Elineea, I hope my story will motivate you. I am 49. I am a nurse with my license still but about 3 years ago with the support of my wife I decided to go into web developing. After -15k for FEWD school and 3 months later I got out with no job and struggling to make it into the web development world. I got few tempt jobs but mostly freelancing. I worded hard but always struggle with js. I pretty good with html and css. I started FCC in 2017 for few weeks straight and got myself to somewhere in the js and jquery part but job search and trying to learn other things and taking care of my twins who are 18 months now kinda took up most of my time.
I got about dozens of interview but usually out beaten by people with CS degree or people who have more experience working with companies and such.
One thing I can tell you is that you need to push yourself alot. I self taught myself many things including Adobe Creative Cloud: Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign. I also picking up angular 5/6, C#, SQL, mySQL and Wordpress.
I am not giving up. I going to have an interview next week with a great company and hoping to land this job.
Honestly, sometime I feel like I am too old and maybe they do not want to hire me. That maybe truth but those who interviewed me must have see my resume and know what I have done: college drop out(2 years), US Navy 4 years(honorable discharge), IT school 1 years, 1 years in web designing and developing (just html css and very little js I self taught while in IT), 10 years more in IT with different company, nursing school 2 years, nurse 4 years, FE Web developing, self learning, and struggling to find job since 2016ā¦ you do the math.
Search you tube for things web related and learn and use that to motivate yourself. There are so many cool free tutorials out there. I get stuck alot and I know one thing for sure google is the tool to help me find answer.
When I was in bootcamp for FEWD (Front end web development) I used to joke about paying 15k to learn now to google. The instructors donāt want you to get answer from them, they want you to use google because when you out there in the world, google is your best friend. You can try to ask your coworker but trust me he/she has his/her workcut out and everyone is busy. When it comes down to it, you are on your own so google your heart out. Your boss will tell you to ask for help if you canāt figure it out in 10-20 minutes; honestly, that is not always a good thing because it can back fire. I had been there.
I hope this helpā¦ I know it is not all positive. Excuse my English, I know loads of mistakes. It is late and I am very tired. Good luck and keep your head up. Donāt give up!
Hi!
I havenāt read through all the replies but I can tell I have/had the same situation. I am struggling a LOT. I am struggling with depression and anxiety for at least 17 years. I will be 35 in May, I live alone for a while and I am studying coding for about 5 years. I love it but it is really really HARD.
2018 was an amazing year, I started my second university because I got a chance, so four years and I will graduate in Graphic Design and Computer Science in two different universities. After 5 years last October I got my dream job as a Web Developer(not junior or internship). Iāve never worked in IT related area earlier, so this was huge for me. Literally a dream come true. I was working in warehouses and admin roles.
Apart from this (and that I will be forever grateful for the gentlemen to give me a chance) I am still struggling how to pay my bills (sometimes I canāt), or how will I come out from the debt or how will I buy food. It requires a lot of maneuvering.
What helps me a lot is a daily Excel schedule. Slowly but surely I learned to stick with it and donāt punish myself If I canāt do it just move on and try again. In the last 3 years slowly bit by bit I pushed back the clock so before I go to work (7:30), I get up at 2am and do a morning routine. Exercise/yoga/meditate for half an hour. read a book for about 2x25min, have breakfast, make up bed, practice typing for 5 min, do a Spanish lesson on Duolingo for 10 min, make some tea, check plan for the day, feed my cat, be grateful for 5-10 min, drink some water, write for 15 min (do a brain dump just for myself)ā¦just really small thingsā¦practice on freecodecamp for 10-15 min, study to my courses. It took a long time to reach this level but it just helpsā¦I am doing things for myself before I work for others. It doesnāt mean it is easy or every day I am able to perform well but just a good feeling that I did something/anything. And my first language is not English.
Maybe you can try to add just 1 small thing to your morning, get up 20-30 min earlier and just have fun. Tick yourself, add a nice sticker that you did it, or just challenge yourself if you can do that thing for 7 days.
Yes, you can do it. You never know who and when will give you a chance.
When I went to this interview last August, I was hopeless and negative. I said that 98% chance that I wonāt have this role. Itās just too good, perfect company, my dream role. 2 weeks later they called me on a second interview. Okay, many times I failed on the second interview, 95% chance that I will still fail. And on the interview they said I got the role. Probably it was luck as well but I cried a bit on the way to my workplace. I needed to wait for 4 weeks, I was a wreck. I thought they made a mistake, and they will change their mind and call me one day that I donāt have the role. But after I got the role. I started to work and I was a wreck. In the first two weeks my mind went blank and forget basic HTML, CSS, not too mention that absolutely nothing I remembered about JavaScript (on the second week I was crying like every day and questioning if this is for me after all). Just went blank. I was so afraid I will be fired but after I calmed down. I just said to myself, I will just do it and I will see it. It is hard, I am learning every day, but I am calmer. Almost 5 months now and I improved so much that I canāt tell. I am working on two projects and just good. I am not so frustrated. But I am really exhausted every week, especially because of the studies next to it.
