I am 35 years old and have been in a totally unrelated career for the last 13 years. I have always loved tech, and computers. And in hindsight, feel I should have continued school in this area. But alas I did not, and now I wonder if it is too late to realistically have this career change sometime in the future.
I am not even a programmer now, and there is no way I could afford going back to school for a CS, or any type of degree. But I do have the free schools and information available on the internet. I have started at the beginning with web development in one of the free online schools. And I enjoy it. I know I have a long way to go... I know that the chance of me developing the next twitter or facebook is remote. But There is no chance if I don't try to learn about it.
Realistically, I am not planning on quitting my day-job....
But my fantasy is, if I do stick with this, and learn about web development, Python, Ruby, PHP, etc etc in my free time. Maybe it could happen. Maybe a door or two would open for me. Maybe I would create an app, or be part of one's creation. If this hobby becomes more than a hobby, and I crate web pages, web apps, and contribute to the community... Maybe I would be confident in my skills to apply to some tech jobs. Or do some freelance work. And don't get me wrong, I really feel like I missed my calling. Now 15 years later with a family I am not in the position to quit this job and go to school. And of course the money issue, I would probably be able to make more than I make now if this happened. But that's not why I am interested.
What do you guys think? Is this possible or is this a pipe dream? Should I just play more Halo and quit doing exercises on the web?
I am not even a programmer now, and there is no way I could afford going back to school for a CS, or any type of degree. But I do have the free schools and information available on the internet. I have started at the beginning with web development in one of the free online schools. And I enjoy it. I know I have a long way to go... I know that the chance of me developing the next twitter or facebook is remote. But There is no chance if I don't try to learn about it.
Realistically, I am not planning on quitting my day-job....
But my fantasy is, if I do stick with this, and learn about web development, Python, Ruby, PHP, etc etc in my free time. Maybe it could happen. Maybe a door or two would open for me. Maybe I would create an app, or be part of one's creation. If this hobby becomes more than a hobby, and I crate web pages, web apps, and contribute to the community... Maybe I would be confident in my skills to apply to some tech jobs. Or do some freelance work. And don't get me wrong, I really feel like I missed my calling. Now 15 years later with a family I am not in the position to quit this job and go to school. And of course the money issue, I would probably be able to make more than I make now if this happened. But that's not why I am interested.
What do you guys think? Is this possible or is this a pipe dream? Should I just play more Halo and quit doing exercises on the web?