Hi all! Now it’s my turn to write my own story on this resource, which once inspired me and gave me the path to IT. This is actually my very first article in my life, so it will all be in my own words and not necessarily in a nutshell, so let’s get closer to the point. How it all began It all started with the fact that I was studying to become a military pilot in one of the CIS countries. How this happened and why I chose this profession in the first place - I can tell you in the comments if anyone is interested. I once again came home to the capital and met with classmates, which I did every time upon arrival, since I rarely came due to my work. It was the end of 2014, I was in my 3rd year and, as usual, we shared news, plans and prospects in life. After hearing the prospects from me, two guys began to tell me that this was “ well, so-so, to be honest ” (meaning the prospects while I’m in the army) and began to encourage me to go into programming. Well, of course, I didn’t understand how this was better given the fact that ideally I would be a pilot on some Airbus or Boeing, fly around the world and get a ton of money, and I didn’t consider myself smart enough for that. On my next visit, a year later, the situation repeated itself, only the guys had already begun to work full-time, and not just study, but I remained unconvinced. And here is the long-awaited graduation from my bursitis. When I entered, I knew that I would study for a little more than 4 calendar years at the university, but as always happens in our countries, everything went you know how and where. As a result, I studied for 5.5 years, graduated and went to serve on the opposite side of the country, and now I am an officer, a fighter pilot (although I wanted to fly transport planes, but they moved me). After graduation, each officer is required to sign a contract for 5 years, which, as it turned out later, is almost impossible to break from the word “completely”. By the time I graduated, everything had become completely different from how it was when I entered - the salaries were not the same, the features of the service were not the same, but I told myself that I would continue to move towards my goal and become a civilian pilot on some serious airlines. Moment of decision So I served for several months, looked at what awaited me, and after another meeting with the same classmates, I still realized that it was worth at least starting to try something in programming, since the more I learned how I could become a civilian pilot - the more I realized how insignificant my chances were (imagine, a person who is capable of performing complex aerobatics at low altitudes is not needed in civil aviation). And the more I was in the service, the more I realized that I was becoming dumber every day, and in general I didn’t want to wipe my pants here while people were achieving something in life. In the end, I asked those classmates where I should start. They recommended several options, but I chose Javarush as the main one, since it was the most understandable. When I first tried it, at that time, early 2018, there was still some kind of crooked English-language, but free version of Javarush. Roughly speaking, I didn’t know the language, I was familiar with computers at a minimum level of MS Office and could launch the game from a torrent. I couldn't even reinstall Windows myself. I probably went through levels 5-6 without even understanding what I was doing and what it was all for. The links to the materials contained only canvases of English-language documentation and many, many words that were incomprehensible even in our language. So I gave up on this business, there was also enough work in the service, and when I had time, I learned at least some language. Then in September 2018, there was an order of magnitude more time and Javarush sent an email with a discount on an annual subscription, only $100 for the year. Since I had time and money, I decided to buy it. The learning process Since I had previously tried to poke something in the English version, the second time in Russian, and even slightly modified, it became at least somehow clear what was happening. Having reached some article at one of the first levels about useful literature for beginners, I looked for the book Head First Java 2nd Edition. Reviews about it were mostly positive and there was a full translation. I read it for more than a month, reaching the 12th chapter out of 17, since then there was information that was clearly not relevant to our realities. I had to very often and slowly re-read the same thing 3 times, since even in Russian it was difficult to understand the essence due to the fact that there were many unfamiliar words, and the brain had not yet been rebuilt to understand everything. But it paid off! Further, when passing JR, I already did everything absolutely consciously, and not as before at random. Because of my perfectionism, I didn’t miss a single task and didn’t move on until everything was done. Looking ahead, I’ll say that I still missed 2 tasks out of all of them, one at level 11 and the other somewhere further, and that this is a so-so approach if you are limited in time. It happened that I did one task at the end of level 20 for 3 weeks, although it wasn’t really needed, purely for brain training. But this didn’t bother me much, since I had another 4.5 years to serve until the end of the contract. As a result, slowly and with breaks for service, I completed JR entirely in a year and a month. It happened that I spent 30-40 hours a week, or even more, studying, and sometimes I spent only 10-20 hours in a month, depending on the service. But I set aside time for myself to rest in order to take my mind off everything. After completing JR, a reasonable question arose: “What’s next?” since I understood that having gone through the entire JR, you are clearly not the one that some company is ready to hire, especially since I continued to serve and I did not see any options to somehow start working. I immediately went with this question, so to speak, “to the heroes of the occasion” - those who persuaded me to start all this. At that stage, I already understood at least something about programming and was able to perceive the information that they got into Salesforce from the very beginning - a really very promising direction in the CIS countries and there was an unplowed field of work there. They sent me to Trailhead , a free English-language resource for learning Salesforce. If anyone is interested in what this is all about and what Java has to do with it, I’ll explain in the comments, but for now I’m just telling you my path. There I again faced the same difficulties as the English language, but I didn’t really learn it enough to even read it without a translator, a lot of new material that I had never seen before, and tasks taken out of context that I didn’t have much intelligence in doing. necessary, but forgotten almost instantly. So I studied for a little over a month and somehow lost interest and decided to study the language more. Then, a few months later, after another conversation with a classmate, he advised me to improve the front-end and work with databases. One book I recommended: Understanding SQL by Martin Gruber . I recommend reading it, these days everyone needs it just like Javascript. After reading it (about 2 months) I went to practice on sql-ex.ruwhere I solved about 130 entry-level SQL tasks, which probably took me another 2-3 months. It is worth noting that during this period of time I decided to resign from the army, but it turned out that I could only deregister as a pilot and continue to serve in a non-flying specialty, but at the expense of a salary that was 1.5 times more, I had many times more free time and the opportunity to manage it, which I don’t regret at all. Then a free 5-day HTML marathon from GoIT happened, where I finally more or less worked with HTML/CSS and, as a result, created my resume. Well, then I started studying the Javascript that was sent to me at learn.javascript.ru (a very good resource, I recommend it). Although I studied it rather only at a theoretical level, it also bore fruit. At least I stopped being afraid of him and understood how to try to work with this beast. And as soon as I got to studying DOM, another vacation happened where I once again met with one of those classmates who suggested that I try to take a short course on Salesforce. He and his colleague compiled this course and gave us online lectures. The course was like a trial for a small circle of people. And this time it has already fired! I knew English somehow, I knew HTML/CSS, SQL and Javascript at a basic level, and I had a clear algorithm of actions in my hands of what to study and why, with deadlines, etc. which pushed me more to work and disciplined me. For a minute, it was December 2020, the lockdowns had already passed and died down, but another lockdown was approaching. By that time, I had not written anything in Java for a year and had forgotten it quite a bit, so much so that I already doubted that I fully remembered the syntax. But Salesforce has its own separate language for the back-end, called Apex (it’s like Java, but stripped down 3 times with a very similar syntax). The course lasted 2.5 months, taking into account holidays, as a result of which I completed all the main topics and got to the point of completing super badges. Our studies were carried out in such a way that we were given assignments from Trailhead and read 2 lectures a week online. Of course, no one had time to give, much less check, homework. Well, then I sat and slowly passed super badges on the topics that we studied. First interview in my life And at the beginning of March 2021, while continuing to make superbadges, I decided to go through the DOU, a job search site for IT specialists (I strongly recommend monitoring the situation on the IT labor market on it), and see what’s happening there now. As a result, I came across that the position was not entirely clear, but it was written as Salesforce Developer, and you can do it without work experience and remotely. Understanding full well that I was kind of too young for this, and absolutely not understanding how I would combine the service and the first job in my life as a programmer, and even remotely. In general, out of curiosity, I submitted my resume and, surprisingly, they contacted me and offered me an interview. I decided that a free attempt to get an interview would not be superfluous, so I agreed. It is worth noting that by that time there had already been a rush in the market and companies had long begun to experience a shortage of personnel, so then, and throughout 2021, the market had very comfortable conditions for finding a first job and increasing your rate. This is why companies are recruiting almost everyone in a row (this is me conditionally, of course). First job By mid-March 2021, I was off work for a month due to family circumstances, and by mid-April, an acquaintance on LinkedIn sent me a link to a free online internship from one company. Well, out of curiosity, I submitted an application and decided to look through DOU once again , and found a couple more similar courses for which I also applied. One of these companies turned out to be the fastest and responded within a couple of days, offering to start the course next week. The course was completely free and online, and they also promised to issue a “scholarship” upon successful completion of the course. Apparently the stars aligned again, so this