WoundedLamb:


I can imagine. I've been a professional programmer (post graduation) for about a decade. While I know I love what I do, I can't pretend I don't know I'm missing out on some other aspects of life. But then we are all part of a system, programmers, doctors, teachers, farmers, traders, etc., we all must give whatever our chosen paths demand from us as none is more important than the other.

True. But the young man is terrified of what the future holds for him. If everyone is into programming, as is the case today, that might be a problem.

These days, big tech companies don't care about certificates. They hire anyone with the skills to solve problems and cheaply too, hence the reason most of their staff are Indians. We are getting there and if the competition is stiff, then the takehome pay drops as well.

He is a lab technician with the potential to expand in his field. Health care will always be sought after till the end of times. So why not do both? He won't be the first so why not try?

oluwaseyi0:
Capital yes

Only medicine, pilot and a few other courses are better than programming

Medicine can never be better than programming.. Programmers run the universe..

Suspect33:
No


With the current level of influx this profession has seen, in a few years the number of programmers will far outweigh the number of available programming jobs, this will in turn crash the value of the coding profession as only the creme de la crème of programmers will be sought after

There are other IT skills you can opt for, some, even more profitable and marketable ( job security) than programming, but it's all up to you.

I doubt this. So many people who parade themselves as programmers are actually not programmers in reality.

Do you think programming is that easy to learn and practice?

For instance many parade themselves as web developers & programmers because the understand basic HTML, CSS JavaScript, PHP and use WordPress and other open source softwares for their work.

Many people drop the programming career in less than 2 months into it. I was dancing around programming for almost 4 years before I decided to sit up and learn deeply.

Meanwhile programming is being applied to many disciplines as the day goes by. There's an application of programming in medical laboratory science.

But where you'll get tired and fall is when you look at programming as a quick money making venture.

From the analysis of the poster he's really serious to learn programming.

Ugaboy:


The only reasonable reply on this post.
Web is saturated...

With IT in Data Science and machine learning u can function in almost all field...in fact python is now the employed skill now in the world.

Op
If u ever need to become a programmer...u can pick any of this listed below
Devops engineer
Cyber security and Ethical Hacking
Data science
Networking
Cloud computing
Block chain etc

I laugh so hard when I see this. The internet as me and you use it is not even up to 30 years old. All the major tech giants are less than 28 years old so how is it saturated. Have you thought of what will happen when the whole world has the same internet access the west has. You cant even imagine what will be built and with everything moving over to the cloud the demand for web developers is through the roof now.

Web development is very broad. You have frontend. HTML, CSS, Javascript and Javascript frameworks. Things like web assembly are coming up that enable you build full scale web applications. You have the backend. You have platforms (Salesforce, Servicenow, Magento, Wordpress et al). I laugh when I hear web is saturated. Do you really think data science is easy to get into. How many companies need data scientists compared to web developers.

Ditch your MLS. At least you have a basic certificate in it, if you already don't find it fulfilling or interesting enough for you to pursue further, then there's no likelihood that you will enjoy it after putting in another 5 years in the university. Considering poor education in the country and job opportunity that affects virtually every course in Nigeria
..
Programming probably gives you joy or an opportunity to explore your analytic talent. It's cool if you are ready to put in the work. It requires a great deal of discipline, curiosity, practice, time and tenacity.
If you become successful in programming, believe me, job won't be hard. The fact is we have very few people in Nigeria who can really code so well. There's really opportunity for you. Don't be scared. Infact with your programming skills you can innovate solution to problems in any field of your interest.
.
Follow your passion, and you won't regret it in this case cos programming rewards good coders. Know your onions and the sky is limit
Do I have to tell you, this is digital age where everything is being digitised? ....One of the best skill to have in this 21st century is programming skills.

ediko5:


I doubt this. So many people who parade themselves as programmers are actually not programmers in reality.

Do you think programming is that easy to learn and practice?

For instance many parade themselves as web developers & programmers because the understand basic HTML, CSS JavaScript, PHP and use WordPress and other open source softwares for their work.

Many people drop the programming career in less than 2 months into it. I was dancing around programming for almost 4 years before I decided to sit up and learn deeply.

Meanwhile programming is being applied to many disciplines as the day goes by. There's an application of programming in medical laboratory science.

But where you'll get tired and fall is when you look at programming as a quick money making venture.

