171–180 of 193 posts
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…
Hey there, for what its worth: Try and start building a portfolio if you're having trouble finding a job. You're 22 years old - don't worry if it involved bi*chwork; the best thing you can do is ditch any sense of entitlement, and I'm not saying you have any! I worked in customer service for almost a year before saving enough money to train as a programmer.. it wasn't easy but with the right attitude it was a blast.…
The above works best in conjunction with the other advice here: get into the open source software world. Hang out on IRC while you're working. Read the documentation. Blog what you're learning. Make the most of free resources. Go to meetups related to technologies you're learning if you can.
I'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…
Work 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 $36 per credit. Get good grades then transfer to a UC to complete a bachelor's at in state tuitio…
Where do you get these tomato picking jobs? Seriously, though. I'm moving to Oz in three months and I've been craigslisting and gumtree'ing like crazy, but I have not had any replies. Can you give me the name of some farms to call about harvesting jobs?
I spent 9 months in OZ, most of the time in northern Queensland working at a lime/lychee farm and some time at a banana farm. Since you are not in OZ yet, I doubt you will have any luck with gumtree/craigslist. Even if you are there it's pretty hard to get the job that way - the farmers really like to make sure you WANT to work and can physically do the work (at least I didn't manage to find work via gumtree).
The thing you have to do is go to the farms directly and talk to the owners/recruiters face-to-face. We bought a cheap 2500$ car between 3 people from Sydney and started driving north along the coast. There's quite a bit of work in the tropical areas during the summer months - bananas, mangoes, limes, lychees, avocados in late summer etc.
So my advice would be - get a cheap car, travel and work at the same time! (some farms hire only for the harvest period which for some produce isn't very long!)
Hope this helps a bit
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…
You are getting great advice. Pick one thing and do it for 10 minutes.
You're already living in the United States, a dream for many.
There's probably an entry-level job in one of those chains or retail stores you can get which will allow you to study on the side - my brother moved from Uruguay to Canada at about your age, worked at KFC while studying and is now an extremely sucessful manager in the advertising business.
As zaphar says, if you're tech-savyy, you don't need the degree - getting exposure will do the trick.
Yakima looks relatively close to Seattle, which is a hot spot for tech, and I've heard Portland also has a good tech community. Try to go to events there and socialize. After you get better known, you might get some freelance work or maybe you can get a position and move there.
I don't know about rent in Yakima, but maybe you can share an apartment with someone interesting/who shares your interests, or at the very least is motivated.
I'd try to find some kind of counseling or support group. If you can't find any in Yakima, there are several in Seattle:
http://www.freecounselinghelp.com/category/counseling/counse...
A non-refundable round trip bus ticket from Yakima to Seattle is about U$ 30 according to Google, so you might be better off paying for some local counseling.
Work 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…
Another idea once you've saved up a couple grand is to outsource yourself while you continue learning and improving as a developer. Move somewhere with rock-bottom cost of living (southeast Asia? Boliva? ...you get the idea) while you do freelance coding online and build up a portfolio. Earn in dollars, live on pesos. By moving to a lower cost area than Australia you still get a little of the "awesome, I'm traveling!…
Stay in the U.S. and try to keep in touch with the comunity.
One 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.
1) Spanish only 2) you need money for textbooks and such 3) really bad hours for those who need to work
Rent varies by country, but you'll find that an US equivalent is shockingly expensive - unless you think that you can live by without a fridge or other essentials (remember, in most of Latin America, rent only includes the four walls and a roof, forget about utilities, appliances, etc, unless you explicitly pay for those).
I've found that culture shock means that only people that are NOT in the situation this person is in are able to adapt to the local conditions.
My mother moved back from Canada to Uruguay, and she's shocked by the cultural differences (she lived abroad for 20 years). You won't believe how many things you take for granted that simply don't exist in a 3rd world country.
You are 22. You have 8 years, or 70 thousand and 80 hours until you turn 30. If half of that time is spent sleeping, you still have over 35 thousand hours to dedicate yourself to becoming a master at something. If Malcolm Gladwell's law of 10,000 hours is valid, that gives you three and a half chances to start something, completely waste your time, and start anew. And that's just until you turn 30. It's not that you…
It got so discouraging that Lee reportedly contemplated learning computer science so he could find a job during this time, but was scolded by his wife when she found out, telling him to keep his focus.
Wow, if only more spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends are so supportive...