How to Break into Tech?

In today’s world we have a tremendous amount of opportunities, but often those opportunities are still constrained to one field. Most of us will eventually get to a point where our career growth will plateau. If you’ve been stuck at the same desk job for years, it’s easy to lose interest, motivation, and sight of the bigger picture.

That’s when you need to make the life changing decision to change careers and to learn new skills. And today, the hottest jobs are in tech.

If you’ve ever considered taking a swing at getting a tech job, you might have faced these concerns:

• Learning a new skill is boring and time-consuming
• Tech is difficult to learn
• There’s no promise of success
• No guarantee you can get a new job
• What if I just don’t have what it takes?

At Practicum by Yandex, we’ve rewritten the remote learning model so that people with zero digital background can now enter the field. For now, we have 3 specializations to choose from: Web-Developer, Data Scientist, and Data Analyst.

It doesn’t have to be boring

Starting is the hardest part. Most online courses promise more than they can offer and then offer up confusing interfaces and complex tasks with no help. Changing careers can feel like climbing Mt. Everest. Only 10–13% of students actually make it to their end goal. The rest end up frustrated with difficulties, being instructed by teachers with low enthusiasm, and thoughts that they’re not good enough. It’s easy to lose faith in yourself whenever you’re in unfriendly or uncharted territory.

At Practicum, we understand the difficulties students face when learning something new. We want you to fall in love with your new profession. We don’t want to overwhelm you with too many new vocabulary terms or mislead you with over-the-top promises. Our goal is simply to equip students with the tools needed to land a new job. We consider ourselves responsible for your professional achievements. When you succeed, it means we succeed.

Learning to code can seem quite intimidating at first. It may look like a foreign language, and in some ways it is one, but don’t let that dissuade you! Learning should be smooth and engaging, not complex or boring. We speak in plain English, avoid unnecessary jargon, and break everything down so that even beginners are able to understand the material.

Read the summary of Practicum’s webinar, “Your First Year in Code.”

Big results come after small steps

We often put too much pressure on ourselves or expect instant results. Sometimes we forget to appreciate small victories and give up because of a few mistakes.

This is why we don’t want you to drown in loads of new information. We don’t expect our students to become professionals after a couple of weeks. Taking small steps with a manageable work load will keep you interested and motivated.

First, we give you new information, and then immediately after the lesson, you get to practice the new skill in an online simulator. This study method will help you learn through a hands-on experience and understand that small results do count.

Each of the three education programs has their own sprints. This way, you’ll always stay on the right track, allowing you to learn within your current capabilities.

You won’t be alone

It takes time before you understand if you feel comfortable in a new field. That’s why we’ve divided all of our courses into free and paid sections.

The first 20 hours are free and take place in an online simulator where you will acquire basic programming skills. This time will allow you to evaluate your abilities, get an impression about the profession and the learning process, and find out whether the format is the right fit for you.

Once you’ve been impressed and made your decision, you’ll be able to continue your journey in the paid section of the course.

From there, you’ll start building a portfolio as you create 10–15 real-life projects. Most importantly, you’ll be guided through this entire process by a tutor.

After practicing in an online simulator, students might get the impression that it’s all super easy. But when they apply their skills to outside projects and inevitably encounter roadblocks, they might become discouraged. That’s where our tutors come in. They keep students motivated, allowing them to make mistakes and help them find answers by giving them 24/7 guidance. Our tutors don’t give ready-made answers, they teach students to ask the right questions and to think through their problems and communicate their needs. Besides the obvious hard skills of tech, all students learn the basics of creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking. This way, each of them gain important soft skills that are vital in the real world.

The duration of our courses ranges from 6 to 10 months. During this time, you’ll be working on an interactive platform, using Slack to chat with fellow students, and getting code reviews with detailed feedback.

For example, Data Science and Data Analysis students are trained to work with real data arrays and spot patterns, even non-obvious ones. They learn Python and start working with its libraries, especially Jupyter Notebook, a widely used program for writing and running code, and SQL, a widely used language for interacting with databases.

We make sure our students are aware that they will need to spend at least 10 hours a week learning and that they need to follow the course deadlines. We don’t make big promises that everyone who passes the free section of the course will get a golden ticket to a new profession, but we do hold ourselves personally responsible for those who are self-disciplined and put effort into studying.

Remember that it’s ok to not know

You can’t learn everything. No one knows everything. Even experts don’t have answers to every problem. If you could have asked the great philosopher Socrates about knowledge, he would’ve told you that the only thing he knew is that he knew nothing. There is always room to learn something new, but don’t postpone your career just because you’re not a superstar professional yet.

You don’t need to have a certain background or degree to become a programmer. Having self-discipline, drive, and a dedication to solving problems is more than enough.