When I first started using the internet, I was going to middle school and talking to high school kids. Probably because I was ashamed of my age, I used to tell them I was older back then. Then we grew up, I realized what I was doing was silly, but one thing remains; I still talk to high schoolers.
Now this is an extremely strange occurrence—I'm chatting on the internet for conversation and after a while, naive teenagers come to me. Is it because I'm mentally adolescent? Maybe. But what business does a working man have in Discord servers, Telegram channels? (Telegram business is sketchy, I mean Linuk/Software channels.) Sometimes it's pleasing to see that while 50-year-old men can't form a second sentence, these adolescent-spirited knights chat vibrantly. However, instead of having heated arguments about "Is Arch Linuk or Gentoo Linuk harder?" and clearing their heads, the time has come for them to discuss life's realities; namely, how they'll accomplish the craft of earning a living.
Now I'm definitely not a good idol for people who will be choosing universities. I went to university. After graduating, I got a job unrelated to what I studied, and I'm happy. I didn't study for the university exam, I studied Psychology at a mediocre university, and I'm currently doing Ruby development. So for these tender minds, I'm essentially a "What's the point of studying, just work and become a man" role model.
If someone really came and said "Brother Emre, guide me with that blessed mind of yours," I would come out and say "Either study university for fun or don't study at all, then go learn JavaScript." Because really, instead of studying for 4 years and chasing computer engineering internships, work for 4 years and hold the Mid-level rank. While graduates your age come to you as apprentices, you'll be thinking about whether your new job should be in Europe or America.
But of course, there's a truth that all experiences are personalized and my advice is based on my experiences. For example, ask a Computer Engineering graduate—due to their position, they'll speak differently because they'll see what I don't see. Of course, some will say something with the motto "I studied for four years, I didn't study in vain," but I leave it to you to understand who's deceiving themselves and who's telling the truth.
The reason I'm saying this is there's something Westerners call "Survivorship Bias," which has been translated into Turkish as "Kalım yanılgısı" (survival fallacy). Roughly, the situation is this: when looking at a successful person in a field, we don't see the failures behind them, we only focus on successful people. For example, I'm someone who succeeded in the "Psychology graduate transitioning to Software" adventure, but can every graduate from different fields who works hard become a programmer? I'll leave that comparison to you.
Now, those who know me know my interest in software—I always had an aspect interested in what we call the computer, the invention of the century, and my parents would often scold me saying "Computers won't put food on the table! Study your lessons, become a man!" Honestly, looking back at the past, I shouldn't have gone to university. Yes, I had gotten into a good high school. (That Kepez Atatürk Anatolian High School that became famous with the Enes Batur and harassment team incidents, it had a high score. Then we fled to Antalya High School without looking back.) But I was a terrible high school student. I mean, if this were fifty years ago, I either wouldn't have finished high school or would have become a terribly nerdy student after staying back a year due to family pressure. But looking at my high school life, it was terrible. Both academically and mentally. I look back at those days thinking we're lucky we didn't commit suicide.
So I finished university too. But the thing is, it came too easy. Psychology isn't a difficult field anyway; it gets high scores at every university. And since our exams were multiple-choice, my grades shot up extremely high. Some courses were difficult but I got AAs because they interested me, some were simple but I barely passed them. As a result, I finished Psychology with a princely 3.04.
However, there's not much difference between looking for a job as a psychologist and looking for a job as a painter. I mean, if giving sessions in a hospital basement while avoiding deep intervention interests you, being a psychologist is perfect for you. But to reach this status, you need to complete a master's program called Clinical Psychology, which everyone wants to study, so its prices have inflated. I said I'd study for ALES twice, and I went back to elementary school. It's unclear whether they're selecting people for middle school or Clinical Psychology—we're literally solving pool problems!
The combination of all these things awakened this idea in me: psychologists aren't needed. Really, they're not. Because there are too many procedures put in place for people to become psychologists, and these really aren't necessary. Internships are required but since internships can't be found, paid internships are done, and that's nothing more than "bring tea, take coffee." Moreover, I never warmed up to Psychology. I mean, it's a very nice field, it gives one awareness about people and their environment, but I couldn't get rid of the feeling that I was dealing with something that had been emptied of content. To be honest, I'm a supporter of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis may have many aspects to criticize, but it's also the unique school that can provide a person with a real transformation experience, focused on awareness. I still very much want to get psychoanalysis training in the future, but it's not cheap at all, the bastard.
There's also this idea that Psychology seems like a right-wing political tool to me. This might sound conspiracy-theory-ish, but psychology looks at problems on an atomic basis; it ignores the whole. If there's a sociological problem and this problem is causing psychological side effects, it means we've focused on a very wrong perspective. Right-wing politics blames individuals and claims the system is unquestionable. I'm someone who thinks problems should be solved from a meta perspective and that individuals are the atoms that make up society, and people who chat with me know I'm quite close to Anarchism. So imagine what reactions I'll give when I encounter someone who's experiencing psychological problems as a result of authority-based oppression. What's expected from psychologists is, in a sense, to play the role of a kind aunt, but I'm more inclined to approach everything systematically.
As a result, I took a risk and decided to turn the software I had already learned to support free software projects into a profession. Well, a serious amount of time was spent looking for jobs, that's why I mentioned "survivorship bias." Some people tried to learn Ruby thinking maybe they could find jobs too since I found a job with Ruby. I was personally interested in Ruby, and if I had looked for JavaScript-related jobs instead of Ruby, I might have found a job more easily, and I messed up quite a bit in a few interviews. However, I made a deal with a company in Bursa that uses Rails to develop a consulting application, and we get along quite well. I'm satisfied, the company is satisfied with me too—they fired the guy before me for poor performance, so we're talking about a somewhat selective company.
So what can I advise my dear adolescents if you want to follow my path? I'd say you need to specialize in one field. What the guy from whom I took a Frontend course at BilgeAdam (thinking it might be useful) said was this: "If you know one thing well, you won't go hungry." I mean, a guy who knows Rails half-heartedly, .Net half-heartedly, Flutter half-heartedly knows nothing; he's just fooling around. There's a Twitter account called "önceci yazılımcı" (pioneering programmer) as you know, where salary-wage surveys are conducted. Specifically for Rails, I see that juniors who specify they only know Ruby get paid significantly more than seniors who say they know every language. But don't try to advance in something you don't like just because you've learned it; diversity is good. For example, I'm also trying to learn Qt + C++ at the time I'm writing this. But if I got hired, it's really because I know Rails well. In the project I submitted to get hired, I used such beautiful solutions in appropriate places that these solutions got me hired. Note that I was hired not because I was a jack-of-all-trades, but because I developed solutions that would shorten code in appropriate places.
Second, you need to develop yourself personally too. A self-taught person starts interviews 1-0 behind. You can be eliminated before even entering interviews, and the HR personnel who invite you to interviews consider you inadequate in some way. What matters there is your personal abilities. I don't mean this in a "market yourself" sense; I mean when you speak, it should be obvious you're not an empty person. Have literary knowledge, speak with good Turkish, acquire general culture in different fields so they don't think "Are we going to deal with this coding peasant?" in interviews. There's a prejudice that self-taught people are intellectually lower and money-hungry. Let me give an example: in interviews, they questioned quite a bit why I switched from Psychology to software and didn't believe me to some extent. Then when they realized I was a Linuk "nerd," they believed me because someone who uses Linuk also loves computers and can be interested in software. (I love calling Linux as "Linuk.")
I focused on writing so much that my eyes started to blur again, so I'm ending here. But I believe you at least understand what you need to pay attention to if you go down such a path.