How do I switch into a career in web/software development?

August 2, 2011 8:52 AM

I think I want to ditch law school before it starts and become a developer of some kind, but I have no experience in the field. How do I accomplish the career change after the law school ditching? (more details inside)

I graduated with a BA in History in 2009, and feeling like there was not much else I could do and wanting to Change the World, I started prepping for the LSAT and law school. Now I'm in, and I start Aug 22, but I'm starting to get depressed thinking about all the debt and lack of demand and etc. etc. etc.

I've always felt a pull towards doing some kind of development, and what I am thinking might be the best fit for me is web development. The reason I didn't do this earlier was that I'm female, and the misogyny spooked me really hardcore. Now, I'm older and more feminist and just generally less afraid of what a bunch of dudes think of me.

I have a natural aptitude for spoken languages, and my comp sci/comp forensics/web dev friends all tell me that this means I would be excellent at picking up computer languages as well. I tend to agree after practicing on the very rudimentary tutorials I've done on Python and Ruby.

Anyway, my thought is that the best thing would be to get an Associates or another Bachelor's degree* in web development or something of that nature and make a field change entirely. This is where my question comes in: what do I do? What is the best way to accomplish getting a career in development? Are there more niche fields that I might be interested in? Is there demand somewhere I could fill?

(*I know I can self-teach languages, but I lack the serious self-discipline required for this without at least a base knowledge of it, and I feel like a degree of some kind would make me more palatable as a new hire since my degree is in history.)

posted by traversionischaracter to Work & Money (16 answers total)

Best answer: I see that you're in Houston, so this may or may not be helpful depending on if you'd like to stay there, but University of Texas has a Software Developer Training Program and they frequently have jobs open only to these trainees, and specifically require no previous experience along with enrollment in this training program.

So that's one option, but you would have to move to Austin.
posted by czytm at 9:33 AM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Learning languages quickly is helpful, but are you also really good with logic/structure? Programming is much more than language, a lot of it is about determining requirements, figuring out the right approach to solve a set of problems, covering corner cases, testing, etc. I think most developers, once they have a few programming languages under their belt, pick up new ones pretty quickly. I would guess having a natural tendency for it would give you an edge now, but not so much a few years down the road when your peers are picking up new languages fast too. If you want a long-term career in software development, being a self-starter is really invaluable. Most of the languages, tools, design paradigms, etc., that were taught in university twenty years ago are no longer applicable today, except in some legacy systems; most 40-year-olds still in the field are the ones who've embraced lifelong learning, usually in their spare time. The technologies you'd get taught today probably aren't going to be around in 20 years, at least in any form that would be recognizable now. With web development especially, there probably won't be as many legacy systems around. Definitely NOT trying to put you off. I'm a woman web developer and I love it, and I wish there were more women in STEM because I think a lot of women who would enjoy it have just not considered it. So I'm glad you are, but I don't want you diving in (and quitting law school!) based on an incomplete view of what development is.

That you've messed around some with Python and Ruby already is fantastic and I would suggest continuing that before committing to software development. If you haven't already, I'd suggest setting up a basic web stack (Ruby on Rails, Django, WAMP) and coming up with a basic project that you can try start-to-end and see how you like the feel of the whole thing. A really simple blog system will give you a better grasp on the programming side of things and introduce databases, authentication/security, basic layout/design considerations, etc. You can build a minimal blog with literally 3 pages (login page, post creation page, main blog page with a list of all the posts). It won't be competing with Wordpress anytime soon but that's OK. Most of my personal projects get thrown out; the value is in the learning.

There are niche fields everywhere. I think the most common way to get into one is to have domain knowledge and then pick up the development skill, but if you're a decent developer and a quick learner, you can pick up niche skills just by working in a small shop that also does nichey things. I know some basic scientific modelling b/c I work for a scientific organization, although I am a web/db developer. Depending on the niche, working in one might offer more job security (and might not), but AFAICT it almost always pays less. For example, if you're a scientific programmer at a scientific org, you're always going to be the bricklayer to the scientists' architect, whereas at a development company, the developers are the stars of the show. So the pay reflects that. If you particularly enjoy the niche work, that might not matter.

Can't really give you advice on the schooling. I took the simple, boring route and went for a comp sci degree straight out of high school. There's probably no need to go to law school if you're sure you don't want to go to law school, whether or not you decide to go into development. But it may be too late to get into most web development programs now.
posted by purplecrackers at 9:48 AM on August 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Ack. Hit "Post" instead of "Preview". I was going to say, that would sort of leave you in limbo for at least a few months. Which you might be OK with and might not. I'm supremely unqualified to give law-school-quitting related advice.
posted by purplecrackers at 9:51 AM on August 2, 2011

No advice on the career-change front, but I wanted to say, "good for you!" for being able to see the writing on the wall about law school. It's a trap and you are smart to see that.
posted by gauche at 10:08 AM on August 2, 2011

I can't address the developer side of things (though I messed around with C and Perl in law school), but I can address the law school thing.

