Hey community, I’ve got a friend about to graduate high school. He has had a bit of an uneven path in life, and I would like to help inspire him to focus on something in tech/programming/etc.
He is a smart kid, but doesn’t have a lot of good examples in his life. I think he believes his options are to just get a job at a restaurant or store.
I helped him build his first pc a few months ago. I tried to convince him to install Linux, but he was concerned it might be too complex for a computer he wanted to game on or do music editing. I didn’t push too hard. I know he has been doing a lot of modded games and stuff lately. And he seemed open to testing out Linux on old laptop.
He is smart and I would like to encourage him to either look into pc building or programming. But neither is my field, so I want to know what are good on ramps into programming and open source. What are Blogs, youtubes, or even should I recommend an associate degree at the local community colleges? (I would recommend full college degrees but I think he has some family situation which might make that hard).
All my knowledge feels like osmosis in the last year of being on Lemmy and now I have a Linux server with 20+ self hosted docker apps… but I realize I’m just hacking things together, not developing anything. I just want to show him there is another path he could pursue other than retail.
I think show him some of the cool stuff that you’re able to run on your server and see if he finds it engaging. You can let him know that someone on Lemmy (me) was able to build a career in the tech sector by being entirely self taught. I only took a handful of college classes on a GED because some of my high school credits weren’t going to transfer when changing schools. I was able to go a long way on just hard work and personal interest.
Of course, this only worked out because I was genuinely passionate about the field. If he doesn’t find computers fun it’ll take a lot of hard work and I defer to suggestions from another poster who offered links.
This is great. I knew there would be self taught people. What hooked you? Did you just always tinker around.