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Learn to Code or Go Broke Trying. How Much It Costs to Get Programming Skills

Published in the Learning Java group
Even though software programming has been known as prestigious and high-paying profession for a number of years now, the global demand for qualified coders not only hasn’t decreased, but keeps growing steadily with occasional spikes such as the one we are experiencing in 2020 when shares of many online businesses have gone through the roof thanks to increased Internet traffic during COVID-19 quarantines. Learn to Code or Go Broke Trying. How Much It Costs to Get Programming Skills - 1

The demand for coders will reach an all-time high in 2020?

According to a fresh report (Sep 1, 2020) from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of software developers in the U.S. is projected to grow 22% from 2019 to 2029, “much faster than the average for all occupations.” The report states that the need for new mobile apps will be among the main factors of increased demand for software developers. “Software developers are likely to see new opportunities because of an increase in the number of products that use software. For example, more computer systems are being built into consumer electronics and other products, such as cell phones and appliances,” the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says. A new report by Burning Glass company, which collects and analyzes millions of job postings from across the U.S., also supports this positive outlook. And this is despite the fact that the U.S. economy is going through rocky times right now, and the American companies tend to outsource/offshore lots of software development jobs out of the country. So, to cut it short, the demand for coders in the world still outstrips the supply by far, and will continue to do so. And the back-end developers are in greatest demand. Which for us means only one thing: learning how to code in Java in 2020/21 is more relevant than ever, and CodeGym certainly has something to brag about in this field.

How much will you need to spend on learning how to code?

But if you look at this from a coding beginner’s eyes, all this data about growing demand for Java skills doesn’t help much. As it isn’t clear how much time and money you will really need to get the skills and find a real job. Of course, it would mostly depend on the way you are studying. Taking a university course or some other offline alternative, such as coding bootcamp, is one way to make this more or less predictable as this way you will have a concrete duration and price. The only thing is, you may not like those numbers as they will probably be big and huuuge respectively. With typically no guarantees you will actually learn something more than just basic theory that is not applicable in a real job, and all you can hope for upon graduation is an unpaid internship to learn something real for the first 6-12 month at least. So, how much will you need to spend to learn programming this (traditional) way? Numbers may vary a lot. For example, according to Forbes, code academies (also called coding bootcamps) can cost from $5000 to more than $20,000 for 8-24 weeks of study on average. And these sums are not such a bad deal compared to university programs, which cost more and take much longer to complete. If you’re wondering just how much it would be to learn programming in style, by taking a programming course in one of the best colleges in the world, let’s take a look. The total cost to attend the University of California Berkeley would be $136,000, at University of California San Diego it’s $123,000, while in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), famous for its scientific and technological training and research, it's only $73,160.

How much does it cost to learn how to code online?

Don’t have extra 100k laying around to spend it on learning Java? Obviously, the alternative is to study online, which is much, much cheaper. In fact, it can be absolutely free if you choose to learn with various materials that are available to everyone online at no charge. While commercial online platforms, including CodeGym, normally charge very reasonable amounts for subscription. And provide discounts every time when it’s possible. Speaking of which. Holidays are coming, and CodeGym opens its traditional holiday discounts season! There is a huge 50% discount available to everyone who will subscribe to our course until December 24th, 2020. Considering one year should be enough to learn how to code in Java from scratch, this price sure looks like quite a bargain, don’t you agree?

How to learn Java online at (almost) no cost?

So, as you can see, when it comes to expenses, learning programming online is a much smarter choice. The most important things you need to succeed are intention and willpower not to give up until it’s done. Having a proper plan with several different sources of knowledge won’t hurt as well. Here’s our suggestion for your list of the learning sources to master Java online.

1. Free Java tutorials.

There are loads of free Java tutorials available online. Official Java Tutorials from Oracle are certainly worth a recommendation. Some other pretty great interactive online Java tutorials would be LearnJavaOnline.org, JavaBeginnersTutorial.com, and the one you can find on Tutorials Point.

2. Textbooks for Java beginners.

Textbooks are another great source of learning you shouldn’t avoid, which is free or almost free since you’ll need to pay a few bucks for the book. Here are a few of the best and most universally recommended textbooks for Java beginners: Head First Learn to Code by Eric Freeman and Head First Java by Kathy Sierra & Bert Bates, Java: Programming Basics for Absolute Beginners by Nathan Clark, Java: A Beginner’s Guide by Herbert Schildt, Think Java: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist by Allen Downey & Chris Mayfield.

3. Coding practice platform.

But even the best tutorials in the world will be useless if you won’t practice. That’s why you need to find an online platform to practice all the theory you just read. And in this field, CodeGym is an undisputed king. We have over 1200 coding tasks that cover literally every major aspect of Java programming, and this is a crucially important component of the majority of our students’ success.

4. YouTube channels, blogs, and other media with Java lessons and tutorials.

YouTube channels, as well as blogs, podcasts, forums and groups in social networks could also be very helpful and easier to consume knowledge from than conventional textbooks and tutorials. When it comes to YouTube channels, here’s a few of the ones that we recommend to beginners: Derek Banas, Programming with Mosh, Oracle’s Java channel, Adam Bien, and vJUG. If you are looking for some podcasts on the basics of Java, we recommend you to try Java Pub House, How to Program with Java, and Java Off-Heap. While Javaworld, Javarevisited, A Java Geek by Nicolas Fränkel, and Thoughts on Java by Thorben Janssen are pretty great blogs about Java.
Comments (2)
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ly6183 Level 31, New York City, United States
10 December 2020
great to know, thanks for sharing.
Chrisantus Makokha Level 32, Nairobi, Kenya
9 December 2020
Great article Brian