So if I can do it, you as well. Just do it. Try to enjoy it, and create fun small projects for yourself. You will be fine even if you donāt see the light at the moment in the end of the tunnel.
Gary Vee is really good!!! And Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins (She actually has a Mindset Reset program on Youtube now), Tom Bilyeu, Lewis Howes, Evan Carmichaelā¦I am listening their channels for years and they changed my life
And Jordan Peterson - there is a video on Youtube āYou are strong! An Incredible Speech by Jordan Petersonā
Hi Elena, I knowledge what you feel, no you most of people in a part of his life feel depress, maybe you are more creative than you think, and your brain needs new things, html and css isnāt no son hard, but to learn this things you need yo he focus, I recommend you to balance your brain with you study, run after that go yo the computer and start coding. I do, that help me a lot. Keep positive, you can. Break it. That is not bigger than you.
The thing about HTML and CSS in particular is that there are so many little rules and special things that you canāt memorize them all. Some people may memorize them, but only those people who end up being experts at just HTML and CSS layouts. If youāre going to be a web developer with frontend and possibly even full-stack, you wonāt be expected to memorize all the specific little things, just to understand how it works generally.
You donāt like your current job -> Depression.
You want to have a new job -> Motivation.
Learning coding may give you the ability to have a better job, but why you chose web development, there are many better jobs out there.
Donāt code for the money, try to solve some problems, try to use HTML and CSS layout a page that you could record how you fight with depression, how much you hate your color job and what is the plan to change. Give them some color theme, some style layout, some collapse effect. Coding is really depending on yourself.
Thank you very much for the encouraging story.I am the same. I hope I can get over the depression and motivate myself enough to do something with coding.
Wow thatās very interesting!
I reached 32 last december and 2 days after that I got my first junior front end developer job offer 
Hi @Elineea ,
I stared HTML and CSS around 4 years earlier, now Iām 22 and Iām still learning new things in this domain, Iād like to give you some advise, i hope its helpful for you.
Hereās a little Motivation: Donāt let your age define what you can do and what not, in my opinion youāre still a better person to understand what brings you happiness and what not.
Iāll be a little Realistic: Iāll be honest, HTML and CSS are easy but yes it could be difficult at your stage if youāre just starting, its start of a long journey, donāt think that it ends here (tbh it never ends -_-), there are two big domains after that which include front-end and back-end web development, what youāre doing is called Static Web Development using (HTML, CSS and JS) and yes it is in demand as well, but donāt be afraid of other domains just because they are big and think that you wonāt be able to do get into them, instead realize what do developers do in those roles (front-end and back-end) and try to find where you might be heading in the future.
Suggestions on getting better: I got 2-3 suggestions
1 - Learn HTML and CSS from thenewboston (bucky roberts) for beginners level, youāll not just learn but enjoy his tutorials on youtube.
2 - Free code camp is great place, i donāt know you have completed their course but they follow some techniques that I admire. ( Create the projects yourself )
3 - More than remembering HTML and CSS rules, build a site for yourself or someone in your family who got some business, just for the fun, and just include static content (text, images and styles) nothing more, youāll learn a lot, youāll understand what is bad design and what is good and youāll improve.
(Please remember following 3rd suggestion, you might get stuck, donāt quit if you really want to do this, developers learn only if they fail, they try each god-damn way that leads them to failure and our success is only when we donāt quit. We reach out to google, stackoverflow, old blogs, medium, communities over slack, github issues and what not to understand our problem and find a solution for it, thereās a joy at the end, its pure feeling of happiness, I canāt describe it to you but I have felt it)
Future suggestion:
Thereās no best technology, HTML, CSS, JS, DJANGO (python), ANGULAR, REACT, REACT NATIVE, NATIVE DEVELOPMENT, JAVA , Ruby etc etc (getting a little off topic but i think its important), it depends on your needs ( some people might disagree here with me that HTML, CSS are must) yes they are but there are other things Blade html, SCSS, LESS which are in market but remember it all depends on your NEEDS (donāt let anyone tell you what to do or which technology to use, take them as suggestion but read, research and analyze yourself whatās required for your goal, app, site or requirements), thereās a lot of good and bad opinion on internet but its your job to filter out the best for you (no one will teach you that)
TLDR; donāt be afraid, donāt let age define what you can do and what not, learn from youtube, and create small projects to understand logic and understand approach towards solution rather than learning HTML, CSS rules by heart.
This is my 4 years of experience in web development and freelancing on Upwork, I hope it brings you help.