I'm a lawyer and have been practicing for the better part of a decade now. I really love what I do. That said, it is not for everyone. If you lack serious self-discipline, law school may be very challenging for you. The bigger problem, of course, is whether you really want to be a lawyer. If you want to be a lawyer so badly that you'd rather risk the lousy job market and the crushing debt, you should go to law school. If you're not sure you want to be a lawyer, I'd recommend you avoid law school, or put it (and the debt) off until you know for sure you want to do it.

In the mean time, perhaps your developer friends have a side project or could recommend some places for you to get some experience. In my case, I used my meager talents to write things that amused me or to solve minor annoyances.
posted by Hylas at 10:17 AM on August 2, 2011

The reason I didn't do this earlier was that I'm female, and the misogyny spooked me really hardcore.

FWIW: maybe I've been lucky in where I've worked, and maybe it helps that none of those places have been in the US; but I'm a female software engineer with ~11 years' experience, and while I've been very much in the minority ever since my first year of university, I've never encountered misogyny.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 10:46 AM on August 2, 2011

Response by poster: @Hylas: As I understand it, risking the market is a terrible, awful no-good idea unless I want to stay in Houston, TX. (I don't. I want to move to Seattle w/in 7 years.) I feel like I'll be taking on crushing debt that will force me into doing law I don't want to practice at hours I can't handle, etc. I think I'd love being a West Coast lawyer, but the skirts/heels of Houston spook me to death (I'm genderqueer and skirts at work make me feel like I'm suffocating.)

@purplecrackers: Yes, I'm good at logic and structure, moreso the logic part at this point. Logic and language are kind of what drove me towards law.

I'm okay with being in limbo for a bit. I'm only 25, and while that feels very old to be switching things around, I'm conscious of the fact that it isn't really and I'm just being a baby.

When I say I lack self-discipline about teaching myself, I mostly mean because I have no parameters to work from. Your blog idea is a very good one, actually! Basically, I feel that taking classes would give me a knowledge base of how things work and what kinds of things are possible, and I could really grow from there. I tend to do well with just enough structure to have something to play with, but flounder in environments where I don't know exactly what the basic knowledge I'm looking for is. Right now I'm toying with tryruby.org, and it's interesting!

@ManyLeggedCreature: I encountered it VERY early on asking my hacker boyfriends about their code and stuff, and my female engineer friend told me that she was put into a group with the only other girl in her class so that they "wouldn't drag any of the boys down" in her UG fluid mechanics course. So, things like that were pretty off-putting to me when I was 19, I guess, but it's good to hear that you have had success avoiding it!
posted by traversionischaracter at 11:15 AM on August 2, 2011

Response by poster: Oh, and cztym, thanks for the links! Those could end up being really helpful for sure!
posted by traversionischaracter at 11:20 AM on August 2, 2011

Good grief! I'm not surprised that put you off. Your hacker boyfriends sound charming... and I hope your friend made it through with a good degree despite the attitude. (Which century are we in, again?)

I hope you'll find, as I have, that adults in the working world behave better than that. (Also, fingers crossed nothing changes for me!)
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 12:23 PM on August 2, 2011

Best answer: I'm a female software engineer as well and wanted to chime in to agree that adults generally behave better than the jerks you encountered. You still have to keep an eye out for other kinds of gender bias, but it's rare that I encounter anything blatantly unfair.

The funny thing about programming is that there's this big ridiculous macho mystique built around it. Watch the Matrix or any hacker movie and you'll be half convinced that programming is Magic and only True Men can make the magic happen. Don't get me wrong--programming takes smarts and discipline--but at its core, programming is about solving problems, not doing the impossible.

I've mentioned it here before, but it's interesting to note that women were once considered to be eminently qualified to be programmers:"The rationale for selecting female programmers was partly due to the scarcity of qualified male labor during the war, but another significant factor was the expectation that women would be uniquely suited to this position, which demanded great “patience, persistence, and a capacity for detail” – qualities that many employers attributed to the feminine sex". I've met a few female engineers with successful careers at IBM who had been recruited by them in the 70s. So, don't let the potential misogyny intimidate you! It sounds like you have a good handle on it already, too.

