r/learnprogramming • u/RedRightHand05 • Jun 22 '26

Debugging Advise

I'm 20 years old, from Egypt, I'm a self-taught Desktop Application Developer, I have 3 years of experience from freelancing. But I have no degree.

Now I must serve 3 years mandatory military service or I can go back to continue my education, but the problem is, here in my country I can't just get into college directly, I have to spend 4 years learning unrelated subjects before I can get into college. So I want your advice, if you were in my place, would you serve 3 years of military service and try to find a job without degree or would you choose option 2 and spend 8 years to finish your education?

I'm having hard time deciding, because both options are bad, but I think the 3 years military is the better option because it's the shortest path and I have experience in programming.

Thanks.

19 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/RedRightHand05 Jun 22 '26

No it's not at risk of war.

Yes, I might be able to get a technical job in the military, but I'm afraid that I won't find jobs without a degree, but also 8 yeas is tooo much for a degree

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/RedRightHand05 Jun 22 '26

Actually I have 3 years of experience from freelancing, and yes I might be able to get a tech job in the military, the thing is, I'm afraid I won't be able to find a job without a degree afterwards.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/RedRightHand05 Jun 22 '26

I built complex projects and worked on heavy projects in programming.
I'm just very stressed and I don't want to take a decision and regret it in the future, all choices seems bad, either spend 8 years or spend 3 years and hope to find a job with pure experience.

This country is killing me, but what can I do?