This is a translation of the success story from our global Java community. Andrey learned Java on the Russian-language version of the course, which you study in English on CodeGym. May it become the inspiration for your further learning and maybe one day you’ll want to share your own story with us :)
This is the first time I've written autobiographically. Please don't judge me to harshly. :) The text may seem to be mostly about how I've become who I am. Perhaps that will make it more inspiring :)
About me: I'm 25 years old, I didn't finish college, I've worked for 2 years as an engineer, and last year I worked as a sales manager for enterprise IT solutions.
I'll begin my story with my senior year of high school, back when it was time to think about my future and applying to universities, and my brain was still fairly empty. I was almost a straight-A student: everything came to me without any special effort. I was interested in computers, but my parents were paranoid that the job market would become oversaturated with programmers. As a result, without any goals or exertion, I enrolled in the radio engineering department. After two and a half years, I managed to drop out and I took whatever job came my way.
This was the first lesson of adulthood that I didn't grasp right away – Don't let anything or anyone stand in the way of your goals and interests.
After I left school and got my engineering job, I got an opportunity to move to another city and become the senior and only employee of a branch office, with an indecently large salary for my age. A year later, the branch office was closed. I came crashing down and again began to work for peanuts. My rapid but brief leap upwards helped me raise my expectations. I constantly compared my subsequent life with this period, and a dream appeared — to live like I had been living.
Periodically depressed and leading a wild lifestyle, I met my future wife. I give her a lot of credit for how my life radically changed: I quit smoking, became an exemplary family man, went for job interviews every 2-3 months, which made my employer pretty nervous, forcing him to raise my salary and position.
I found just the right person to kick me to the butt so I would never again be found loafing on the couch in the evenings or getting drunk with my buddies in the garage.
I had an average salary, an interesting job, and frequently traveled on business to different cities. I began to settle into a routine. More and more, I spent my evenings watching movies, forgeting about my grand life ambitions. I even stopped lifting weights. I was getting soft. But not my wife :)
Thinking of ways to improve my life, I recalled my long-standing desire to become a programmer. In fact, I once spent several hours learning some random language and sent my resume to all sorts of employers, which proves how diligent and hardworking I can be :)
I started reading articles and success stories about programmers. I gradually became captivated with the idea of getting into IT, and after a couple of weeks, I became firmly convinced that I could.
For me, the big challenge was to figure out who I wanted to (or could) become in the IT industry. I didn't understand programming languages and didn't understand the difference between the back-end and front-end. I just read everything, mostly testimonials written by new programmers. That's how I heard about CodeGym and added it to my bookmarks.
On one of my business trips, while sitting at the station and waiting for a train, I pulled my laptop out of my bag and happened upon the website again. I decided to give it a try. Right from the start (Level 0), I was fascinated by the cartoony and friendly feeling. Coupled with a futuristic romance, I was hooked for a long time. When I got home, I paid for a subscription and began my studies.
I've started to learn (and now I've finally come to how IT relates to my story).
A little more than six months ago, my studies began — every morning, a few hours before work, and then again in all my free evening hours. On weekends, I managed to dedicate 4-8 hours.
A month later, I began to test myself in interviews (yes, I'm a very confident guy). Naturally, I was flooded with questions, but I understood only the prepositions and conjunctions. I didn't despair too much. I kept studying and signed up for HTML courses (I hadn't yet realized how flawed they were).
Clicking through the tasks in the HTML courses, creating websites that would have been cool 10 years ago, I gradually begin to lose confidence that my destiny was to become a true backend programmer. Especially when the company next door was constantly advertising an opening for a frontend developer. I couldn't resist the temptation: I asked them for a test job involving the creation of an adaptive website and a slider in native JavaScript. I completed the task in 2 months. With them constantly making revisions and wanting to review the progress of my work. They later told me that they usually drop a candidate after his or her first mistake, but they liked me for some reason :)
And then suddenly the new year was upon me.
Mustering all my courage and confidence in my future into a fist, I submitted my resignation from my old job and began an internship at this well-known company in order to master the React framework (all its friends). After completing 3 projects during my internship in a month instead of the promised two, I was hired, donned some soft slippers, and got a beefy iMac for software development.
And well, the end. I'm still employed (already in my third month) and earn a good salary. I finished one project and started another.
But I haven't abandoned my self-education. As I study other JavaScript websites, I recall CodeGym with fondness. Nowhere is so mellow. Nowhere else has cartoons mixed with an crazy number of tasks. There is no other community so active and strong.
I'm learning JavaScript, but I wish it was Java. I had to step away from CodeGym. But I promise I'll be back, and I hope it will be soon. After all, I wouldn't buy 2 books on Java for nothing. I just haven't had time to read them yet.
I hope everyone reading this will find persistence, discipline, and inspiring goals.
Don't build your plans around the time frames of other people's success - I didn't like the idea of 1-1.5 years, so I set a goal for myself to get a job in 3-4 months. Kick yourself in the butt regularly, even if you're already a developer. Any shake-up or stress may drive you to success.
This is the first time I've written autobiographically. Please don't judge me to harshly. :) The text may seem to be mostly about how I've become who I am. Perhaps that will make it more inspiring :)
About me: I'm 25 years old, I didn't finish college, I've worked for 2 years as an engineer, and last year I worked as a sales manager for enterprise IT solutions.
I'll begin my story with my senior year of high school, back when it was time to think about my future and applying to universities, and my brain was still fairly empty. I was almost a straight-A student: everything came to me without any special effort. I was interested in computers, but my parents were paranoid that the job market would become oversaturated with programmers. As a result, without any goals or exertion, I enrolled in the radio engineering department. After two and a half years, I managed to drop out and I took whatever job came my way.
This was the first lesson of adulthood that I didn't grasp right away – Don't let anything or anyone stand in the way of your goals and interests.
After I left school and got my engineering job, I got an opportunity to move to another city and become the senior and only employee of a branch office, with an indecently large salary for my age. A year later, the branch office was closed. I came crashing down and again began to work for peanuts. My rapid but brief leap upwards helped me raise my expectations. I constantly compared my subsequent life with this period, and a dream appeared — to live like I had been living.
Periodically depressed and leading a wild lifestyle, I met my future wife. I give her a lot of credit for how my life radically changed: I quit smoking, became an exemplary family man, went for job interviews every 2-3 months, which made my employer pretty nervous, forcing him to raise my salary and position.
I found just the right person to kick me to the butt so I would never again be found loafing on the couch in the evenings or getting drunk with my buddies in the garage.
I had an average salary, an interesting job, and frequently traveled on business to different cities. I began to settle into a routine. More and more, I spent my evenings watching movies, forgeting about my grand life ambitions. I even stopped lifting weights. I was getting soft. But not my wife :)
Thinking of ways to improve my life, I recalled my long-standing desire to become a programmer. In fact, I once spent several hours learning some random language and sent my resume to all sorts of employers, which proves how diligent and hardworking I can be :)
I started reading articles and success stories about programmers. I gradually became captivated with the idea of getting into IT, and after a couple of weeks, I became firmly convinced that I could.
For me, the big challenge was to figure out who I wanted to (or could) become in the IT industry. I didn't understand programming languages and didn't understand the difference between the back-end and front-end. I just read everything, mostly testimonials written by new programmers. That's how I heard about CodeGym and added it to my bookmarks.
On one of my business trips, while sitting at the station and waiting for a train, I pulled my laptop out of my bag and happened upon the website again. I decided to give it a try. Right from the start (Level 0), I was fascinated by the cartoony and friendly feeling. Coupled with a futuristic romance, I was hooked for a long time. When I got home, I paid for a subscription and began my studies.
I've started to learn (and now I've finally come to how IT relates to my story).
A little more than six months ago, my studies began — every morning, a few hours before work, and then again in all my free evening hours. On weekends, I managed to dedicate 4-8 hours.
A month later, I began to test myself in interviews (yes, I'm a very confident guy). Naturally, I was flooded with questions, but I understood only the prepositions and conjunctions. I didn't despair too much. I kept studying and signed up for HTML courses (I hadn't yet realized how flawed they were).
Clicking through the tasks in the HTML courses, creating websites that would have been cool 10 years ago, I gradually begin to lose confidence that my destiny was to become a true backend programmer. Especially when the company next door was constantly advertising an opening for a frontend developer. I couldn't resist the temptation: I asked them for a test job involving the creation of an adaptive website and a slider in native JavaScript. I completed the task in 2 months. With them constantly making revisions and wanting to review the progress of my work. They later told me that they usually drop a candidate after his or her first mistake, but they liked me for some reason :)
And then suddenly the new year was upon me.
Mustering all my courage and confidence in my future into a fist, I submitted my resignation from my old job and began an internship at this well-known company in order to master the React framework (all its friends). After completing 3 projects during my internship in a month instead of the promised two, I was hired, donned some soft slippers, and got a beefy iMac for software development.
And well, the end. I'm still employed (already in my third month) and earn a good salary. I finished one project and started another.
But I haven't abandoned my self-education. As I study other JavaScript websites, I recall CodeGym with fondness. Nowhere is so mellow. Nowhere else has cartoons mixed with an crazy number of tasks. There is no other community so active and strong.
I'm learning JavaScript, but I wish it was Java. I had to step away from CodeGym. But I promise I'll be back, and I hope it will be soon. After all, I wouldn't buy 2 books on Java for nothing. I just haven't had time to read them yet.
I hope everyone reading this will find persistence, discipline, and inspiring goals.
Don't build your plans around the time frames of other people's success - I didn't like the idea of 1-1.5 years, so I set a goal for myself to get a job in 3-4 months. Kick yourself in the butt regularly, even if you're already a developer. Any shake-up or stress may drive you to success.