From the analysis of the poster he's really serious to learn programming.

great analysis my friend

emmyvet:


Programming require full attention and commitment is not a part time something unless he wants to be doing it for fun.

Funny enough, I was mentored by a medical doctor who stopped medical practice in a federal teaching hospital and went into IT fully.

Full attention and commitment is relative. If I spend 5 hours per day on programming, won't that suffice to learn all there is? It's all about interest.

I don't want to go into the gamut of things I do on a daily basis but I still make out time to code. Nothing stops him from doing both.

I will like to say, follow your passion. ICT is a very lucrative sector, and so is MLS. But do you enjoy solving problems intelligently, do you like thinking out of the box. If you do, then you can go for programming. Everyone has there own niche, discover and follow your niche

bercarray:
Hello nairalanders, I'm working currently as a laboratory technician, but my parents wants me to further more for medical laboratory science course in university.

Seeing the way technology is moving, I've decided to go into IT, which is the reason i want to use the money I'm supposed to use to study MLS to go into programming, instead of using 5yrs studying MLS, that's even if ASUU did not extend it to 6 or 7years, i want to dedicate this 5-6yrs of my life into programming( web development and other parts of programming maybe application software development also).

I've also decided to go to teach myself first online, and later go to IT school for certificate and meeting with other IT gurus sake so as to gain from them.

So is programming worth sacrificing this career for? Please advise.

Very wise decision

Suspect33:
No


With the current level of influx this profession has seen, in a few years the number of programmers will far outweigh the number of available programming jobs, this will in turn crash the value of the coding profession as only the creme de la crème of programmers will be sought after

There are other IT skills you can opt for, some, even more profitable and marketable ( job security) than programming, but it's all up to you.

Hahahaha you don't know what you're talkimg about the Demand is crazily high... Make your research

Ugaboy:


The only reasonable reply on this post.
Web is saturated...

With IT in Data Science and machine learning u can function in almost all field...in fact python is now the employed skill now in the world.

Op
If u ever need to become a programmer...u can pick any of this listed below
Devops engineer
Cyber security and Ethical Hacking
Data science
Networking
Cloud computing
Block chain etc

Bro to be Frank with you!!! You just commented on something you know nothing about!!!

bercarray:
Hello nairalanders, I'm working currently as a laboratory technician, but my parents wants me to further more for medical laboratory science course in university.

Seeing the way technology is moving, I've decided to go into IT, which is the reason i want to use the money I'm supposed to use to study MLS to go into programming, instead of using 5yrs studying MLS, that's even if ASUU did not extend it to 6 or 7years, i want to dedicate this 5-6yrs of my life into programming( web development and other parts of programming maybe application software development also).

I've also decided to go to teach myself first online, and later go to IT school for certificate and meeting with other IT gurus sake so as to gain from them.

So is programming worth sacrificing this career for? Please advise.

Honestly, I think u can have both career, that’s what I’m currently doing or about to do. I do web and app development as freelance while working with an engineering company. I code in the evening and weekend

bercarray:
Hello nairalanders, I'm working currently as a laboratory technician, but my parents wants me to further more for medical laboratory science course in university.

Seeing the way technology is moving, I've decided to go into IT, which is the reason i want to use the money I'm supposed to use to study MLS to go into programming, instead of using 5yrs studying MLS, that's even if ASUU did not extend it to 6 or 7years, i want to dedicate this 5-6yrs of my life into programming( web development and other parts of programming maybe application software development also).

I've also decided to go to teach myself first online, and later go to IT school for certificate and meeting with other IT gurus sake so as to gain from them.

So is programming worth sacrificing this career for? Please advise.

Well if you haven’t tried programming as a hobby before now my simple advise is a straight not. Instead if you don’t like MLS, find other fields you have a good background in and go their. You can take programming as a hobby.
And mind you, places in Nigeria where good programming can be taught is lacking.
Self-tutorial has always been the best source of learning

tensazangetsu20:


I laugh so hard when I see this. The internet as me and you use it is not even up to 30 years old. All the major tech giants are less than 28 years old so how is it saturated. Have you thought of what will happen when the whole world has the same internet access the west has. You cant even imagine what will be built and with everything moving over to the cloud the demand for web developers is through the roof now.