company simply paid for us to take online courses from Foxminded, which I myself was thinking about taking back when I was studying at Javarush, but somehow it didn’t come to that, although I already had plans to take their course on Salesforce. The feelings from completing that course were a little ambiguous, but the result was definitely there. In the 2 months that the company gave us to complete the course, I completed 90 percent of it, at the end of which there was only a half-hour interview with the technical lead. The questions were simple, mostly general, since he had the code I had written in front of me and which he had previously analyzed in theory. As a result - the first offer in my life! By the end of the internship, I was no longer worried about “do I have enough knowledge to be hired?”, since the company made it clear that we generally have enough knowledge for them, but the questions were “how will I work for them, even if remotely, but serving in parallel in the army with all the ensuing nuances?” remained open. Fortunately, the company made all concessions and hired him. And now I have already managed to get my first salary as a programmer while simultaneously managing to serve in the army. I am incredibly glad that one day I was convinced that everything is possible and that it is worth it. So I hope that my story will inspire you at least a little and go for it... Tips • the most important thing is to understand why you are learning programming. Understanding and reminding yourself about the need to achieve a goal is the best motivator; • Self-discipline is also very important. If the choice is “to rest or work out one more time,” then don’t even think, but do it, even when your colleagues/friends/some other people are literally drinking next to you. But still, you shouldn’t completely give up rest. Over a long distance, you can become so burnt out that you don’t want to continue. So you also need to rest, but in moderation; • you should not allow long breaks in studying, since then it takes a lot of time to remember what you actually studied; • it is important to set intermediate goals and deadlines, this helps not to let everything take its course, which greatly extends the process, which can be critical if you have limited deadlines or need to reach a certain level as quickly as possible (I mostly did not do this due to lack of “roasted rooster”, but when I did it, I was more effective and disciplined); • during the learning process, take an active part in commenting on EVERY lecture and task. This way the brain delves into the essence even more and it helps to find those who are walking + - next to you that can help you get help from someone or help someone else yourself in order to once again remember what was forgotten, or even pump up even more; • register on such resources as LinkedIn and DOU and actively look for people who can help with something, give advice on any issue. Everyone in IT is friendly and ready to help because they were just like you. Don’t be shy about making new acquaintances, it really helps; • approach learning correctly in the sense that if you need it faster, then learn one way, and if it’s like me, then another. If you don’t plan to go exactly in the direction of Java EE or similar, then I think 20 levels will be enough, and then you should do what you plan to do directly; • in any case know or learn English. Without it, there are chances, but less, and then career growth will be very relative; • don’t forget to write your success story after receiving the first offer!!!
And here is the long-awaited graduation from my bursitis. When I entered, I knew that I would study for a little more than 4 calendar years at the university, but as always happens in our countries, everything went you know how and where. As a result, I studied for 5.5 years, graduated and went to serve on the opposite side of the country, and now I am an officer, a fighter pilot (although I wanted to fly transport planes, but they moved me). After graduation, each officer is required to sign a contract for 5 years, which, as it turned out later, is almost impossible to break from the word “completely”. By the time I graduated, everything had become completely different from how it was when I entered - the salaries were not the same, the features of the service were not the same, but I told myself that I would continue to move towards my goal and become a civilian pilot on some serious airlines. Moment of decision So I served for several months, looked at what awaited me, and after another meeting with the same classmates, I still realized that it was worth at least starting to try something in programming, since the more I learned how I could become a civilian pilot - the more I realized how insignificant my chances were (imagine, a person who is capable of performing complex aerobatics at low altitudes is not needed in civil aviation). And the more I was in the service, the more I realized that I was becoming dumber every day, and in general I didn’t want to wipe my pants here while people were achieving something in life. In the end, I asked those classmates where I should start. They recommended several options, but I chose Javarush as the main one, since it was the most understandable. When I first tried it, at that time, early 2018, there was still some kind of crooked English-language, but free version of Javarush. Roughly speaking, I didn’t know the language, I was familiar with computers at a minimum level of MS Office and could launch the game from a torrent. I couldn't even reinstall Windows myself. I probably went through levels 5-6 without even understanding what I was doing and what it was all for. The links to the materials contained only canvases of English-language documentation