Learn to Code and Make Money

By Ayabonga Tambeka, additional reporting by Thandile Nkoyi

Side hustling while studying can allow students to gain experience, improve their future employment prospects, and earn extra income – and computer programming is one of the most lucrative side-gigs that are available.

Whether you are a computer programming student or just want to broaden your skill set and earn some money on the side, below are a few ways to learn coding, possibly make some money, and gain some valuable experience.

What is coding?

Coding, or computer programming, is the process of writing instructions and converting human language to computer language for task execution.

Coding allows people to use and communicate with devices we use daily such as computers, cell phones, smart devices, and websites we visit.

Since computers cannot communicate like humans, coding is essentially the bridge that converts human language into computer language.

Coding languages

According to the Head of the Department of Computing Sciences at Nelson Mandela University, Professor Jean Greyling,  JavaScript, PHP, and HTML are some of the top coding languages in South Africa for web development.

For conventional coding projects, he identifies Java, C#, Python, and C for more complex projects.

A report by OfferZen, a job marketplace that helps companies hire South African developers and details trends in software developer skills, salaries, and demographics in South Africa, shows that PHP is the most used coding language by South African small businesses, while Python and C# are the most common at startups and scaleups.

Java is the most used by larger enterprises, the most lucrative, and most popular with FinTech and Consulting industries.

Go and Kotlin are the most in-demand programming languages in South Africa, with developers with over ten years of experience earning an average monthly salary of R108,112 and R111,370, respectively, reports My Broadband.

Coding Schools in South Africa

WeThinkCode

WeThinkCode is a coding school that offers a two-year coding course in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban.

The school aims to support young people by enhancing their computing skills. 91% of its graduates have been placed in permanent jobs.

“[WeThinkCode is] a place that gave me an entry-level opportunity in coding when I knew nothing about it,” said  Salome Mpho Shayi, a 2020 graduate of WeThinkCode.

“The year 2020 was a disaster, being isolated and having nothing to do because of COVID-19, so I found myself taking coding more seriously and spending most of my time at WeThinkCode learning.”

Salome now works at Standard Bank as an Optimisation, Fraud and Automation Insights Analyst. It took her three years to learn how to code.

Second-year BCom Computer Science & Information Systems student at Nelson Mandela University Phemelo Motlhabani also learned coding through WeThinkCode.

“The experience was challenging because they don’t only want coding skills. You have to be team-oriented, ask questions, and so on”.

He adds that a professional background is not required to learn to code, but one still has to “demonstrate competency with the tools and be able to break down problems which (one) may not have seen before”.

Phemelo also works with Umuzi, where he is learning Data engineering. Umuzi offers leaderships, intending to “close the skills gap and create suitable work-ready candidates to fill the numerous open tech positions”.

He learned using Visual Studio Code, Python, and Replit.

Visual Studio Code is a free Microsoft computer program used to write, edit, debug, and build code.

Some people report taking from one hour to a few weeks to learn the basics of the software.

A computer is all you need to get started, whether it is your own, or one you can regularly access from your local library.

For Phemelo, when it comes to learning how to code, patience is the name of the game, as it takes time to learn.

Zaio 

Zaio is a Cape Town-based coding school, founded by 26-year-old entrepreneur Mvelo Hlophe. He started Zaio in 2017 after completing his BCom in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Cape Town. It took him a year to learn coding.

The school aims to create and develop skills for young people, graduate or otherwise, equipping them with skills to better their employment prospects.

Zaio coding school offers a free trial course, with a paid course costing up to R4 795 per month.

Find more information about Zaio via their website at https://www.zaio.io/.

Is a university degree a must-have?

Well, not quite. “I have often pointed people to Udemy where there are actual modules, at a fraction of the price of formal qualifications”, says Prof Greyling. He adds that one “needs to be extremely motivated because this will be a long and lonely road”.

Udemy is “an online learning and teaching marketplace with over 250000 courses and 73 million students”. It offers courses in various fields, including data science and web development, as well as specialized courses in various coding languages.

This is the cheapest route of the lot, as course prices on Udemy can start from R1 500, and go as low as R300 on specials. Either option has its upsides and downsides.

For Prof Greyling, the “huge advantage of doing a degree is that you get a much broader education, noting that for BSc, “you will also do subjects like Maths and Statistics, which are very useful in Data Science”.

And to address the elephant in the room; no, using AI to self-teach is not off the table. However, Prof Greyling recommends using AI as an assistive tool in the learning process. “It is extremely dangerous to rely on AI if you are not a good programmer yourself”.

It does not take a tech genius to learn how to code, although that will give you a head start.

These options may perhaps fall outside of what some of our readers have studied, and that is part of the goal; to expand your pool of options, and better your chances of employability in the future.

Tech skills are becoming more valuable by the day as our world is becoming more digitised by the hour (okay maybe not that quickly, but you get the point). We hope this article will prove useful in allowing you to better prepare yourself for the

This article was originally published by Khulani!, a youth media project by the Department of Media and Communication of Nelson Mandela University, based in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape.