In my last post, I mentioned the danger often being in things we cannot see. There is a certain level of risk in everything we do. Avoiding risk should never be our primary goal. Learning to take calculated risks and make wise choices is what life is all about. Without risk there is no reward. There are proper ways of making decisions which involve evaluating the risk involved, identifying viable alternatives to achieving the goal, and surrounding yourself with people who can speak into your life. In the process making my decision to attend university for Mobile Development, I failed to do all three of the items mentioned above. I allowed my blind ambition to justify spending an exorbitant amount of money to attend an unproven program at an online university. There is a time and a place to discuss the high costs of traditional education, but I will table this topic for another post.
What I do want to address is allowing my blind ambition to throw caution to the wind and enroll in a very costly educational institution. I did all of this without looking for viable alternatives first. Keep in mind that other educational options such as Treehouse with their TechDegree were not as widespread. My first mistake was I failed to weigh the risks involved in my online education. I did not ask the right questions. I saw an avenue to pursue my dream and I jumped on it.
I also do not want to paint the picture that this particular university program is not good for anyone. I realize it has its place and will benefit certain people better than others. I already had a traditional university education and I chose this one regardless. What I realize now is that a program such as Treehouse would have been a better fit for me personally.
I started using Treehouse after I had been in school for a year and a half. It got me through many of the courses at university which were in their infancy. These courses lacked the basic instruction which Treehouse provided.
In the end, I left university because it failed to accomplish my goals at becoming a Mobile Developer. So here I was with a base level knowledge with no portfolio to show for my work. I had some of the skills I needed to make mobile applications, but couldn’t tell you where to start. I had accrued most of the cost of the program which at the time which was about $60,000.
I was able to land a few jobs as a developer, but it had nothing to do with my investment in the university program. I now had a pile of student loan debt which I had little means to pay for. One of my positions I convinced my employer to make an app for iOS. I submitted it to the App Store and it was approved. My first app was published!
