I teach software at an institution here in chch. I am not going to advertise my course, but after many years teaching the comments on self learning speak the truth.

Video tutorials are good, but you need a portfolio of projects up on github that are real world examples you have made, not created from a course.

I can teach you software. I can give you the skills to become a programmer, but you have to WANT to develop your skills.

So many people come out of school now with personal issues that get in the way of learning. Depression, anxiety, low motivation, suicidal ideation, etc.

All my students have the potential to work in the field, yet 50% seem to have insurmountable issues that rule them out from from doing anything apart from menial low paid work.

At the end of the day any course you do is worthless, in a few years it will be out of date.

As I try to explain to my students, its not the piece of paper that makes you a programmer, its the ability to self learn, and a love of programming.

So many kids now just want to be spoonfed a course and get the credits, yet when they are dropped into the real world there are no instruction manuals, there is no helping mentor who knows the topic you can ask for help, you have to know how to learn yourself.

At this part of the year I am trying to get my students to do this, and it much harder than teaching them any concepts or frameworks.

What to learn?

Lots of jobs in php / C# backend and React/view frontend making webapps. Also lots of jobs are not advertised but word of mouth.