How To Live The New American Dream
compylr.com
compylr.com
The sidebar says "Codecademy can teach you the skills you need to get a solid, well-paying technical job."
The article says "And after 800 hours of hard work, Liz has just been hired full-time as an Administrative Coordinator at the University of Washington, where the skills she honed in Codecademy will be central to her success."
What?
Nothing against dear Liz, but an Administrative Coordinator position probably has very little programming involved. Guessing by the title, it sure doesn't sound like her 800 hours of hard work landed her a "well-paying technical job." It sounds like she's a middle-aged office clerk with a pockmarked resume.
Oh, and Liz: please stop applying to companies who have rejected you "hundreds of times before." You're wasting their time and yours.
However, I don't think they (or anyone) would argue that coding instruction is sufficient to revive the possibly long-gone "American Dream". It's a small piece of the puzzle.
The real problem is that while there's infinite demand for solving problems and making the world better, most people don't get jobs that provide access to that infinite demand. Those jobs only exist if you have savings to go off on your own. Otherwise, you're a subordinate supporting someone else's career, and demand for subordinate labor is going toward zero, due to technology. It's so low that if you're over 40, you're probably priced out of those kinds of jobs unless you're an executive.
Most people need to work in those subordinate jobs (to get savings and credibility) before they can create their own jobs, but those subordinate jobs are now being eaten by machines, which are just much better at reliable, cheap subordination than any human.
The gap between what the world needs (problem solving) and what people can get steady income to do (subordinate labor) has reached an unacceptable level, and it's now tearing the economy apart and shutting what used to be a bidirectionally reliable labor market down.
Providing easy access to coding resources is an admirable step in the right direction, but this is a huge problem and it's not going to be solved by one website. Given that universities with trillions of dollars (as a set) in endowments have failed to solve it, I think that this problem is going to be around for a while.
This would have made, perhaps, a decent article about the benefits of sticking to it and persevering in teaching yourself stuff, but the over-emphasis on Codecademy takes away from it.
I just got my first technical job (website integration for an online marketing network) in the last month, previously being in general office administration for 10 years. I've always been technically minded but had never pursued it as anything other than a hobby (running home servers, being family tech support etc...).
While I've found Codecademy incredibly frustrating at times (lack of response to feedback and glitchy lessons mainly), it was definitely worth using. I also bought some domains and built a couple of Wordpress sites to try and showcase my skills and interests.
I'd spent all of 2012 firing off CV's to try and get into an entry-level IT support role (which I know I could do) and didn't get a single interview. This year I managed to get in touch with a recruiter via a friend in the ad display industry and pretty soon afterwards I was put forward for an interview. That I could demonstrate my websites and willingness to learn outside of work using online courses on my CV was a definite factor.
An HTML test was a requirement in the interview, and having no idea how complex it might be, I ran through Codecademy's lessons and covered as much as I could to refresh my knowledge. This was a huge help and I did fine on the test.
I was offered the job the same day and one month in I'm loving it. I'm in a fantastic place with a great environment and working with other technically-minded people.
I think there's real value in many of these online courses and education sites (I have also played around with RubyMonk and Learn python the hard way), especially for someone like me who went straight into work rather than Uni.
"work as hard as you possibly can, and you will be able to raise a family"
That is an enormous come down.
Meanwhile in europe they eat chocolate for breakfast and sleep in the afternoon.
"Want a family in addition to work demands? Get ready to work as hard as you possibly can."
Reminds me of the piano player at Nordstrom's who worked 27 years and put his kids through college. Not something most of us would want to do, but definitely the American Dream by a lot of definitions.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/01/27/2452005/nordstrom-p...
The American dream must surely be an exceptional one, to justify some exceptional hardships?
Corporate employment is not the American Dream. It's a sign that the "Dream" is over.
The good news is that 95% of historical progress comes from the most talented people (the "cognitive 1%", that Jefferson called the "natural aristocrats") overthrowing the entrenched elite. This time around, that's us. We are the ones who'll come up with what replaces VC-istan.
VC-istan isn't that terrible. Neither was George III. (No, I'm not suggesting we use violence as was done in 1775-83. Electoral systems and markets are designed to allow nonviolent overthrow. I'm suggesting we outperform them on the market regarding the use of talent.)
The bad news is that when the rising elite wins, they have an onerous tendency to become hypocritical (see: American slavery from 1776-1865, company towns and Pinkertons from 1866-1939, the failure of Fordist paternalism beginning in the late '70s, and the failure of VC-istan to provide something better than regular old Corporate America circa now). We need to agree not to do that. Historical cycles run faster now and if whatever we build sucks as much as what we replace, then we'll see it torn down within our lifetimes.
It's also not the "American Dream" anymore because whatever we are is trans-national.
This is a great point. Most companies dont use bleeding edge tech nor need complicated algos. Instead they use run of the mill technologies and need solid, dependable workers that deliver value and will stick around for more than 6-12. months.
If you're upset about a positive story because you simply don't like the company yourself, that seems like a personal problem. Not everything is a conspiracy.
It gives people with even the remotest inkling of an interest in programming the opportunity to explore that interest in a hassle-free environment (much like those of who grew up in the 80's had with Speccies and C64's) and instant positive feedback is a great thing.
If however you think completing codeacademy courses makes you fit to program for a living you are dangerously (and expensively) insane.
Knowledge of a particular programming language in-depth is a tiny part of what makes you a competent programmer.
In fact once you have learnt one or two languages you can learn another pretty quickly (though mastery of the idioms can take a while).
However to me a "coder" and a programmer (software engineer/developer) are completely different beasts.
Personally I'm waiting for surgeonacademy always fancied having a go at a transplant and they do seem to spend a lot of time on the golf course!.
First, anyone can learn almost all the skills he need from online (especially with the free online open course programes provided by reputable universities). Then she can prove her capability by writing a small software and showing it to potential employers.
So if you like being a software developer, there is very little excuse not being a successful one. You can say that living the American dream is almost guaranteed.
Anyway, although it's pretty cliche, everyone's a beginner at some point. What you did before you got your first "real" programming job tends to matter a lot less than what you do subsequently.