it.

Fast forward a few years... and now I work as software engineer. I focused on ML during my studies, and again (with lots of luck) managed to get a job at an R&D lab doing machine learning, during my final year in school.

I've since moved and now work at a company that does low-level OS-type work. (Which I actually enjoy more than ML.)

It's been a wild ride, but it's been fun.

Non-linear paths like this rarely get mentioned, but I met dozens of people with similar stories when I went back to school. It's hard, but can definitely be done.

You have a ton of time, don't worry.

I changed careers more than once between 20 and 30. To/from radically different fields.

Besides that, your skill-set as a programmer is _much_ more than your choice of language/web framework.

You have skills in:

- Building things

- Decomposing and solving abstract problems

- etc..

And don't let a perceived lack of math skills intimidate you. This stuff is learnable, with effort and time. ML is most-decidedly not magic. You can learn it, if you have an interest.[1]

That said, if programming is losing its luster, but you still enjoy software -- try product/project management. Good pay, and it's a very social job where your tech skills will be valued.

If you want something dramatically different -- the sky's the limit. At 20, you could switch to Business, Law, Medicine, Journalism, Banking, whatever. Biggest lesson I've learned: don't be afraid to try. Good luck!

-----------

[1] (For context, I started studying math much later than you (~27), and have worked on ML in a research lab, since then. But when I was 20, I barely passed college algebra... Point is, you have time and can learn if you want.)

It's unrelated, but the sentence has an awkward structure that's hard to parse.

Terrorist groups could be punished for planning any one of 277 crimes.

And so could criminal groups.

The "277 crimes" range from arson to copyright violation.

Took me a second to grok it, too.

Personally, I think that written language is a more natural way to describe and reason about complex systems and symbols.

It's the same difference between writing mathematical proofs as systems of equations vs. proof by drawing a diagram, or making a visualization.

Proofs can be written using both methods, but if you have a strong command of the written/symbolic vocabulary, it is faster and more succinct.

Put another way: I can describe the landscape of a lush, green Tuscan Countryside--with rolling hills, morning dew, and and crisp feeling of the first rays of sun cutting through the mist--in just a few lines. You get a picture in your head, and it is likely very similar to what was in mine.

Imagine now, that we can't use words. We have to draw pictures. It will take much longer to get the same point across. Language--for certain purposes--is more efficient, and more information dense.

That's my hypothesis/feeling.

Opinion:

Just like the stock market, college is also an investment. There is risk involved.

One of the main problems is that this is NOT communicated well. (If it all.)

Too many people take on huge long-shot risks that are unlikely to pay off.

Yes, if you get an English degree and become a professional writer selling books and screenplays at $1MM a pop -- that's an awesome and incredible gig. But not many people can get it. The $30k - $150k for that degree is a very risky investment.

On the other hand, spending $30k for a degree in engineering, CS, physics, math, etc... is much less risky. And it's a better investment. However--even in this case--maybe it's not worth the extra $100k for a private college. Maybe Big State U is good enough, and a safer bet with similar outcomes.

When I first went to college, everyone around me said: "it doesn't matter what you major in, just get a degree and you'll be fine." They were wrong. It doesn't work that way anymore (if it ever did).

Communicating this risk/reward tradeoff, and what it means for one's future, is the source of most college-related money problems.

--- Personal anecdote: I have a CS degree, but started out in a liberal arts discipline. So those experiences form my opinions.

42 comments right now. What a strange coincidence. Had to say it.

Here it is: http://imgur.com/a/wGdGz

Early in my career, I worked at a few different businesses where management expected us to work 12+ hour days. Mostly web development & design.

We did it, but the secret was that we didn't spend all of that time actually heads-down, working. (Surprise.)

We were in the office for 12+ hours (sometimes until 3am, having client calls and presentations at midnight), but how much of that time were we actually getting creative, productive work done? Maybe half.

And here's the problem: The hard part was, I was managing projects, and I had developers putting in 12+ hour days against my budgets, when I knew that maybe 6 of those hours were actually productive work time. Everything went over budget, across the board, for everyone's projects. At least on paper.

