Lower your standards and get a job.
22 and no life
21–30 of 193 posts
Re: 22 and no life
#22I changed careers five years ago. Up until that point of my life, I'd primarily worked in customer service jobs despite having a B.A.
What I did:
1) found the first job I could in the Seattle area (it was a call center job)
2) attended tech / startup community events (meetups, hack days, etc)
3) got lucky by meeting helpful folks in the tech community
4) worked on side projects on nights and weekends to grow my web development skills
5) found my first paying freelance dev work
6) found more paying freelance dev work
7) took a webdev job at a startup
From there a lot more has happened, but I've been in a webdev role ever since and continued learning new skills and taking opportunities to grow and contribute.
This is only one story and one perspective, but I hope you find a way out of the problems you're facing.
Re: 22 and no life
#23we're hiring, give me a shout-
Re: 22 and no life
#24Side note to the advice being given here: getting a job, any kind of job, is usually the best way to get to know people, and this should be your ultimate goal: having people you can turn to for a talk or a walk makes wonders to remove the shitty feeling of having no life, even if you have no car and barely enough money to survive.
(Speaking of which, we should probably organize HN meet ups more often)
Re: 22 and no life
#25* You're not the lone ranger, many of us have been there. You're right, you're not in a good place.
* ANY job, if you can pare down/get help with your living expenses, is a plus, especially now. Discipline yourself to save to go to the place where your best chances are. Leave no stone unturned.
* Get help! College environments have lots of services and opportunities for people your age - counselling, jobs lists, ride boards, tutoring opportunities. If you've gone to a college, go there. Don't be shy about spelling out your predicament. Someone may hear you who's been there.
* Avoid the drugs, make sure your personal appearance and demeanor is as good as you can make it. Don't give them any excuses to overlook what you know how to do. Doesn't matter whether you score high on their tests if they don't like your look. "Really tech savvy" is NOT easy to find these days, if by that you mean MAD SKILLS. Sell that hard. If you mean "learn fast and will study hard", sell that. And mean it.
Re: 22 and no life
#26There are lots of jobs out there that will pay you to relocate. Consider making this a focus of your job search.
Re: 22 and no life
#27One strategy is contacting english teaching academies in South America (there are thousands) and go to live there (of course, you'll need some money to afford a couple of renting months), that kind of work will allow you to make a living without taking all your day. The next step is to join a public university, remember in some countries of South America there are great free public universities that allow foreigners.
Re: 22 and no life
#28I've been where you are right now. Only I was married with 4 kids and one on the way. No job, No home, No degree, and what looked like No future.
I don't know what your exact circumstances are but here is how I went from there to working for Google.
1. I got exposure. I hung out online with open source developers and participated. I did stuff in perl and blogged about it.
2. I did whatever I needed to to survive and support my family while doing the above. For awhile I worked as temp manual labor for Labor Ready. It was first come first served but if you did a good job companies would request you and you would have a job any time you stepped in the door.
3. I eventually managed to get contract work and continued to hone my skills and ability as a coder.
4. Finally I got noticed and was recruited by a company in chicago that later got bought by Google. I survived the transition and have been working at Google ever since.
You're path might not be exactly the same as mine but there are two key parts of my experience that you can learn from. Fisrt OpenSource gives you Exposure and Skill building that you can leverage. Second that menial jobs are a sometimes a necessary stepping stone but that they can be temporary.
Good Luck and don't give up.
Re: 22 and no life
#29Central's a good school. Good enough at least. Get any job you can in Ellensburg and find roommates. Apply, do things around campus, do anything you can to meet people and get out there. It does not matter if you actually get in or take classes, but it'll help to try.
Seriously you're less then 40 miles away from tons of people going through the same thing trying to get themselves together. Even if you end up doing something completely different, it's a place to start and it's just a hitchhike with a bunch of people you'll probably want to meet anyways away.
Re: 22 and no life
#30I think you need to take a step back... you are only 22, trust me life is only getting started and you most likely haven't faced your toughest moments yet.
In life it is important to have the right perspective as this shapes your attitude and attitude is everything.
I am 32 now but in around 2001 I was about your age and I had an associate degree(CS), but the job situation sucked. The unemployment rate back then was much lower than it is today....perspective.
I think you need to consider taking any job until you can get on your feet. When I was 22 I was working at a call center taking 50+ abusive phone calls everyday, as I stated above I already had an associate degree...so again adjust your attitude.
Lastly, you may have hung around HN long enough to get the vibe that college isn't necessary, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Peter Thiel may tell kids already on their way to Harvard, Stanford et al to drop out and start a company, that advice is the absolute worse advice for 99.9% of kids....again perspective shapes attitude and attitude determines outcome... seriously figure out a way to enroll in college and get a degree....
hope this helps.
founder @APPYnotebook (www.appynotebook.com)