Hi all,
I am looking to get some recommendations for a part-time programming course:
I'm between 2 at the moment, one from NCIRL and one with IBAT. The NCIRL sounds like the more advanced of the 2 with a price tag to match.
My question is: in reality, how much weight is put on a qualification?
My overall intention is to work in the software development arena - specializing in Ruby on Rails and Python. The courses in question will teach me MySQL, Java etc - and I feel that a bit of paper backing me up will do no harm to my chances of landing a good gig.
Any thoughts? (and thanks for your help)
Additional Info:
This thread is the most informative thing I've found on the state of programming in Ireland so far.
Further information to the above post:
Basically, I'm looking for a career change (currently I'm corporate). I seem to be getting mixed signals on the state of the jobs market in programming right now. Some friends of mine would almost have you think I could just learn Ruby on Rails / Python combined with the limited knowledge of other languages I have now and walk into a job.
Now this thread has me thinking I'll have to spend the next number of years and a chunk of cash getting a masters; all the while building up my portfolio of work, then get grilled by ultra-tech-nerds in order to get something half decent.
Or just do tutorials and a portfolio in my own time and get a well remunerated position. Which is it?
Let me just say that I don't expect to do a course (probably this one: w w w ncirl .ie/Courses/Course-Details/course/Higher-Diploma-in-Science-in-Web-Technologies-HDSWTECH1) and walk into a €100k job - so would any of you think it reasonable to do such a course, combined with a reasonable portfolio of work and get a mid-developer role without too much tech-torture.
Just FYI, I have an interest in programming and have experience (not much) with C, Java, Wordpress and tweaking Javascript.
Thank you for any guideance you can provide.