'Moral' of the story: you can require people to work whatever time frames you want. And if you pay well enough, people will do it. (At least until they burn out, or find a more prestigious/higher-paying job.) But it's a waste of everyone's time and money, and it creates more problems than its solves.

Worst of all, you're creating an environment where the culture of working 12+ hours is nothing but theatre. You spend half your time creating and carefully cultivating an artifice, just to meet management's expectations... which they know are unrealistic. Talk about being unproductive.

Don't worry -- you will be 100% fine. What kind of jobs are you applying for?

If you're looking at true entry-level jobs, then having 0 work experience is not a problem. And those jobs do exist, just look for them specifically.

Beyond that, interviewers often make remarks like this, even if it isn't really a big hang up for them. Don't let them see you sweat, that's the only mistake you can make. Just own it, and say ok -- but I have, x, y, z -- and I can do this.

It's like when you try to sell a car. The buyers like to kick the tires and see if they deflate. They aren't trying to disqualify you, they're __already_negotiating__, and trying to bring the price down.

I've read this, and it's very good.

I had never studied business before (at any level), but found myself in a position where I was managing software projects, and dealing with MBA's from our client companies every single day.

I wouldn't say this is a replacement for going to business school, but for me -- it helped me understand the world my clients were coming from, and how they were incentivized.

So yes -- very practical book, easy to get through, and highly recommended. Gives a broad overview of the field, so you can at least speak the lingo.

There's nothing wrong with slow growth--that's how most small to mid-size businesses operate, both in the US and abroad.

But as a Silicon Valley tech investor, you're not incentivized to fund companies that grow slowly over time. You're incentivized to fund moonshots that rapidly explode, take over the world, and get you the highest ROI in the shortest period of time.

So, if a company isn't growing exponentially every year--and as an investor--my salary/job-evaluations are dependent on successfully funding companies that grow exponentially, I'd have no incentive to invest.

And as a result, if the company needs a constant cash-infusion to stay alive--it needs to grow exponentially.

It's either: (A) get cash, grow fast; or (B) no need for new cash, grow slow.

(A) is the SV way.

(B) is more common in other industries/sectors, parts of the world.

Neither is inherently/morally better (my opinion only), but both are a functional result of the systems and incentives in their respective professional ecosystems.

Yes -- for a career change.

However: I got a second B.Sc. in Computer Science (first Bachelor's was in the arts), and that worked just as well, for a career change, and at less cost.

Check out your options. I found that getting a B.Sc. in CS was very doable, and would take less time the Master's.

It all depends on your situation. For me, I only had to take CS classes (and some math/stats). Everything I did the first time through transferred. I'm guessing your situation may be similar. If in doubt, you can always email the college and ask for specifics. They're selling a product (education), and generally very willing to help.

That's true. But finding a stable romantic partner who you're willing to move in with, and live with, + share all your personal space with is still very hard when you have little time/money, right? (And that applies to both sexes.)

And moreover - finding someone you really love and care for and want to move in with is hard even when you're rich. Just look at all the dating sites and services catering to matchmaking for the very wealthy.

We might say --> the less time/money you have, the harder it gets. And when all your time is going to career + you're in debt... it's a bad combo for the dating pool, for both sexes.

There are only 807 undergrads[1] at Harvey Mudd (which of course is an excellent school).

So that's still a sizable portion of their undergrad students -- even though from such a small sample, it's very hard to tell whether what they are doing would scale.

Also worth noting -- Harvey Mudd is focused on Science and Engineering, so students who pick HM would likely be more predisposed to picking a major like CS, anyway.

But still, an increase is an increase, and they're not out of line to cite those numbers, IMO, they're accurate.

-- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Mudd_College

From an inventory perspective, yes. =)

But -- you still need to get people coming to your site somehow, which is actually the harder part.

You can buy ads, do social media marketing, blog posts--lots of techniques. And there are a ton of services for that. I've experimented with many, and continually try to refine that aspect of the business, but I can't claim to be an expert yet.