Web development is very broad. You have frontend. HTML, CSS, Javascript and Javascript frameworks. Things like web assembly are coming up that enable you build full scale web applications. You have the backend. You have platforms (Salesforce, Servicenow, Magento, Wordpress et al). I laugh when I hear web is saturated. Do you really think data science is easy to get into. How many companies need data scientists compared to web developers.

Baba mi no just mind am!! Make in dey talk wetin in no know

peacettw:


True. But the young man is terrified of what the future holds for him. If everyone is into programming, as is the case today, that might be a problem.

These days, big tech companies don't care about certificates. They hire anyone with the skills to solve problems and cheaply too, hence the reason most of their staff are Indians. We are getting there and if the competition is stiff, then the takehome pay drops as well.

He is a lab technician with the potential to expand in his field. Health care will always be sought after till the end of times. So why not do both? He won't be the first so why not try?

I get you. But we are not the ones to tell him which path to choose. And he can't make such a personal decision based on how it will affect the market cause everyone wants (and deserves) a cut of the cake. If he loves programming, it would be unfair to ask him to stick to another field simply cause we want to increase the market value of those already in the system. Before you chose programming, did you think about the market saturation? I guess not. If he's passionate about programming, by all means, let him give it a go. That might end up being his source of great success. The most important thing is that he does either a parallel or a pilot cut-over to avoid regrets.

Talking about saturation, I think what's saturated in Nigeria is web development. Software engineering is so much more than that and the country still has a lot of uncovered grounds.

As someone who has been a programmer, Tech lead, DevOps lead in the last 16 years I can assure you that your fear of saturation in the programming field is very unfounded, and rather than being saturated, there will be many more opportunities
The thing is this - programming is swallowing up many traditional jobs - it is making deep incursions into areas like law( most cases in the UK are now handled by computers in the US as opposed to actual lawyers), medicine(my uncle who is an MD told me recently told me of how they are now using remote AI for medical procedures(operation)), oil and gas and many more
MLS is by no means a match for programming as far as career is concerned. People get paid $350,000 to $500,000 per year just for working in big tech and they are not even special
Go for it

WoundedLamb:


I get you. But we are not the ones to tell him which path to choose. And he can't make such a personal decision based on how it will affect the market cause everyone wants (and deserves) a cut of the cake. If he loves programming, it would be unfair to ask him to stick to another field simply cause we want to increase the market value of those already in the system. Before you chose programming, did you think about the market saturation? I guess not. If he's passionate about programming, by all means, let him give it a go. That might end up being his source of great success. The most important thing is that he does either a parallel or a pilot cut-over to avoid regrets.

Talking about saturation, I think what's saturated in Nigeria is web development. Software engineering is so much more than that and the country still has a lot of uncovered grounds.

Honestly I used to think this but its absolutely not true. Even a friend of mine when I was learning to code advised me to go for data science because web is saturated. My friend has been doing data science for 3 years but has been unable to get employment but I got my first job six months after learning web development. The path many Nigerians take to learn web development is unprofitable thats why it looks like its saturated. There are paths in web development that if you need a developer today you cant find them. SAP one of the largest ERPs has moved to cloud and they now use Javascript (UI5). How many SAP Fiori UI5 developers are in Nigeria. They no reach ten. How many Magento devs do we have here? According to the Magento registry of certified devs theres just two. One is in UAE. The other works remotely for an American firm. I checked their linkedin. How many Shopify developers do we have in Nigeria. Even the popular wordpress we all use. How many Nigerian devs know how to make custom themes or plugins. Most Nigerian devs follow the sexy paths to web development but in the real world, theres very few jobs using this things thats why it appears saturated.

Suspect33:
No


With the current level of influx this profession has seen, in a few years the number of programmers will far outweigh the number of available programming jobs, this will in turn crash the value of the coding profession as only the creme de la crème of programmers will be sought after

There are other IT skills you can opt for, some, even more profitable and marketable ( job security) than programming, but it's all up to you.

As in...

WoundedLamb:


I get you. But we are not the ones to tell him which path to choose. And he can't make such a personal decision based on how it will affect the market cause everyone wants (and deserves) a cut of the cake. If he loves programming, it would be unfair to ask him to stick to another field simply cause we want to increase the market value of those already in the system. Before you chose programming, did you think about the market saturation? I guess not. If he's passionate about programming, by all means, let him give it a go. That might end up being his source of great success. The most important thing is that he does either a parallel or a pilot cut-over to avoid regrets.

