Between a novice programmer who absorbs everything new with interest, and a specialist who can implement a software solution for a real task, lies what is called a chasm. This is expressed in the level of understanding of the processes occurring both in the creation of software (software) and its subsequent implementation and use. Road going by walking. Sooner or later, the number of hours spent studying study materials and viewing others and writing their codes will result in qualitative changes in the understanding of the future specialist. The best tool for this is developing your own custom software project. Albeit on a non-profit basis.

In the world there are a huge variety of such "open" projects, libraries, source codes. The term open source software means the status of some software (component library, application program) available on the web for free download, study and use. Such programs, depending on the license attached to them, can be used by any person or organization in the same open-source project, in a commercial system or modified for the needs of a specific task.

Working on your real, albeit non-commercial, project, you will get much more important professional experience much faster: learn to use additional programmer tools (debugger, software documentation, system utilities, various settings, various data presentation formats and library modules for working with them ), search for online solutions to problems, choose the best of them, communicate with other people from the IT world. It is one thing to solve theoretical Olympiad problems, and quite another to create useful software that has a specific subject area.

With today's huge number of programmers, it is often possible to meet talented self-taught people who have independently reached the heights of the profession without higher education. On the other hand, it is usually staff of a very narrow specialization. Having reached its local ceiling, such a person is no longer able to grow in a professional and career way. At the first non-standard task, it just gets confused. Attachment to the workplace and to a specific function is a very vulnerable place in the social aspect. That is why in such knowledge-intensive areas as IT, higher technical education plays a key role. It gives you both perspective and security in the future.

And now it’s not a formal diploma. Possessing a broad theoretical base obtained at a higher educational institution, you can easily master new tools, programming languages, and even whole paradigms (functional programming, logic programming, OOP, DSL, AI, Machine Learning). It will be much easier to find a new job. A rich mathematical apparatus will provide an opportunity to solve complex problems, make non-standard decisions, see wider and farther, eventually lead people, leading a team from several programmers to multinational development teams, as a system architect (Architect), senior programmer (Lead Developer), Head of IT (Eng. Chief Information Officer, CIO) or Executive Director (Eng. Chief Executive Officer, CEO). No need to go far for examples.

Any one of the most prominent IT people of our time (Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, and others) anyway, at the beginning of his journey was an ordinary student of a technical college. And it was during this period of their life, having chosen the direction of their main activity, they became those whom the whole world knows them today.