I reply to emails every day. Once you get orders, you do need to check and make sure everything is going smoothly, and ensure that your customers' needs are met.

I also get a lot of emails asking for advice about various upgrades, fixes, product recommendations. And these often lead to sales, as long as I have something that works. Depending on your store, there can be a consultative aspect to it.

Thanks for that -- I actually think that's good feedback, and something I hadn't thought of.

We do have the shipping times listed on 3 different pages accessible from the top nav (and bottom nav), one of which is labeled 'How We Ship'.. so I dunno. It's not really something I'd considered before this, or had offered as feedback (everyone so far has advised me that outlining your details on the Shipping page is the industry standard.) And I can definitely say that I have many more visits to the FAQ and Shipping pages than I have orders, so I'm guessing people actually do read them. But again, I can't say for sure, and I haven't seen complaints about it.

It also might have to do with the products themselves. These are unattached pieces of metal/wood for the most part, at lower prices than you'd see in a guitar shop.

Beyond that, Oberlo and Shopify are setup for these kinds of businesses, so users get a stream of emails confirming each order and tracking the package throughout the journey. That seems to be enough, so far, at least. But like I said, I think that's fair criticism and something I'm actually looking to change on the checkout. It would be great to load in a shipping time on checkout pages (this information is available from the vendors), but that's not supported yet, it doesn't look like.

Yes, that's right. I was also initially concerned about that, but I have not had complaints about it.

Oberlo (the drop shipping service) does have an email system that lets you track the package on its journey and see where it is shipping from, after an order is placed. So it's not unexpected that the address is Chinese.

Most of the vendors actually do a good job on the packaging/presentation, but it's advisable to try each vendor's products (even something cheap), so you know what kind of standards they have. Some are very good, others are poor. You can also leave the vendor an automated message when you order about how to package.

I can't definitively speak to that, because I've never tried -- but if you have the capital, then it should be doable.

AliBaba (as opposed to the "express" version) is generally used for buying direct from manufacturers, and there are other sources, as well.

If you order from AliBaba, many manufacturers will put your branding on items, and you can do custom orders as well--if you have a design for a new item. However, they usually have minimum order quantities (MOQ's) of 500+. So you'll be out a few thousand dollars to get started, even for a cheap item.

I haven't done it, simply because it's very expensive to get started, but I've read some blog posts from people who've done what you're saying.

The biggest selling point of AliExpress and drop-shipping is that it's low-cost to get started. You can build a business with only about $250 of capital. (Or less.)

I've never seen 1-3 days on AliExpress.

The absolute best (when the vendor has ePacket, which is like the FedEx of China) is 7-12 days.

But even then, you need to expect 2-5 days for the vendor to actually package and ship the item.

So you're much better off quoting customers 3-4 weeks. If 1-3 days is all that works for your niche, you probably need a new product, unfortunately.

You can--but AliExpress has a good reputation system. I mostly use that.

And if a vendor burns me, I remove their products and look elsewhere.

No worries =), I'm happy to help if I can.

So yes -- I use Shopify primarily because it's a relatively simple way to get up-and-running.

You'll make less money on Shopify, overall, because they take part of the profits you make (~2% to 5%). And that turns some people off, but the payoff is this: You can make secure, good-looking and effective site in just a few days. With no coding or server management involved.

Now, I'm a software developer, and I'm capable of building an ecommerce site from scratch (as I'm sure you are, as well) -- but why? It's not worth that kind of time investment until you know that you're going to make $$$ from the project.

Shopify is almost like rapid-prototyping. It lets you get started quickly with a working version. So, even if the first business fails (mine did), you're not out 6-months of time and effort from site-building, design etc. Customers don't really know (or care) for the most part that the site is built on Shopify. Overall, it just works.

But yes -- I use an automated drop-shipping system called Oberlo: https://www.oberlo.com/

This only works for connecting AliExpress-->Shopify, so it's constraining in that way. But mostly anything you'll want to sell can be found on AliExpress.

Try it. =)