news.ycombinator.com• Sep 19, 2024• 1 min read
Ask HN: Passionate bootcamper without a degree seeking adviceI have long been interested in programming, but became passionate about it a couple years ago. I am determined to make it my full-time job.I would like advice on the following:How to:become goal-oriented?differentiate myself from "boot-campers/coders" on job applications?What should my portfolio look like? Now just some ragtag projects and one-off scripting solutions. I have some big ideas, but having trouble committing.A little background:I was working studiously toward becoming a web developer until I got spooked by job data and the AI hype this past March, pivoted to ML, hated it, worked through a C textbook, considered embedded/hardware but think it's probably out-of-reach/unrealistic goal, so I'm back to Rails.I have a degree from a good university, but:it is a philosophy degreeI graduated with a 2.6 GPA, so grad school feels out-of-reachI have a family, so not tons of extracurricular time. Luckily, my job is so easy that I only work for a few hours per week.I have a senior role i
