How I Got My Business Degree And Became A Software Engineer

Traineeship, internship, bootcamp?

Even as a kid growing up, my career interests kept changing. If you would ask 6 year old me what he wants to become when he grows up, then the answer would've been a clear "Red Power Ranger" from the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. But ask me that question a little later in life, and that answer would’ve changed to Pokemon Ranger, Super Saiyan, F-14 Pilot, Hugh Hefner (in that order); you get the picture. So I'm not surprised that my current career path is far from what college prepared me for.

In fact, I'm far from surprised, since picking a business major wasn't exactly a sound decision but more like an impulsive purchase. Unlike most if not all of my peers in high school, I didn't know what major to pick. I was already working a part time job during my last year in high school, so all I knew is the difference between going to college and working; one costs money and the other pays money. Not knowing what to study in college and perhaps lacking long-term vision, it was an obvious and logical choice for me to continue working and perhaps later figure the whole college thing out.

However, after several years of several jobs, of several relationships, I decided to exit the loop of low level jobs, low level salaries, and enrolled for a major that's so generic that it provides the opportunity to easily switch careers if needed/wanted. Unless we're talking ultra specific careers like a doctor (I’m referring to the MDs, DOs, PhDs; not the ones on TikTok), a commercial airline pilot, or a software engineer.

At this point in life I was already noticing some gray strands on my head, so I was looking for the fastest route to a bachelor’s degree. I ended up deciding to enroll for the International Business & Management Studies Fast Track program at the Hogeschool Utrecht, which is a 3-year program.

Due to a series of personal events in my life, I was traveling back and forth between the Netherlands and Indonesia multiple times each college year to a point that I almost created an entirely new program, which is IBMS Fast Track Part-Time. So it’s also no surprise that after 3 years I was still in college and heading to a “similar ETA” as the regular program, but what was a surprise, is that I managed to graduate within 3 months shy of 4 years. 👏

With a bachelor’s degree op zak I moved to Indonesia to start a new career. After all, I did study International Business, so I might as well go international, right?

Long story short, I found a job via my ex and managed to land a job as Marketing Communication Manager for a real estate company where I worked for 3 years before I was hired as Project Manager for an IT company, also still in Indonesia. Long story shorter, I fell completely in love with front-end development, and I taught myself how to code.

So I parted with the IT company, which btw is an amazing company filled with super fun and talented people and tech. The company is called MadeIndonesia, and they specialize in WordPress web development, and I would highly recommend them for any web or PWA development project.

Alright, that was a little unpaid promotion there, but coming back to my story, I was now looking for a career switch, once again.

The question is how?

The traditional route is to get a Computer Science Degree, possibly an internship at a tech company, and start a career as a software engineer.

For obvious reasons, this is not the route I and many other people can take.

Well, maybe not entirely true. Of course I could have enrolled for a CS Degree. In fact, I still could, but being in my mid 30s, 2 marriages in with 3 kids, owning only 0.005 Bitcoin in 2024, maybe not the best decision.

So what options do we self taught developers have?

Btw, I'm very aware that applying, networking etc. may land you a junior position, but if you have, like I and many others have, just looking at the vast quantity of people applying on the same job opening, it's exactly like applying for a job with hundreds of other people. Not to mention, the minimum required 3+ years of relevant work experience.

So what are the options? Well, the ones I could think of are a traineeship, an internship, or a bootcamp.

A traineeship may or may not be familiar, but it is not to be confused with an internship. An internship is usually part of your curriculum in high school or college and only lasts for a couple of weeks/months. Whereas a traineeship is a development program and a job for a period of 1 to 2 years or even longer. This also means that you'll need some form of degree to enter the selection process. Although you may be eligible even without a degree, depending on your motivation and experience.

Moreover, as it is a job, you actually receive a full time income. Unlike an internship where at best you'll get a gift card or a couple hundred bucks, and at worst only free lunch and a thank you card when you're done with your internship.

Then you also have a bootcamp. But this is a program that's usually very expensive. Although whether something is expensive is subjective, but prices tend to range from $2,500 until $12,000 upwards. But when you do take and complete a bootcamp, usually they will also place you at a company, and some bootcamps even offer job guarantees. I'm not really familiar with these bootcamps. I've only clicked on one of them that I saw as an ad popping up. And once you start browsing for junior dev jobs, suddenly your entire social media is filled with these bootcamp ads, so naturally I did click on one of them, but I believe it was around $5K for the bootcamp. And this was in Bali, and $5K is quite a lot of money in Bali, like you could live very comfy with 5 grand in Bali for maybe 5–6 months. Well, maybe not 6 months, probably 2–3 months.

Looking at these 3 options, well maybe only 2 options, because an internship for me at my age and family status is a no-go; between a traineeship and a bootcamp, going with a traineeship is a no-brainer in my opinion.

But yes, while it is of course not impossible to land a junior role without the relevant background and experience, I do have my thoughts on why I think a traineeship is still the way to go, which I will share in the next blog post.

So stay tuned for that if that seems interesting to you.

Bye for now!