and many, many words that were incomprehensible even in our language. So I gave up on this business, there was also enough work in the service, and when I had time, I learned at least some language. Then in September 2018, there was an order of magnitude more time and Javarush sent an email with a discount on an annual subscription, only $100 for the year. Since I had time and money, I decided to buy it. The learning process Since I had previously tried to poke something in the English version, the second time in Russian, and even slightly modified, it became at least somehow clear what was happening. Having reached some article at one of the first levels about useful literature for beginners, I looked for the book Head First Java 2nd Edition. Reviews about it were mostly positive and there was a full translation. I read it for more than a month, reaching the 12th chapter out of 17, since then there was information that was clearly not relevant to our realities. I had to very often and slowly re-read the same thing 3 times, since even in Russian it was difficult to understand the essence due to the fact that there were many unfamiliar words, and the brain had not yet been rebuilt to understand everything. But it paid off! Further, when passing JR, I already did everything absolutely consciously, and not as before at random. Because of my perfectionism, I didn’t miss a single task and didn’t move on until everything was done. Looking ahead, I’ll say that I still missed 2 tasks out of all of them, one at level 11 and the other somewhere further, and that this is a so-so approach if you are limited in time. It happened that I did one task at the end of level 20 for 3 weeks, although it wasn’t really needed, purely for brain training. But this didn’t bother me much, since I had another 4.5 years to serve until the end of the contract. As a result, slowly and with breaks for service, I completed JR entirely in a year and a month. It happened that I spent 30-40 hours a week, or even more, studying, and sometimes I spent only 10-20 hours in a month, depending on the service. But I set aside time for myself to rest in order to take my mind off everything. After completing JR, a reasonable question arose: “What’s next?” since I understood that having gone through the entire JR, you are clearly not the one that some company is ready to hire, especially since I continued to serve and I did not see any options to somehow start working. I immediately went with this question, so to speak, “to the heroes of the occasion” - those who persuaded me to start all this. At that stage, I already understood at least something about programming and was able to perceive the information that they got into Salesforce from the very beginning - a really very promising direction in the CIS countries and there was an unplowed field of work there. They sent me to Trailhead , a free English-language resource for learning Salesforce. If anyone is interested in what this is all about and what Java has to do with it, I’ll explain in the comments, but for now I’m just telling you my path. There I again faced the same difficulties as the English language, but I didn’t really learn it enough to even read it without a translator, a lot of new material that I had never seen before, and tasks taken out of context that I didn’t have much intelligence in doing. necessary, but forgotten almost instantly. So I studied for a little over a month and somehow lost interest and decided to study the language more. Then, a few months later, after another conversation with a classmate, he advised me to improve the front-end and work with databases. One book I recommended: Understanding SQL by Martin Gruber . I recommend reading it, these days everyone needs it just like Javascript. After reading it (about 2 months) I went to practice on sql-ex.ruwhere I solved about 130 entry-level SQL tasks, which probably took me another 2-3 months. It is worth noting that during this period of time I decided to resign from the army, but it turned out that I could only deregister as a pilot and continue to serve in a non-flying specialty, but at the expense of a salary that was 1.5 times more, I had many times more free time and the opportunity to manage it, which I don’t regret at all. Then a free 5-day HTML marathon from GoIT happened, where I finally more or less worked with HTML/CSS and, as a result, created my resume. Well, then I started studying the Javascript that was sent to me at learn.javascript.ru (a very good resource, I recommend it). Although I studied it rather only at a theoretical level, it also bore fruit. At least I stopped being afraid of him and understood how to try to work with this beast. And as soon as I got to studying DOM, another vacation happened where I once again met with one of those classmates who suggested that I try to take a short course on Salesforce. He and his colleague compiled this course and gave us online lectures. The course was like a trial for a small circle of people. And this time it has already fired! I knew English somehow, I knew HTML/CSS, SQL and Javascript at a basic level, and I had a clear algorithm of actions in my hands of what to study and why, with deadlines, etc. which pushed me more to work and disciplined me. For a minute, it was December 2020, the lockdowns had already passed and died down, but another lockdown was approaching. By that time, I had not written anything in Java for a year and had forgotten it quite a bit, so much so that I already doubted that I fully remembered the syntax. But Salesforce has its own separate language for the back-end, called Apex (it’s like Java, but stripped down 3 times with a very similar syntax). The course lasted 2.5 months, taking into account holidays, as a result of which I