Yes, you can't make my life decisions for me. But advice/insight is always helpful and appreciated.
My end goal has always been financial freedom through entrepreneurship. I just spent the past three years involved in a variety of "no college required" career paths. These are widely labeled as "Internet marketing" and include: client social media marketing, dropshipping, SEO, designing/importing custom products from China in bulk, etc.
It all sounded great at the time. I could work from anywhere, not need to go to college, not have a boss, etc. Who wouldn't want this?
But after actually doing internet marketing, I generally think that pursuing it was a mistake. Recently, I've tried out programming and actually like it and all its possibilities. I am now looking to transition into programming (through a community college to state university route, for the sake of job security while working on entrepreneurial ventures).
Programming seems better than internet marketing (IM) because:
Some other misc things I like about software development is the fact that I can work remotely and its fairly future proof (for the next few decades until the bots start coding themselves).
Anyways, I really don't like where I'm at right now knowing that I've sorta just wasted the past 3 years in a dead-end field. I want to lower the risk of software or whatever field I pursue being another false path.
Are my above characterizations of software development correct? Or do I have rose-colored delusions similar to ones I had about internet marketing 3 years ago?
Any other fields I should consider?
Any advice/insights into the pros/cons of software development in terms of the end goal being entrepreneurial freedom?
My end goal has always been financial freedom through entrepreneurship. I just spent the past three years involved in a variety of "no college required" career paths. These are widely labeled as "Internet marketing" and include: client social media marketing, dropshipping, SEO, designing/importing custom products from China in bulk, etc.
It all sounded great at the time. I could work from anywhere, not need to go to college, not have a boss, etc. Who wouldn't want this?
But after actually doing internet marketing, I generally think that pursuing it was a mistake. Recently, I've tried out programming and actually like it and all its possibilities. I am now looking to transition into programming (through a community college to state university route, for the sake of job security while working on entrepreneurial ventures).
Programming seems better than internet marketing (IM) because:
- Software development is guaranteed consistent income anywhere in the US. Great cushion for working on entrepreneurial side projects. Versus with IM, it's either feast of famine-- extremely unpredictable (i.e. I was making several grand per month from Instagram for a few months, but then Instagram changed their algorithm and all that income evaporated instantly.)
- With software, yes, new languages come about and become more popular such that you're forced to learn them. But generally, it stays consistent (i.e. after 20 years, C++ and Java are still widely used despite the rise of Javascript and Python). This consistency allows for deep mastery. Versus, in internet marketing, you can never become a master in anything because the landscape keeps changing for arbitrary reasons every 6 months to 1 year (i.e. a method becomes oversaturated, Google/Instagram randomly decides to change their terms/algorithm, etc)
- In software development, you're actually creating things that people will use. Most of the time, you legitimately adding value to the world. In internet marketing, it doesn't really feel like you're helping anyone except yourself. You're not really creating anything of value, and sometimes are borderline scamming people or being generally parasitic
- In software development, entrepreneurial opportunities are vast and quite often unsaturated in you're looking in the right place. This is because with software, you can create almost anything imaginable. Versus with internet marketing, it always feels like you're stuck in box. You can't code your way out of it. You basically have to scrape a meager income by following the same old crap everyone else is doing for a few months that will inevitably get oversaturated/patched by one of the tech giants.
Some other misc things I like about software development is the fact that I can work remotely and its fairly future proof (for the next few decades until the bots start coding themselves).
Anyways, I really don't like where I'm at right now knowing that I've sorta just wasted the past 3 years in a dead-end field. I want to lower the risk of software or whatever field I pursue being another false path.
Are my above characterizations of software development correct? Or do I have rose-colored delusions similar to ones I had about internet marketing 3 years ago?
Any other fields I should consider?
Any advice/insights into the pros/cons of software development in terms of the end goal being entrepreneurial freedom?
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