How To Become A Computer Programmer Without A College Degree

Though it is easier to find a programming job with the help of a computer science degree, a good number of computer programmers don't have a degree in computer science or a college degree at all. What this group of people discovered is that the secret to becoming a computer programmer is to develop expert programming skills and gain serious, real-world programming experience, the kind of experience that makes you more skilled than others who have computer science degrees.

What Do Employers Want?
Employers want to see good competent software developers more than anything else. Whether you taught yourself programming at home or you enrolled in college or get some computer programming training or studied from reading books or you bought a home distance or correspondence course, you still have to make over your resume, prepare for your programming interviews, find programming jobs, send your resume in and write code. And employers expect you to write good quality code, design your applications, document your applications etc. regardless of how you learnt computer programming.

What Do You Really Need To Become A Computer Programmer
In other to learn programming and become a computer programmer, all you need is a reasonably fast computer, an internet connection (preferably a high speed internet connection), a study guide, a learning plan that specifies what programming languages you need to learn and in what order and some free time. The most important decision you have to make is what programming languages you will elarn and where you will get the information you need to study (online courses, home study courses, training programs, textbooks, software developer coaching etc.) If you set your mind on it, you can literally start to learn computer programming today and be working as a full-time software developer or contract programmer in as little as 4 to 6 months. The critical difference between those people who seem to have learnt programming in a few months and gotten lucrative jobs and those who seem to be spinning their wheels is the quality of information or study plan they adopted and followed.

Yes, You Can Get A Computer Programming Job Without A College Degree
After more than 10 years, spent working several software development jobs, I have a lot of personal, intimate knowledge of how the industry works. I have worked with talented software programmers who got into programming with a high school education or dropped out of college to begin a programming career. So, I am always a bit surprised when someone that I am coaching or someone who runts into me on my blog at www.IT-CAREER-COACH.NET tells me they can not start their programming career because they do not have a college education or a computer science degree.
If you are saying this to yourself, then you are just making excuses for not taking action. Let me tell you that from my experience as a software developer mentor, I have discovered that people make excuses to themselves because they are not ready to hold themselves accountable to results. So, they either complain about how old they are or how poor they are or they complain about the time it will take them to learn programming or complain that they cannot afford to go to college and study computer science or complain that programming textbooks are too expensive and they go on like that. Okay, I am telling you now that there is nothing stopping you from beginning your programming career if you really want to and it's not as hard as you think it is.

So, Where Does This Leave You?
This leaves you without an excuse for not taking action. I am granting you the liberty to pursue your passion, your dream and your personal excellence to learn or master computer programming. As a software developer mentor, IT Career Coach and Contract Programmer, I have worked with people who overcame all sorts of personal situations, handicaps and obstacles to begin their software developer career. On my blog at www.IT-Career-Coach.NET, I coach, mentor and train individuals who want to transition to a software developer career or become an expert computer programmer. From my personal experience and observation helping programmers from all over the world succeed in software development professions, your success in programming boils down to how skilled you are at software development and how much experience you have in solving real-world problems. If you gain a lot of practical programming skills and knowledge your software developer career will go into overdrive.

If you want to improve your programming skills and take your career to the next level, I recommend you read "the street smart guide to computer programmer careers" book which explains how to master computer programming in as little as 4 months. It will shave years off your learning curve by showing you how to learn programming fast, how to prepare your resume so you get noticed by hiring managers, how to prepare for and excel at technical job interviews so you get job offers more easily and how to consistently gain the kind of programming experience that keeps your career moving forward.