[haydenjameslee]

Can't agree more with this advice. Everybody's talking about MOOCs, CodeAcademy etc and while I used those platforms for sure, looking back it was the experience that really helped me. The hours and hours of not knowing why your code is not compiling and learning the hard way is invaluable - but schools and classes can't emulate that well enough.

[railsnew]

I took my first software classes 2 years ago at the University and HATED every second of it! That summer I landed a co-op where I spent 6 months (I was invited back to mentor) learning Ruby on Rails and related technology. During that time, I tried to throw up as many apps as I could for practice. Thos included Rails apps, Cordova apps, JS apps etc...Those 'practice apps' landed me my first starter position making the industry standard for a rails dev with 2 years or so of experience. I am learning WAY more now then I ever thought I could and have built a hell of a resume over the past year with real world experience. Online tools got my foot in the door. A year and a half later, I am making an honest living and developing features that I thought would take me years to master. I started with a single GOOGLE search...For me, it was a mix. The experience of the co-op was the driver to what I have today though.