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Don’t Learn To Code. Learn A Trade Instead.
I don’t believe becoming a software engineer is the future anymore. Unless you literally can’t imagine yourself doing anything else…
It turns out spending a month with the guys who are refurbishing your place teaches you just as much about career choices and consequences as it does about tiling, flooring and insulating walls. But I can’t say it all came as a big surprise. While much of the world looked at us — and lots of folks still do — software engineers with envy, thinking we’re the “lucky bastards” who struck oil, for a good while now I suspected many of the jobs that countless parents discourage their kids from taking on, pay just as well, if not better. I now have proof.
In the early 2000s, we had a saying in Romania: “you throw a rock in the air, and it’s bound to hit a university graduate on the head as it falls”. Everyone but yours truly went to university. My classmates were already discussing half-way through high school where everyone would like to go, what courses they’d like to take. I said, I’m going to study in the UK. I was clearly lying, but it sounded fancy, and special, and they believed me. I think. In all honesty, though, I had no clue what the next step would be for me. My parents couldn’t afford to send me to university, and I…
