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Mature study and retraining

Talk to other Mumsnetters who are considering a career change or are mature students.

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to retrain as a web developer at 50?

160 replies

beastlyslumber · 06/04/2022 09:28

Inspired by another thread in which there's lots of discussion about how in-demand developers are at the moment, I started doing a little research to see if it's the sort of thing I might be interested in, and I am! But I'm 50, have worked in education for most of my career and I'm worried about how long the training might take and what my prospects might be as an older female in this field. Can anyone advise?

OP posts:
TottersBlankly · 13/02/2023 14:46

StarGrinFlowers

camelCase · 27/02/2023 15:36

Just bumping this thread back up as I'm another who is more mature (almost 40) and looking into tech as a career and just thought I'd add my opinion/exprience and maybe a bit of a warning.

I did a quick search for courses last summer and came across an IT career switch company who guarantee a job or your money back, seemed too good to be true but I signed up, trusting it was reliable. First of all if you're thinking of doing this particular course, save yourself A LOT of money and just get yourself a pro account on Codecademy. I was sold what I thought was a course from the company themselves...you get the absolute basics in HTML,CSS,Javascript and Python in their phase 1. Then you move on to phase 2 which consists of a list of courses to complete on Codecademy.

Codecademy is a great resource but a fair bit is out dated and they don't seem to respond to anyone on their forums. I happily went through the modules and thought hey I can do this and then I get to the course on React. Then I thought I was the stupidest person alive and clearly could not do it. It was only when I got stuck on one particular part (the jammin app if anyone else has done this) and I spent almost a week trying to figure out why it wasn't working. I had an idea of why it wasn't working but I had learned in earlier lessons that if you add extra parts to the code it won't accept it and there wasn't anything in the steps to indicate this one bit (if I remember correctly the missing thing was a simple onClick). After much frustration I ended up watching the walk-through video to get the solution...except it wasn't in the video, my code was exactly the same as in the video(I watched it through a number of times), I checked the forums and lo and behold page after page of people with the same issue. They had failed to put that one bit in the instructions or the solution video, it was other students who figured it out, no one from Codecademy intervened.

I kept going, the thing that really annoyed me was one particular lesson where it stated the lesson was based on an older version and that the code would not work...so the lesson was pretty pointless. Another fun thing was when I had literally weeks of my homepage on their site not directing me to the part of the course I was on (and it was a pain to get to it), it took them so long to fix it(not a huge issue but just an example of the lack of/slow response from them).
So being super frustrated with the course I decided to look elsewhere (especially as the way some of it is written is not very beginner friendly) and I found a great course on Udemy;

https://www.udemy.com/course/the-complete-web-development-bootcamp/

Angela explains things in such a relatable way, the combination of little animations, images, comparing code to real life situations makes it a lot easier for a newbie like myself to really grasp it. The upsetting part is I'm still having to pay over £200 a month to the career switch company when I could have either just bought a pro account on Codecademy for £300 for the year, or bought the Udemy course for £12.99. I'm doing both of them now, Codecademy first and then going over it again on Udemy, e.g I've finished React on Codecademy and I'm using the Udemy course just to really get it into my brain/fully understand it(honestly the way some of the lessons are written on Codecademy is awful).

TL;DR - Be careful signing up to things and check who is providing the actual lessons, you might save yourself hundreds/thousands going direct to the source. Also I highly recommend the complete web development bootcamp on Udemy to get started.

BoredBetsy · 27/02/2023 15:49

@beastlyslumber hey op. I'd be really interested in knowing if you kept this up.

BlastedPimples · 27/02/2023 15:55

Following.

beastlyslumber · 27/02/2023 17:38

BoredBetsy · 27/02/2023 15:49

@beastlyslumber hey op. I'd be really interested in knowing if you kept this up.

Hello! No, I got made redundant from my job and have taken some time out to pursue my creative work. I'm not sure I've got the energy to take up a new career at all now!

OP posts:
BoredBetsy · 27/02/2023 18:26

@beastlyslumber thanks for replying. Good for you.
It's a huge step to change careers at a later stage in life. Not because it's not doable but due to ageism.
I question myself on whether to do some extra qualifications or not because of this.
Good luck with your creative work.

beastlyslumber · 27/02/2023 18:37

Thank you! I think for me it's partly to do with menopause and generally just needing a break. I agree there is ageism in a lot of industries as well. However, I think now is a good time to be looking for different work - there are so many jobs around and experience does count for a lot. Maybe I'm just an eternal optimist, though! Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

OP posts:
TottersBlankly · 24/04/2023 07:42

Maybe not relevant to you, @beastlyslumber - but it would be useful to hear how ChatGPT is likely to affect web-developing as a career - if anyone has an informed opinion?

Greenfairydust · 24/04/2023 08:40

This is so interesting!

I am 52 and I have managed websites as I work in marketing: written content, added images, dealt with commissioning web agencies/developers.

I did a basic HTML courses when I trained and I have a multimedia design qualification (HNC).

But I am also wondering whether moving to more technical aspects (coding/web development) might be a good thing.

Will look at the bootcamp too!

MariaSony98 · 28/04/2023 14:55

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