[coderaptor]

Pick a project you’re passionate about and find a technology you’re curious to learn. Then figure out how to make it happen. You can chart your own course (and from what I’ve seen from most bootcamp project results during interviews, you probably should).

I’m a self-taught dropout - I learned how to do this to the detriment of other endeavors including my assigned coursework (which happened to be for another degree).

It sounds like you’re not doing this because you’re driven to. That’s fine, but you’ll probably struggle doing it on your own. I’m guessing those self-taught folks were just more inclined to the field.

[secretsatan]

I was a software developer before, but in an obscure language and I was taught on the job, no CS degree, and there are plenty of gaps in my knowledge.

I had a little side project going, I didn't want to spend money on the software normally used and started figuring out how to write my own, kept me out of trouble in the evenings, but then I got made redundant. I'd pretty much lost all interest in my career field, and getting a new job in the same field would have meant moving to another country. I had enough.

So I just threw myself into learning and developing software that I could publish, tried to make money, unfortunately that did not work out, but I did publish apps, and even got some fans of it, but it wasn't paying the bills. However a published pretty complex app is a good referral when applying for jobs. I eventually landed a job doing something much more up to date and interesting,

I still kept a new passion for just writing random apps on the side, wrote one to interface with software my employer makes to do something I was interested in then started seeing it could be really useful to them, and started pushing it to them, now I work on that full time with a team.

[whywhywhywhy]

> Pick a project you’re passionate about and find a technology you’re curious to learn

This is the absolute best way to learn anything in my eyes, as you build it you will be forced to face problems and forced to find solutions for those problems yourself.

[bluedino]

The hard part is coming up with project. But you should have that in mind before you learn programming. Otherwise what's the point?

[ccvannorman]

If you can't come up with (and be driven by) a project on your own, find someone (a friend, a prospective cofounder, a colleague) who does have an idea, then work with them on making that idea come to life.

[mkl]

I think the project is the easy part, especially if making money isn't the goal. I have dozens or hundreds that I will never get to, and sometimes come up with multiple new ones a day.