I don't have a degree and I consider myself pretty successful. I'm no Zuckerberg but I haven't been unemployed since 18 (I'm 26). And, like others who've posted, I have to beat recruiters off with a stick. There is a lot of work out there if you have a good online presence. Those are my credentials, now here's my advice: build a portfolio. And I don't mean a portfolio site or physical portfolio per se (though that wo…
22 and no life
101–110 of 193 posts
Re: 22 and no life
#102Work anywhere you can until you can save up about $5000. Then go to Australia on the working holiday visa. You can make $16/hr picking tomatoes or as a barista or $25 an hour shuffling stuff around at a building site. Save $20K while enjoying life, then move to California and do a 2 year degree at a community college for $36 per credit. Get good grades then transfer to a UC to complete a bachelor's at in state tuitio…
> You can make $16/hr picking tomatoes or as a barista or $25 an hour shuffling stuff around at a building site. These figures sound good compared to US min. wages, but given the (substantially) increased cost of living I'm not sure this is good advice.
Re: 22 and no life
#103I know a job you can get. Get yourself to Sacramento, California and look up the Fund for Public Interest Research. If you can be personable and articulate they'll hire you. You can make decent money (enough to live on) and learn some sales skills while you're at it.
Re: 22 and no life
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I almost joined the navy right out of high school. I went through much of the recruiting process, but ultimately decided against it. For me, that was one of the best decisions of my life. For you, you should consider it, but give a lot of thought to it before you even start the recruiting process. Military recruiters will lie to you and your family (maybe not all of them, but it happened to me) to make sure you join…
My first chief, who is a great inspiration in my life, was once a recruiter. I asked him how he felt about recruiting, and if he had to lie to get people to join. His response was this: "I never had to lie to anyone about joining the military. The secret is that no one walks into my office if everything is going right in their life. I just find what that problem is, and figure out how the military can solve it." Recr…
Re: 22 and no life
#105I 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 d…
This really is the key to doing what you love. "Hanging around" leads to opportunities, whether it's through open source contributions to a project you like, pestering people at meetups, being a particularly keen and vocal user of a product you love.
Re: 22 and no life
#106"Programmer" however will solve all of your financial problems for the rest of your life. Invest as much effort as you can into building up your skills and tell everyone you can about them. Email every business in town with a list of your tech skills. Go on ODesk make a profile and list those skills. Respond to every gig posted on there. Check Craigslist, Elance, rentacoder whatever. Find a few gigs, build your skillset and once you are confident enough in what you do, work will just start to find you. As soon as you can afford it get the hell out of your small town and move to a larger market. Everything will change
Re: 22 and no life
#107Work anywhere you can until you can save up about $5000. Then go to Australia on the working holiday visa. You can make $16/hr picking tomatoes or as a barista or $25 an hour shuffling stuff around at a building site. Save $20K while enjoying life, then move to California and do a 2 year degree at a community college for $36 per credit. Get good grades then transfer to a UC to complete a bachelor's at in state tuitio…
Where do you get these tomato picking jobs? Seriously, though. I'm moving to Oz in three months and I've been craigslisting and gumtree'ing like crazy, but I have not had any replies. Can you give me the name of some farms to call about harvesting jobs?
Re: 22 and no life
#108How can you be reached? I'd like to help some how, possibly offer you a free place to stay in the Bay Area (Talk it over with my room mates) and pay for your flight. Please leave your contact info
Re: 22 and no life
#109Re: 22 and no life
#110I moved into one of those apodment places once I got here during the summer. It's a dorm style place that comes w/ furniture,internet,electricity,heat,and water for like $700.
I then emailed a bunch of companies in the area and landed a junior dev job. The pay is low but I am learning a lot.