Jumping in the deep end of the pool to learn swimming.

[OrionSuperman]

Greetings to all who happen upon this post.  I learn best when I am out of my depth, hence the title of my post. If you see me trying to answer advanced questions (be the answers right or wrong) it is my attempt to learn every aspect of PHP, not just those taught to me in a class. 

 

My name is Orion Supergan and I am 29 years old, joyfully married with a little fatty of a one year old son. A single line of text does so little to flesh out a person, so here is where I go on about what I consider important for an idea of who I am. This post may be a bit of a ramble, so if you end up reading it all my thanks to you. 

 

My current life goal is to get into a position where I am able to financially provide for my family to allow my wife her dream of being a stay at home mom. I am driven and motivated to the point that I am not only doing my class work to excellence, but giving myself outside projects to learn as much at the fastest rate possible. I am no longer working for my own petty base desires, but for a goal that is worthy of accepting as many failures as possible to find success. To make better lives for those who bring value to mine. I am in my second semester of classes. Last semester I took a HTML/CSS class and had a lot of fun. My final project is available at www.rusticspices.com . The site is best viewed in Chrome, as unfortunately the class did not teach anything on cross-browser compatability.  I am always open to advice and suggestions from those who know more than me (which is everyone in this group). 

 

There is no time more important than the present, but no way to properly interpret it than from the viewpoint of the past. Where to start, where to start. I attended college right out of high school, not because I wanted to, but because my mother informed me that I would be kicked out otherwise. I failed my first year, but convinced the review board that the second year would be different, and failed that year too. I had anxiety to the point that I would do anything to ignore what was causing me stress. Not leaving my dorm room for a week at a time, living on ramen and easy-mac. Anxiety to me is a mental prison, a car burning out at max RPM and going nowhere.

 

Not to make an excuse but I now blame my diet for a large portion of why I failed for so many years. I am gluten intolerant, an issue that seems to be a 'fad statement' for many. How I experience the symptoms is almost entirely in my brain. I have fog, trouble thinking, tiredness, lack of motivation, poor memory. I would literally head to the cupboard to get something for dinner and end up with a soda in my hand, having completely forgotten why I was at the cupboard. The difference between myself now and a few years ago is unbelievable to me. Nearly photographic memory, incredible speed of thought and attention to detail are the normal state of my brain.

 

I was always a person who was told they had 'potential'. And I have blatantly wasted what potential I had for most of my life up until recently. It was easier to not try or start, rather than risk failing. Everything has changed for me now. Partially from my diet, predominantly because of my wife and son. I now have a reason to succeed. Gone are the days of just passing by barely able to sustain myself and being content at that. 

 

Surprise gifts at unexpected times for no other reason than knowing the person would appreciate it. I take joy in giving gifts, the more meaningful the better. My favorite gift I've given would be for my best friend. I took a refrigerator box and bought packing peanuts to fill the entire thing. Interspersed in the peanuts were 100 party poppers, 200 1$ bills, 100 items from the dollar store, and and at the very bottom of the box was an Xbox 360. I wish I had a video of him opening it, he had to stand on a chair to get into the top and was pulling things out like crazy. At one point he fell INTO the box and it toppled over, but he just continued to crawl further into the peanuts to pull things out.

 

And now after all that reading, a question. At what point in my programming journey should I start looking for a job working with PHP? How much knowledge should I have as a basis? In a perfect world I would start now, learning on the job every day along the vein of learning to speak a foreign language fastest by going to that country. I want to engross myself from the start to where programming becomes second nature, but I know that is not the likeliest of scenarios. 

 

May your day be brilliant,

 

Orion Supergan

[QuickOldCar]

Welcome aboard, interesting post.

 

Possibly some other members can inform you on what schooling they had, their job experiences and what they are currently doing.

As for myself I've been programming since i was 8 and now 42, all self taught. I occasionally take on jobs if they interest me enough. I've had other jobs and businesses over my lifetime and always looked at coding as an interesting hobby while at the same time the ability to do my own projects. Simply put I do not rely upon it as a career.

 

I'm gonna be as honest as can with you here, you seem nice and have a caring for your family...none of that will matter when it comes to obtaining work. What will be viewed is your educational training, job performance, completed projects and experience.

 

The sad truth with getting a job is that employers mostly look at what papers you have more than what you can accomplish. I will say there are many talented people that went for certain schooling or degrees, but it's not the case for everyone. There is more than completing simple courses to make you an accomplished programmer.

 

Having failed 2 years of college won't help you any. You may need to get whatever alternate training you can , possibly create a website and build a portfolio. Take on any jobs you can accomplish and add them to your portfolio.

 

You will find out that many jobs are high demanding, require you to know a lot, do it efficiently as well as correct.

 

As for being a professional programmer, that is going to take a lot of time and hard work.

If say you wanted to do your own thing, the web is a big place and many people needing assistance.

You can get into something like making templates or themes and sell them for instance.

 

Do what you know and expand upon that.

Try to do freelance work.

A lot of people try to either make a project or get involved in projects to try to sweeten that resume.

 

My final words of advice to you would be to get yourself a dependable 9-5 job and care for your family, in your free time work on anything else.

[OrionSuperman]

www.rusticspices.com is where I am at after my first class, 3 months ago I had never touched HTML/CSS. This semester I am taking classes on PHP and Wordpress, but I am planning to do a lot outside of class to expand my learning. Like participating on forums such as this and building applications and websites.

 

Reading back over my post I really could have edited down the whole section on college and whatnot into 'I lacked direction after high school'. Alas, such is the curse of a somewhat rambling introduction.

[mogosselin]

Hi Orion!

I'll try to help you as much as I can. A lot of jobs will ask for experience, but some will hire junior programmers. If you go the "junior programmer" path, just be careful not to go into a company that only has juniors and run on "cheap labor". You won't learn much in this kind of companies and it'll be stressful and you will probably have to work more hours (without getting paid).

 

Personally, I started web development professionally in 2001 (first as an intern, then they hired me). My program included internship at the end (3 or 4 months if I remember correctly). This is a great way to get experience, but you need to start in a program that has this option.

 

Also, you say that you want to support your family, but it really depends on how much money you need. 30k? 100k? 200k? Everything is possible, but 30k is easier, of course.

And, what do you want to do? Get a job? If yes, in a big company? In a small company? Would you prefer to just focus on your coding or also be able to talk to the clients, get their needs, analyze what you're going to do? Would you prefer to work at your home? Would you like to go freelance? Start your own company? Everything is possible, what do you think you would like the most?

[Psycho]

 

My name is Orion Supergan . . .

 

Have you ever considered a lawsuit against your parents? Just saying. I use the pseudonym "Psycho", but I'd never refer to that as my 'name'.

 

And now after all that reading, a question. At what point in my programming journey should I start looking for a job working with PHP? How much knowledge should I have as a basis? In a perfect world I would start now, learning on the job every day along the vein of learning to speak a foreign language fastest by going to that country. I want to engross myself from the start to where programming becomes second nature, but I know that is not the likeliest of scenarios.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love working with PHP. But, you probably shouldn't focus on PHP when looking for a job. Many employers will post jobs looking for specific skill sets, but from my personal experience (in hiring) the main focus in on general programming capabilities. As different projects come up they may require different technologies. I think this is especially true of junior level programmers who won't have a lot of specific experience to represent them.