More and more people want to get into IT. And not because they like programming and have a predisposition for it, but because of the opinion that there is a lot of money in this field.

From this we can see that there are more and more different courses on programming, teachers who assure you that in the shortest possible time you can learn to program in a popular language, such as JavaScript, PHP, Python, or use some newfangled framework, and promote employment in high-paying jobs at major companies. On the sites of various courses bring a lot of pseudo examples of successful employment and salaries of students who took the course. However, not everything is as smooth as it may seem to many people.

Pay the money and they will teach you how to program.
There is a perception that if you pay money for a programming course, you will be instantly taught to program. But you will not. If you are not interested in the course material and you don’t want to begin to learn programming, no courses for any money will help. First of all, you have to understand that the purpose of programming courses is not to teach you, but to make money from your knowledge and sell information. After all, programming courses are created for commercial purposes. This is a business.

Take a course and start making a lot of money.
Most people who now come into the IT field and take courses are looking for quick and easy money. At the same time they are willing to throw money away on dubious kinds of programming courses, hoping to learn how to program as quickly as possible and make a lot of money.

They won’t start making money. No one will pay money just to learn something there. After all, the main thing is to solve specific problems, to understand what you know and how to apply this knowledge. Nobody wants to imitate actions, they want the result.

You took a course and became a professional programmer.
No professional teacher and the best training courses are not able to teach how to program if a person doesn’t want to. After all, the main thing here – hard study and painstaking work on yourself. Moreover, for one course, or even for ten, twenty, one hundred courses it is impossible to learn everything completely and apply it in practice. Programming courses will not teach you to think with your head until you do it yourself. There is nothing in the courses that you can’t take and learn on your own. There is the same information that can be found in public sources, official documentation and books. As a result, taking the course is simply a waste of money and there is rarely anything in your memory after taking it.

Get a certificate with a diploma and get ripped off
Any paper you will be given after passing courses in programming, whether it be a diploma with a stamp or a certificate with a signature, is just an ordinary piece of paper and no more. No need to think that a lot of certificates you immediately get ripped off at any job. There is only one value – it’s your knowledge. No matter how many certificates you have in different spheres of programming, until you confirm your professionalism and knowledge in practice, no one will care about you. Courses cannot guarantee you a good job at a large company, but only give you some knowledge, which you should already have when searching for a job.

Picked a cool course for advanced
If you decide to take courses in programming, choose the level for which your knowledge is designed. You should not think that by choosing the highest, most difficult and expensive course you will immediately become a professional. If you do not have a basic knowledge of programming or a particular technology, it is better to choose a course for beginners and learn programming from the very beginning.

Passed the course, but no portfolio
If after taking a course you were not able to build up a portfolio, then you can consider that such programming courses were held in vain. After all, if it wasn’t just a theoretical course, but there was some practical work and assignments, then a portfolio is simply necessary. If you are hired without any work experience it will be an excellent indicator of your real knowledge.

It would seem that everything is okay. If under the sauce of more or less normal courses were not presented in a truly terrible course. Surely many have come across articles and advertisements on the Internet with screaming headlines:

“Programming courses in 7 days.”
“JavaScript courses in 21 days.”
“Learn PHP in a month.”
“Become a Java programmer in 3 days.”

And similar nonsense headlines. At the same time, you can meet the supposedly successful stories of passing courses in programming some unknown, or rather, not existing person, in the style.

The essence of such courses – to steal money from you. The knowledge of these courses is always superficial and not at all educational, they teach programming languages or tools, but not the programming itself. For example, the course on ReactJS will not teach you to program in JavaScript itself. Moving away from ReactJS will make it difficult for you to work with another library because you don’t know JavaScript. Lest you think you’re too dumb to program, courses are made easy. As a result you are again not paying money, for a different course, which again does not teach you anything. After you finish the course you are given some beautiful piece of paper – a certificate or diploma, which in the end nobody needs except you. Many people start looking for a job with big salaries after the course, but it turns out that after passing the course knowledge has not increased and you can not apply for the position. Thus, the courses – it is a well-established conveyor belt to suck money.

Programmers are perpetual students, who must constantly learn and practice throughout their work. The IT field is constantly evolving, but the fundamentals are still the same as they were ten years ago. Don’t take into account the many different tools that appear almost every year, or even every month. Therefore, before you go to a programming course with exorbitant cost, think about whether you need it.