completed all the main topics and got to the point of completing super badges. Our studies were carried out in such a way that we were given assignments from Trailhead and read 2 lectures a week online. Of course, no one had time to give, much less check, homework. Well, then I sat and slowly passed super badges on the topics that we studied. First interview in my life And at the beginning of March 2021, while continuing to make superbadges, I decided to go through the DOU, a job search site for IT specialists (I strongly recommend monitoring the situation on the IT labor market on it), and see what’s happening there now. As a result, I came across that the position was not entirely clear, but it was written as Salesforce Developer, and you can do it without work experience and remotely. Understanding full well that I was kind of too young for this, and absolutely not understanding how I would combine the service and the first job in my life as a programmer, and even remotely. In general, out of curiosity, I submitted my resume and, surprisingly, they contacted me and offered me an interview. I decided that a free attempt to get an interview would not be superfluous, so I agreed. It is worth noting that by that time there had already been a rush in the market and companies had long begun to experience a shortage of personnel, so then, and throughout 2021, the market had very comfortable conditions for finding a first job and increasing your rate. This is why companies are recruiting almost everyone in a row (this is me conditionally, of course). First job By mid-March 2021, I was off work for a month due to family circumstances, and by mid-April, an acquaintance on LinkedIn sent me a link to a free online internship from one company. Well, out of curiosity, I submitted an application and decided to look through DOU once again , and found a couple more similar courses for which I also applied. One of these companies turned out to be the fastest and responded within a couple of days, offering to start the course next week. The course was completely free and online, and they also promised to issue a “scholarship” upon successful completion of the course. Apparently the stars aligned again, so this company simply paid for us to take online courses from Foxminded, which I myself was thinking about taking back when I was studying at Javarush, but somehow it didn’t come to that, although I already had plans to take their course on Salesforce. The feelings from completing that course were a little ambiguous, but the result was definitely there. In the 2 months that the company gave us to complete the course, I completed 90 percent of it, at the end of which there was only a half-hour interview with the technical lead. The questions were simple, mostly general, since he had the code I had written in front of me and which he had previously analyzed in theory. As a result - the first offer in my life! By the end of the internship, I was no longer worried about “do I have enough knowledge to be hired?”, since the company made it clear that we generally have enough knowledge for them, but the questions were “how will I work for them, even if remotely, but serving in parallel in the army with all the ensuing nuances?” remained open. Fortunately, the company made all concessions and hired him. And now I have already managed to get my first salary as a programmer while simultaneously managing to serve in the army. I am incredibly glad that one day I was convinced that everything is possible and that it is worth it. So I hope that my story will inspire you at least a little and go for it... Tips • the most important thing is to understand why you are learning programming. Understanding and reminding yourself about the need to achieve a goal is the best motivator; • Self-discipline is also very important. If the choice is “to rest or work out one more time,” then don’t even think, but do it, even when your colleagues/friends/some other people are literally drinking next to you. But still, you shouldn’t completely give up rest. Over a long distance, you can become so burnt out that you don’t want to continue. So you also need to rest, but in moderation; • you should not allow long breaks in studying, since then it takes a lot of time to remember what you actually studied; • it is important to set intermediate goals and deadlines, this helps not to let everything take its course, which greatly extends the process, which can be critical if you have limited deadlines or need to reach a certain level as quickly as possible (I mostly did not do this due to lack of “roasted rooster”, but when I did it, I was more effective and disciplined); • during the learning process, take an active part in commenting on EVERY lecture and task. This way the brain delves into the essence even more and it helps to find those who are walking + - next to you that can help you get help from someone or help someone else yourself in order to once again remember what was forgotten, or even pump up even more; • register on such resources as LinkedIn and DOU and actively look for people who can help with something, give advice on any issue. Everyone in IT is friendly and ready to help because they were just like you. Don’t be shy about making new acquaintances, it really helps; • approach learning correctly in the sense that if you need it faster, then learn one way, and if it’s like me, then another. If you don’t plan to go exactly in the direction of Java EE or similar, then I think 20 levels will be enough, and then you should do what you plan to do directly; • in any case know or learn English. Without it, there are chances, but less, and then career growth will be very relative; • don’t forget to write your success story after receiving the first offer!!!
