This learning success story will be different from others. There are many reports published here where guys actually passed almost all levels in a short time, solved problems, quickly wrote their projects and successfully found employment. Their path is like the takeoff of a rocket rapidly gaining altitude. It's different for me. The whole path from the first level to the moment when they sent me a job offer for a junior Java programmer took 2 years and two and a half months. There were different reasons: in some periods I worked out a lot, in others I didn’t study at all. At first I wanted to write this report more from a technical point of view, like what advantages I see in javarush.ru as an educational resource (and I am convinced that this is the best resource for learning java and preparing for real work), what I liked especially, etc. d. But on the advice of Sepp, I thought about it and decided that it would be better if it was more biographical. There are quite a lot of descriptions of the advantages of javarush.ru as a course, but I won’t be original if I repeat that the main advantage is a huge amount of practice, which helps you “get better” and “develop your skill.” After a certain period of constant study, you begin to feel and understand programming. Anyone who has mastered any sports skill knows this feeling. This is the sense of distance in boxing, this is the sense of the ball in football, this is the sense of code in programming. This can only be achieved by practice, or rather by a competent combination of the required amount of theory and more than enough practice. And in this course all this is taken into account very competently. So, the story itself. I’ve been working as a Java developer in St. Petersburg for 5 months now, but I’ll start from the beginning. When choosing a profession, I thought about programming, but I was clearly not very diligent at school, and therefore the prospect of studying a huge number of mathematical subjects did not please me at all. I studied at a technical school to become a railway worker, but after the army I chose hotels as a more interesting field. I enrolled as a correspondence student and left my hometown for Sochi. It was 2012, the aroma of the upcoming Olympics was in the air, everyone lived in anticipation. I really liked this atmosphere. I got a job at a very good hotel in Krasnaya Polyana as a luggage carrier and, thanks to my natural diligence, in 7 months I jumped several career steps and became a business tourism manager. The salary is very decent for a 21-year-old guy, still without a higher education, prospects and everything seems cool. But then I began to think about these very prospects, I was good at my profession, but everything had to do with the “undercover game”, intrigue, sneaking around, etc. ... I never liked it, it seemed to me and still seems like “dirty technologies” and I had no desire to study it. And here is a simple calculation - I am the junior in the department, the next step is the head of the department, and this is already (besides the fact that you will have to get there and this is only possible if the current boss leaves and so on) management work. But I never liked being a boss, I didn’t like to manage at all, control, double-check... I wanted to be a tough specialist myself... and this is the ceiling... Of course, you could relax, by the age of 30 - head of a department, by 40 - director of the department and everything seemed to work out, but this is definitely not my path. And it is unknown how my life would have turned out and what all these thoughts would have led to if one warm August evening in 2013 I had not stumbled upon javarush.ru. I surfed the Internet for “games for programmers” (despite the fact that I did not go to study; computers have always attracted me, and not hardware, but programs. In all subjects at a technical school or institute where one way or another we did something on On a computer, a typical lesson went something like this - we go through a new topic, they give a task, I solve it right away, and the teacher and I go and check with others) and I wandered here. The first thing that created a strong positive image was, of course, the articles. They clearly and clearly felt professionalism, that the person who writes this actually has a very good understanding of the topic and writes exactly what is needed and exactly how it is needed! An article about higher education (strongly resonated with my thoughts), an article about the path of a programmer... yes, I read them all almost avidly and began to study. At first, of course, I didn’t plan to change my specialty, leave a position that for my friends from my hometown seemed an unattainable peak and “the guy really came to success.” But gradually I began to notice that I was spending more and more time on tasks, on weekends, after work, I bought a subscription. My path in this regard turned out to be long and not always smooth, the Olympiad, almost immediately followed by a thesis, there was not much time left for classes, but I studied. And so! Key moment. I began to seriously think about changing my profession, in order to become a professional programmer. A small digression - I definitely would not have taken this path without javarush.ru, now I easily read technical literature in English and can easily perceive even the most “dry” information, but then this game form was the decisive factor that opened up the world for me programming. I began to study even harder, bought “Philosophy of Java” and studied actively. By July (considering that there were periods when I couldn’t study at all), I already felt confident in the core and decided that I needed to act. I quit the hotel, packed my things, went to St. Petersburg and got a job as a waiter on a 2x2 schedule so that I could prepare for interviews in my free time. Then I received a test task from Hubert for a real project... I just started to think that I understand something and... Hibernate, Spring, Maven, Git, JSP, MVC... I realized that for real work I still have to cool to work hard. Tutorials, attempts to launch ready-made ones, split into parts, separate database, separate JSP, put together... ugh... that was really cool! I remember my delight when I managed to put an object into the database and successfully receive it). But then another question arose, I irrationally used the available financial resources and in November I was forced to retreat to my hometown, I never got to the interviews (in fact, I only had a core then, but it was worth a try). But this retreat did not knock me out at all, I saw the goal and temporary difficulties did not bother me at all. I returned to work as a waiter in the restaurant from which I left for Sochi 3 years ago. Of course, those around me perceived this as my crushing defeat, but the opinions of others were never particularly significant to me. And this helped me a lot during that period. Work 2x2, all weekends in java, so time passed until April. In April, I had enough money for another push, I quit my job and spent another two months preparing diligently, about 12, sometimes 17 hours a day. But then something like burnout happened. I began to wonder if programming was really interesting to me (a stupid question, of course, if I could spend 17 hours with great pleasure, with breaks to eat and sleep). But the issue needed to be resolved and I decided it radically, instead of leaving for St. Petersburg, for which I was already ready, I went to Crimea to visit an acquaintance and did completely different things, I didn’t do programming in principle, I wanted to check how “mine” it was. In September it became unbearable, I had a terrible urge to program. A month and a half of getting back into shape, sending out resumes and leaving for St. Petersburg. I won’t describe the interviews at length, but in the end I work in the company where I had my first interview. And then I fully experienced what it means to be a programmer... I will never have to work again in my life... ever... I spent almost all my free time programming, and here I can do it INSTEAD of work! They provide me with a place, conditions, throw tasks at me, but my task is only to PROGRAM, and they also pay me money for it! I think this feeling can never be understood by a person who has never worked in a job he truly loves. The probationary period, which was supposed to be 3 months, was closed after three weeks at the request of the team lead and my salary was increased by 50%. I quickly became involved in the project and within two weeks I began to receive quite “combat” tasks along with others. Professional development is an even greater thrill than doing it yourself! There is no need to become a “boss”, no “dirty methods”, you can develop as a cool specialist! Just what I wanted! What I was striving for and didn’t know how to realize. This path was shown to me by javarush.ru. Even in life I have become more relaxed and calm, you are not pressured by work, you don’t have “Mondays”, you do what you enjoy. This is how the story turned out, and this is undoubtedly just the beginning, the path turned out to be long, but I am absolutely confident in the choice. Whether this path is suitable for everyone, I don’t know. But I know for sure that with due effort, it is possible to learn to be a programmer without having a special education! And if you want it, javarush will greatly help you with this.
A huge thank you to Sepp and the entire javarush team for what they do, it changed my life and I think the lives of many other people! This is unrealistically cool! Good luck to you in all your endeavors! Hello! and good luck! And of course, I recommend javarush as the best learning resource for java to all comrades who are interested in programming. Thank you again!
ps Of course, a lot remains “behind the scenes”, if something is interesting, ask questions in the comments, I will be happy to answer.
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