Ask HN: Anyone went into CS through an unconventional path?
By unconventional I mean not a typical undergrad degree in computer science from some university.
Mostly self taught.
Your definitions may vary a bit.
If you fit the criteria please share your unconventional path.
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2 comments
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My first job was in COBOL since I had no programming background and desperately wanted a job after finishing college.
From there I made a few new friends who were actually into coding and I learned PHP and JavaScript by meeting up with them at night after work. Did that for a year and a half or so and then got a freelance job writing JavaScript and Laravel. Did that for a month and a half and burned out (70-80 hour work weeks suck!)
Quit my crappy COBOL job, moved to Japan, got in touch with a recruiter there, thought I would stay but ended up starting a small web dev company with a friend, traveled for a few years, company kind of died, got a job remotely with another company and kept traveling. Still traveling 7 years later. Now doing devops
I started programming on graphing calculators, eventually worked up to freelancing, and from there into a "real" development career
No degree, just a lot of time spent on programming things that I thought were interesting (mostly games when I was younger)