Talking about saturation, I think what's saturated in Nigeria is web development. Software engineering is so much more than that and the country still has a lot of uncovered grounds.

Oh well, best we can do is to lay out the options. It's left for him to decide.. Good night

bercarray:
Hello nairalanders, I'm working currently as a laboratory technician, but my parents wants me to further more for medical laboratory science course in university.

Seeing the way technology is moving, I've decided to go into IT, which is the reason i want to use the money I'm supposed to use to study MLS to go into programming, instead of using 5yrs studying MLS, that's even if ASUU did not extend it to 6 or 7years, i want to dedicate this 5-6yrs of my life into programming( web development and other parts of programming maybe application software development also).

I've also decided to go to teach myself first online, and later go to IT school for certificate and meeting with other IT gurus sake so as to gain from them.

So is programming worth sacrificing this career for? Please advise.

Best decision! I tell you in less than 3 years with full dedication and focus, you will be earning forex. That is my story.

My advice, focus on your preferred stack and learn rigorously for 6 months without destraction using online resources, like Udemy, Coursera, Udacity etc. After gaining some confidence with one or two personal projects on GitHub, start applying for entry level jobs. Build a network of tech friends. This is really important. I have friends who earns $6k monthly working with Andela, in this Lagos. I'm one of them and I'm not the best. I'm still learning and are tons of things to learn. I'm a Site Reliability Engineer.

If your focus is software development as either backend or frontend, just focus on a language for the next 6 months and learn how to use cloud hosted virtual machine to deploy your app.

Barywhyte:



Best decision! I tell you in less than 3 years with full dedication and focus, you will be earning forex. That is my story.

My advice, focus on your preferred stack and learn rigorously for 6 months without destraction using online resources, like Udemy, Coursera, Udacity etc. After gaining some confidence with one or two personal projects on GitHub, start applying for entry level jobs. Build a network of tech friends. This is really important. I have friends who earns $6k monthly working with Andela, in this Lagos. I'm one of them and I'm not the best. I'm still learning and are tons of things to learn. I'm a Site Reliability Engineer.

If your focus is software development as either backend or frontend, just focus on a language for the next 6 months and learn how to use cloud hosted virtual machine to deploy your app.

So where can he enroll in Lagos/Nigeria?

Suspect33:
No


With the current level of influx this profession has seen, in a few years the number of programmers will far outweigh the number of available programming jobs, this will in turn crash the value of the coding profession as only the creme de la crème of programmers will be sought after

There are other IT skills you can opt for, some, hneven more profitable and marketable ( job security) than programming, but it's all up to you.

Which other IT skills can one learn outside programming? Thanks bro

alimaxion:


Bro no one can use programming as a side hustle, it's a fulltime work and it needs a lot of attention and brain power

bro programming can be side hustle. Check well

SleekyP:

So where can he enroll in Lagos/Nigeria?

I don't know. I never went to any IT school. Google is my school. But there are beautiful online platforms for structured learning. Coursera is good for data science and machine learning. Udacity too and udemy is a general purpose platform.

At first they say software engineering is saturated. Later they say it is web development that is saturated, yet they've never written a line of code in their life.


I have a question though, if software development is saturated, then why do we have so many tech jobs vacancies that we now have job websites that only advertise tech jobs only?


Let me just get what I want first. Una go here am for here.

tensazangetsu20:

Honestly I used to think this but its absolutely not true. Even a friend of mine when I was learning to code advised me to go for data science because web is saturated. My friend has been doing data science for 3 years but has been unable to get employment but I got my first job six months after learning web development. The path many Nigerians take to learn web development is unprofitable thats why it looks like its saturated. There are paths in web development that if you need a developer today you cant find them. SAP one of the largest ERPs has moved to cloud and they now use Javascript (UI5). How many SAP Fiori UI5 developers are in Nigeria. They no reach ten. How many Magento devs do we have here? According to the Magento registry of certified devs theres just two. One is in UAE. The other works remotely for an American firm. I checked their linkedin. How many Shopify developers do we have in Nigeria. Even the popular wordpress we all use. How many Nigerian devs know how to make custom themes or plugins. Most Nigerian devs follow the sexy paths to web development but in the real world, theres very few jobs using this things thats why it appears saturated.

