[gregkerzhner]

Really, entering software isn't that bad. I didn't have any coding experience before college, and after my first year (which only entailed two software classes - I took a lot of humanities that year too), I had a job writing code for a research project. Thats a pretty quick path to employment - about 100 hours or less of training total*. I think any motivated person with a decent predisposition for math and logic could pick up the same skills in 6 months of effort, maybe even on nights and weekends.

I am not a super smart person either - I had an average talent and got average grades. However, the asset I do have is that I am OK with sucking and failing at something over and over again. I think this trait is more important than intellect.

Are you the kind of person that can bang their head against a problem for many days not quit? If so, you can be a software developer. Some natural intellect will help, but perseverance is likely more important. In fact, maybe being somewhat unintelligent is even better since you will be used to not succeeding at everything so easily.

*Caveat - it took me about 7 additional years to actually become good at writing code.

[btheshoe]

To provide more perspective - I went from not really coding to an internship offer from a big tech company in about 12 months, and I didn't even work particularly hard. I still have no idea how to code though