Best Regards
Rafah
Find nearest yoga center at your place and go there 2-3 times then write me how are you doing.
Is there anything I can help? Anything you would like to ask or talk about it?
Just a thought, if you ever want to talk, on Gitter there is actually a channel āYou can do thisā, and you can find me if you need to talk. But there are lot of people who feels the same way like you.
Hi Elineea, Iām gonna be 40 this year, I have 2 young daughters, I have been an IT technician/admin, a registered nurse, a composer/sound designer for video games and now Iām learning web dev like you. If you struggle with html,css or whatever, well itās a good thing, it shows that your brain is processing all these informations, just rest a bit and go back to it later, youāll see that it will look easier. On a side note, if you want a really good course on web dev, I strongly recommend https://shop.killervideostore.com/ and the founder of these courses even has a youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyUBW72KU30dfAYWLVNZO8Q
Very well explained and very motivating. It made freecodecamp easier to understand because freecodecamp does not focus on the very basic concepts that you need to understand the rest. But still Iām very grateful for freecodecamp and am using it everyday. I hope this helps
hey thanks for you input, any suggestions on getting started with upwork as a web developer? i noticed a lot of clients look for professionals who can build websites for them from places like wordpress ā¦etcā¦
Hey, I am 36 years old and have two children. I was working at the airport which I really loved. But I quit th job because I could lose my second baby. I became a full time mom for a long time. I had to go through a deep depression at the same time. When my second child went to a kindergarten, I decided to go back to school to learn a computer programming. I graduated and got a associates degree a month ago. But I havenāt got a job. I took few interviews but Iām still staying at home still a full time mom. I feel like I have done study so hard for nothing. I am still struggling when Iām coding. However, I dont wanna give up. I decide to transfer school to get a bachelors. I will be almost 40 years old when I graduate 4 year college. I believe that your age doesnāt matter. The matter is that how much you are passionated. You need to believe in yourself that you can do it and never give up! Struggling is part of learning process. Consider that your hard time is a chance to develop your skills. Trust me, you are not the only one struggling with life. There are lots of informations about coding in online. Try to make the studying schedule that fits you and keep learning! Hang in there, you would become a desirable developer one day!
Maybe you are focused on too much. You have too plans for the future and too many things you are trying to do at once. Drop everything you donāt need and put a lot of your time into learn html and css!
Also, go to coffee shops and public places to study.
Hey Elineea,
I got my first dev job recently at a well known studio and I am over 30. I donāt have a degree, self taught, and I am not an academic person. I studied for 3 years everyday before I got my first role.
The trick is to do it consistently daily. Everyday. Good luck can message me of want for tips and tricks.
Hi Elineea,
Iām in a similar age situation. Iām actually turning 33 this week and at this moment Iām following a full-time coding course in my home town.
You problem sounds very familiar, but my problem is more with JS and everything that follows. I just have trouble to understand the logic sometimes and then understand some concepts.
Trust me, it takes time. You say yourself youāve been on and off because of your private troubles. In that case of course it aināt easy to stay focused on anything, including HTML and CSS. Take your time. Donāt rush. You will get better if you practice every day. But donāt expect to be already that much better on the second day. When I mean you will get better, it means youāll need a lot of time. For some people it goes easy, for others, it takes time. You see, Iāve been practicing for the last three months (because of the course Iām taking) and I still struggle with JavaScript logic after this time. After the training, which ends end of march, we need to look for an internship and so we need to be looking for one already now. While now I really donāt feel ready to do anything, except HTML/CSS, itās also āin the headā. Once you get this idea that youāre not capable to do anything, you somehow stick with it and itās difficult to get out of it. Some people look for professional help, but you could also say āf*ck itā and just go for it. Thatās what I will be doing. I launch myself into any internship coming up, see what happens and learn from it.
What definitely also helps is when the people close to you understand what youāre trying to achieve (becoming a web developer) and keep encouraging you. And of course, people like us who you donāt know, can share their experiences.
Good luck!!
if you are just starting then look for small project less than $100 or $50 depending upon your capability to complete project requirements in time (give a lengthy timeline to client but complete it yourself in 2-3 days), mostly these type of projects are small bug fixes, but give priority your client needs and when you have profile and some good rating then you can go for big projects. Wordpress is great ( Iām against all the hatred it deserves) it helps to solve small businesses requirements so easily that you canāt just imagine (even e-commerce stores on small level can have great designs and functionality using wordpress). So start small step by step and then understand how much opportunity cost is available when youāre moving to big projects w.r.t to time and effort.
Note: Freelancing could make you stuck in one domain, I have experienced it, so know it before, you need to organize yourself in such a way that you should learn other domains and technologies as well, along-with your freelancing domain.
Donāt give up just keep pushing the developerās community is here for u