I think we are saying the same thing. Maybe it's my grouping that caused the confusion. That SAP uses JS doesn't mean I'd categorize SAP development under web development. That is because SAP development is a specialized domain that needs special training even with your knowledge of web. C# and TypeScript are used to develop Microsoft Retail Server and POS (both Cloud POS and Modern POS). These stacks are used in web development as well but I would not categorize MS Retail as web development cause it's highly specialized. C#, Python, Javascript, Java, etc. are used to develop Azure Severless API's. Those they are also used in web development but Azure is a specialized application.

The point here is, when I say the web development market is saturated, it is not about the technology (cause it's practically the same technology we use in other domains), it is rather about the traditional database/back-end/front-end stand alone applications people development all over the streets of Nairaland. I am saying there are a whole lot of more specialized domains out there cutting across different industries

This is not just a Nigerian thing though. I grew up in North America. I've been here virtually all my life (except for the short period I worked in UAE) and the case isn't much different. Specialists don't apply for jobs, HR and recruiters search for them. They even go to other continents to look for them. Yet the country has a lot of traditional web developers.

Karleb:
At first they say software engineering is saturated. Later they say it is web development that is saturated, yet they've never written a line of code in their life.


I have a question though, if software development is saturated, then why do we have so many tech jobs vacancies that we now have job websites that only advertise tech jobs only?


Let me just get what I want first. Una go here am for here.

Bros check linkedin. Wordpress. Wordpress the lowest hanging fruit has more jobs worldwide 36000 available vacancies at any time than my marine engineering which has around 4000 vacancies at any time worldwide. Wordpress o. Salesforce at anytime has more than 120k jobs o. All this are just niches of web development. Niche o. We never even enter other sides of IT sef. I just laugh whenever I hear the saturation thing. Saturation yet ten thousand new jobs every 24 hours on LinkedIn. Even If I sit down morning till night I can't apply to 10k jobs. Many of those jobs will go with no applicants.

peacettw:


Oh well, best we can do is to lay out the options. It's left for him to decide.. Good night

Yes, that's it.

Good night. It's 6:13PM here, still got work to do.

6000 dollars per month

na lie !

Barywhyte:



Best decision! I tell you in less than 3 years with full dedication and focus, you will be earning forex. That is my story.

My advice, focus on your preferred stack and learn rigorously for 6 months without destraction using online resources, like Udemy, Coursera, Udacity etc. After gaining some confidence with one or two personal projects on GitHub, start applying for entry level jobs. Build a network of tech friends. This is really important. I have friends who earns $6k monthly working with Andela, in this Lagos. I'm one of them and I'm not the best. I'm still learning and are tons of things to learn. I'm a Site Reliability Engineer.

If your focus is software development as either backend or frontend, just focus on a language for the next 6 months and learn how to use cloud hosted virtual machine to deploy your app.

WoundedLamb:


I think we are saying the same thing. Maybe it's my grouping that caused the confusion. That SAP uses JS doesn't mean I'd categorize SAP development under web development. That is because SAP development is a specialized domain that needs special training even with your knowledge of web. C# and TypeScript are used to develop Microsoft Retail Server and POS (both Cloud POS and Modern POS). These stacks are used in web development as well but I would not categorize MS Retail as web development cause it's highly specialized. C#, Python, Javascript, Java, etc. are used to develop Azure Severless API's. Those they are also used in web development but Azure is a specialized application.

The point here is, when I say the web development market is saturated, it is not about the technology (cause it's practically the same technology we use in other domains), it is rather about the traditional database/back-end/front-end stand alone applications people development all over the streets of Nairaland. I am saying there are a whole lot of more specialized domains out there cutting across different industries

This is not just a Nigerian thing though. I grew up in North America. I've been here virtually all my life (except for the short period I worked in UAE) and the case isn't much different. Specialists don't apply for jobs, HR and recruiters search for them. They even go to other continents to look for them. Yet the country has a lot of traditional web developers.

True I always ask people to specialise in this niches as their web development knowledge applies there but people just wanna be generalist. They don't understand how the world works. Why would anyone waste their time building a product from scratch when known solutions already exists. If you check my past posts on nairaland especially in the programming section, I have always advocated platform development immediately one is done getting general web dev skills.

frog12:
6000 dollars per month

na lie !

Tor. I hear you

frog12:
6000 dollars per month

na lie !