I'm a mid-twenties graduate student in a hard science looking for a career change (out of academia). I've become extremely passionate about programming and how I can use it to automate tedious work. That passion has spilled over from work into my personal life, where I now spend time coding at home to do all sorts of interesting experiments with my home network and other (legal) Internet-based projects. Right now, most of my programming expertise is in Python.
Obviously, I'm interested in looking into a CS-based career, but I have no formal credentials to prove to potential employers that I have the skills necessary to get a IT/CS/software engineering job*! What are some good ways that I can get real, valuable credentials that will help me break into this field? Is there any volunteer work that I could do that would help me learn about coding and CS? Are IT certifications one way that I can gather credentials for a CS career?
TL;DR: How can I build my resume so that I can appeal to potential employers without having a computer science, electrical/computer engineering, applied math degree?
*I have a B.S. in Ceramic Engineering, and some graduate coursework completed in Materials Science and Engineering.
Obviously, I'm interested in looking into a CS-based career, but I have no formal credentials to prove to potential employers that I have the skills necessary to get a IT/CS/software engineering job*! What are some good ways that I can get real, valuable credentials that will help me break into this field? Is there any volunteer work that I could do that would help me learn about coding and CS? Are IT certifications one way that I can gather credentials for a CS career?
TL;DR: How can I build my resume so that I can appeal to potential employers without having a computer science, electrical/computer engineering, applied math degree?
*I have a B.S. in Ceramic Engineering, and some graduate coursework completed in Materials Science and Engineering.
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