One thing you might consider doing as a project is a Facebook application. It would give you exposure to most of the important aspects of web development, while not requiring that you set up your own web stack.
posted by millions of peaches at 1:59 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You should find some kind of training. Very, very few people will get anywhere trying to teach themselves to code. Maybe you are exceptionally disciplined, but if you have any doubts in this area, take classes. Go to UT as a resident, or your local community college, or what have you, but as bad as many teachers are, structure is what most people need to get a foothold into programming. Being in school also gives you more access to employers that probably won't look twice at your resume without a lot of evidence of programming skill. If you can afford it, I would honestly try to get into UT-austin and just do a full second degree in CS. It's a great school for CS, and will definitely open doors for you.
Good luck! It's a great time to be a programmer, and as someone who had a CS degree and considered law school, I feel like I completely dodged a bullet by avoiding law school and staying in tech.
posted by ch1x0r at 6:20 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: @millions: Thanks so much for mentioning that macho mystique. I was discussing that very thing with my SO tonight while still mulling over this decision, and I am still kind of getting that feeling as I ask my male dev friends for good resources to start playing with things. Hearing that was good encouragement.

And thanks for the suggestion about the facebook app. Definitely something I'll look into.

@ch1x0r: I very much agree w/you about instruction. While I can't move to go to UT without serious social and economic cost, I *can* go to UH or UH Downtown, or at least Houston CC. Do you think I really need to get an entire second Bachelors degree in CS or could I get by with an Associates in Digital Comm (looks to me like it's CSS/PHP/SQL heavy) or something similar? The math aspect of CS scares me a bit, because I haven't done math above simple algebra since high school (7 years ago!). =/ If I really had to pull that off, I could swing some Cs in calculus probably, but that sounds really taxing.
posted by traversionischaracter at 9:39 PM on August 2, 2011

Best answer: A CS degree is definitely taxing, but if you can pull it off it will open a lot more doors than an associates. If you think you're interested in trying, I recommend taking the first few classes towards the bachelors.. usually there are a couple intro programming classes, and discrete math. It will give you a good sense of what is involved in getting the BS, and even if it turns out you don't want to go for that, the intro programming classes will be worthwhile no matter what route you take.

I also have a history degree and did a CS degree later.. it was tough, but I knew after my first CS class that I loved it. I don't feel like I've encountered any more misogyny as a developer than I would have in any other career, but it does sometimes get a little old being the only woman in the room. However there are side benefits.. like when stopping by the restroom after an all employee meeting.. there won't be a line for you! But you will walk past a long line of men waiting for the men's room. Okay, it's a small thing, but that's basically been my experience as a female developer.. Lots of small and mostly neutral experiences that are just a little bit different than the norm.
posted by everybody polka at 11:34 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

For me personally, Calculus was the worst of math classes I had to take. The math classes after that felt much different, more to do with logic than wrestling with equations to pump out the right answer. I found them much more enjoyable. Set theory, graph theory, proofs, etc., can be pretty fun if you're a logic puzzles nerd. I still blab about the Seven Bridges of Konigsberg to anyone who will listen. :) They're also more applicable than Calculus is, especially graph theory, which pops up every time you're dealing with a network (like multiple servers -- web server, database server, CDN...) so it's handy to have a rough understanding of it, though you could probably live without it.
posted by purplecrackers at 9:19 AM on August 3, 2011

Best answer: Honestly, all those math classes are valuable. Not because you're going to implement software that will integrate or derive functions, but because they're still useful tools for analyzing systems and statistics about them. Now, you probably won't need to know that the derivative of e^x is e^x or how to integrate by parts, but applying derivatives to calculate rates of change or what a Reimann sum is.

Problem is, you also need to know set theory to really grasp SQL, LDAP and other stuff I don't know about, graph theory to understand data structures & networking (and compilers especially, but you'll need more than a bachelors to land high paying software toolchain jobs), and obscure number theory to understand security, cryptography, and why associative arrays are actually pretty fast. About the only class I haven't used professionally is matrix theory, but if you want an opportunity to work in 3D graphics, vector math is something you'll want to really understand.

Anyway, my thought is that the best thing would be to get an Associates or another Bachelor's degree* in web development or something of that nature and make a field change entirely.

Plenty of places still use college degrees as a non-discriminatory filter for quality, so I think you're right to avoid self-teaching. My one caution, for someone concerned about economic consequences, is that a CS degree opens all the doors that a web development door will, and many more. In part, your compensation will depend on your ability to find multiple competing jobs. And your career risk will be smaller when you can still find a job once mobile devices, Congress, and the MPAA have killed off the web. Now, it might be accounting systems, or implementing some crazy application of calculus to options trading, but I gather plenty of newly unemployed lawyers would jump at the offer.
posted by pwnguin at 7:35 PM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also note that you can always go to law school later. I know at least a few coders who decided law school was their bag, and parlayed their experience into patent and copyright specializations.
posted by pwnguin at 7:37 PM on August 3, 2011