• Question: How many years in university does it take to become a coder? :)

    Asked by anon-258459 to Rachel, Menia, Emma on 9 Jul 2020.
    • Photo: Emma Wilson

      Emma Wilson answered on 9 Jul 2020:

      Hi, great question! Most coders have a bachelors degree (typically 4 years long) and some also do a masters degree as well (1 year long), so thats 5 years in total.
      It also depends on what type of coder you want to be.
      I’m a data scientist, and I work with data related mainly to neuroscience experiments. I studied Neuroscience for 4 years at university and had coding and statistics courses in my 2nd, 3rd and 4th years. Additionally, I did a lot of self-learning outside of my university courses and in my current job to build up the skills I have now. If you’re interested in doing your own self-learning I’d recommend the Codecademy and Data Camp websites.
      I also work with a few software developers. They develop software that scientists (like me) can use to analyse their data. They both have bachelors and masters degrees in Computer Science. They have a much more broad understanding of computer science and can code in a lot more languages than I can, but they don’t work with the actual data analysed using their software as much as I do.

Comments

  • Photo: Nigel

    Nigel commented on :

    Going to university is not a requirement to become a coder, but it one obvious approach and if you are say doing a computer science degree you will get lots of useful knowledge and skills and understand some of the underlying principles about how code works.
    There are plenty of coders who haven’t gone to university, and even ones who have perhaps done a different degree and just picked up coding as part of their career. As per what Emma has said, there are lots of self-learning options with coding and you can code some basic programs quite quickly, but getting good experience and learning about how to code for your job takes time.

  • Photo: LauraM

    LauraM commented on :

    To add to what the others said, you can become a coder through doing an apprenticeship with a company/organisation which doesn’t require going to university at all!