Object Oriented Programming in Java

Looking for modest career change - how realistic is this study plan?

I've been looking to switch career towards becoming a software dev.

I'm approaching 28 and been debating going back to school (applied to Bachelor of CS, but still pending). However, a lot of people (on el Internet and in real life) been telling me that in my situation, self-learning might be doable.

I specify modest in the title because I am not looking to be a Software engineer at a BigN or at some cool startup (if eventually I could get there, then great!). I'd be happy to work in an enterprise environment that offers good compensation/benefits along with good mentors, such as banks, accounting or consulting firms, airline companies, travel agencies, etc.

I've been learning some basic python in the past months and starting using it very primitively at work to make some simple scripts. However, I feel in order to gain substantial growth by self-learning, I needed a more structured approach using a more enterprise-friendly language.

So I decided to go for Java to learn about a lower-level language, as well as core programming fundamentals. I did some research and try to come up with a study plan; I'd be curious to see what you think of it:

 

1. Giraffe Academy on Youtube is doing a pretty concise and quick overview of the basics; since I'm already familiar with data types, arrays or variables, having used python in the past;

2. Object Oriented Java on Udacity would help me get more familiar with inheritance and deeper programming logics;

3. Intro to Algorithms on MIT Opencourse seems pretty complete in terms of general Data structures and Algo fundamentals;

4. Discrete Maths

5. I'll then complement with some courses on Git, Spring Boot, and maybe some backend stuff for good measure (SQL, MongoDB);

6. Try to build some small exercises, projects on the side along with technical tests on Hackerrank.

 

I have some friends working at companies like Shopify, Pratt&Whitney, Air Canada, MorganStanley, etc. Hopefully by end of year, I'd be confident enough to start reaching out and asking questions. Ideally, I could successfully land interviews in a year from now..

Do you think this schedule is realistic, while working full-time (study morning, evenings and half-weekends)?

 

EDIT: I have taken (and passed) Linear Algebra, Differential/Integral Calculus during my university years if that counts for anything.

It’s on Udacity! These are the two I’ve been working through:

https://www.udacity.com/course/object-oriented-programming-in-java--ud283 https://www.udacity.com/course/java-programming-basics--ud282

yeah, I believe it's this one and this one. sorry for the late reply

It's really just a starting point, it covers a lot of stuff. When I took it, they still used C and PHP, but I think it switched to Python? It does cover a lot of data structures, but if you are a beginner it might not be enough to really "click". You can see pretty much the entire course here: https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/ . Click the "watch lecture" dropdown and click "notes".

Oh and CS50 covers some web programming which neither 1010 or 1020 does.

If you want object orientation, maybe take a Java course. Here's a free one I found.

I understand you're lacking one of the prerequisites because the professor said it be OK, so I'm trying not to be harsh, and I hope it's not taken that way. This is basic programming, bare bone minimums. To be blunt: if there's an assignment dependent on these concepts and you can't assemble a basic class, you really need to contact the professor to explain your situation (especially if OTHER students are also having the same struggles). Things are going to get far more difficult as the year progresses, and you'll find yourself more and more confused if the professor assumes you understand these concepts already. When you say you don't know how to turn those instructions into code, that suggests to me the class is not preparing you well enough (which again, may be a result of skipping the pre-req).

I'm going to provide you with a few resources to look over (just took from the top of google):

1. general OOP concepts explained by Oracle: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/concepts/
2. OOP tutorial by Google on udacity: https://www.udacity.com/course/object-oriented-programming-in-java--ud283
3. another OOP instruction set: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/ehchua/programming/java/J3a_OOPBasics.html

If I give you the code straight out I'll basically be assisting you in cheating, which I am not going to be a part of. If you can assemble even an attempt at a class I will totally give advice on code, but I'm not going to spoon feed anything at the start. If you understand the concepts in the links above, this assignment will be very easy. I'm not sure how much time you have to prepare, but I would recommend looking through these regardless of how you finish the assignment.

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I'll be on all week, so make sure to respond back if you have questions.