Help a fledgling professional programmer makes some important career decisions.

I'll be honest, hopefully you'll appreciate it because you need honest advice.

I read your post and I can already hear the self-pity string quartet playing and a big screen in the background playing images your hard, hard life. Task #1 is to stop whining, not just to other people, mainly to yourself.

What do you mean you could not get any loans? What kind of whiny-ass thing is that? You could not get loans so you dropped off college? Unless you're Bill Gates or Sergey Brin, you did a huge mistake there. Get back into school at any cost. Anyone can get a college loan. There are federally-funded ones, there are guaranteed gov't loans, there are scholarships, in-school jobs, grants, emergency cash crises funds at schools, etc...

To me it sounds like you wanted out of college and you took the first good excuse to get out. You are screwed now because once you get out and get the $9/hour full-time job (oops, you already did), it is REALLY hard to get back into school. Now all you need is get a girlfriend, get her pregnant, and congratulations, you have locked yourself out of school. If you have financial obligations (credit cards), consider filing bankruptcy. Otherwise, you WILL be held prisoner to your monthly payments (been there, done that).

Here's my advice: Get back into college. If you have a car that's all yours, keep it, otherwise sell it and buy a bike. Once you are accepted: Get a job. Any job that is compatible with school hours. If you have potential as a programmer, then get a job/freelance as a programmer while you study. If not, flipping burgers to pay for school is a very dignified thing to do. (It's bailing out of college for whiny reasons that carries no dignity)

Stop whining. It does not get any easier if you whine. Problems do not get solved if you whine.

Consider your own question: "Is there some alternative that would allow me to go back to school?" WTF are you waiting for? For the problem to fix itself?? You are waiting for something to "allow" you to go back to school... I will tell you right now, it's not gonna happen. You have to make it happen. Put your ass back in school first, and THEN figure out how the rest of your life will adapt to school life and priorities.

You are not the first person to have to deal with this, there is a huge mechanism in place already to allow people to stay in school. It just carries a cost (sorry, the new car will probably have to wait till after graduation). All things say you do not want to pay that cost. Snap out of it.

gm is a bit harsh here, but he's on the right track. I have my parents co-signing my loans (thank god) but thats all that they've done for me. Everything else I've done on my own and I'm paying for most of my college as I go and from summer jobs. I know if I needed to I could easilly get my own loans (it's not that hard... you just have to deal with higher rates). Also, a friend of mine is in the same boat as you and depending on where you go you may qualify as a 'non-traditional' student since you're older than the average freshman and in that case you will qualify for extra financial aid. Also, file FAFSA without your parents (which you can do so long as they haven't claimed you on their taxes for the previous year) and you'll probably get close to a free ride to school.

College is important, and you really will gain a lot just by getting the degree.

Some of the point here is that the "college" section on your resume represents not just education, but evidence that you're not a total flake. An employer is going to look at your story and wonder why you couldn't, at the very least, get through a few community college courses or an associates degree. As someone who went to a "top" university and received a ton of financial aid, the money excuse doesn't really hold water.

You can make this work if you try. Since you haven't made it work, one tends to worry that you aren't really trying. Someone who isn't going to work hard isn't likely going to be a good employee.

I'm not a flake, I just don't have access to funds.

Alnayyir, I am by no means belittling you; stop calling yourself a flake.

College: You can do it. You should do it. It's worth it. The tools are there. Almost everyone wants to help you. The mechanism is set up to help you. Heck, there are even scholarships for grandchildren of volunteer farmer firemen; and there are searchable databases too. My message to you is: Do it.

Here's what I did, I had a similar situation and I worked my way through college for a CS degree:

Go to a local community college (in your state as they often have huge discounts for state residents) that has a way to transfer to a big 4-year university. Do research, and choose the one that has the best transfer track record. These colleges are good not only because of the implied higher education quality but because the counselors are better equipped to get you into the 4-year.

Use this time wisely, accomplish two things: a) Get good grades, the best you can; and b) build up your professional programming history so you can get a steady stream of consulting gigs later in life (you're gonna need the income).

It's perfectly OK to take 3-4 years doing this. Do it well, this is the key to your future.

Use the system too. My community college permitted dropping out of a course late in the term,so if the calculus class is looking like you'll get a C or maybe a B, drop it and take it again. Don't screw up your grades, they are your ticket to the future. When I found out 4-year universities did not care about dropped courses, I started keeping my "A" classes, and dropping everything else.

When the time is right, transfer to the best 4-year university you get accepted to (you will because you got good grades at the community college). Work your way as much as you can through university, come out with as little debt as possible.

Nowadays you even have guru.com and the like. You can certainly find a job there. One of the best things in colleges/universities nowadays are the job centers. There are lots of companies that advertise for jobs only at their college's job center.

That's pretty much it. It's not impossible.

Yeah, I've already decided to go to a local community college that is a launchpad for OSU. It's 1400 a semester, I can pay that in cash.

I wasn't calling myself a flake, someone implied I could be seen as one.

I'll be focusing on leveraging high grades in order to get future scholarships, and I'll look into the consequences of dropping a class.

Thanks.

>>so if the calculus class is looking like you'll get a C or maybe a B, drop it and take it again. Don't screw up your grades, they are your ticket to the future. When I found out 4-year universities did not care about dropped courses, I started keeping my "A" classes, and dropping everything else.

Not good advice, Most 4 year universities wont let you do this but only two times. Even then, your main focus is getting the degree. 3.5 and 3.0 gpa is no different in interviewing for jobs. Most of the jobs(4) I interviewed with right out of school never asked, Only retake classes you have to or classes that are in your major and you enjoy. Don't waste more years and MONEY. Get the degree then job. THAT IS YOUR MAIN FOCUS.

Quite right, stop whining. I don't know your location, but in most states, your local community college is cheap. At my alma mater, it's $1775/semester. At the CC my sister recently dropped out of (note: she takes full responsibility for her choice), it's $20/credit + ~$200/semester. When I was a poor grad student living just outside NYC (income < $20k/year), I blew $1775/semester on booze/pot/computer stuff I didn't need. Your state is probably cheaper than NY.

Do 2 years of college. Once you turn 24 (+/-, something in that neighborhood), you are independent, your father's income is irrelevant for financial aid. If you have 2 years worth of college done, you can graduate when you turn 26. You are "behind", but not by much. If you want to speed up the process, marry a chick who needs citizenship, marriage also makes you independent.

Well if it's normally that cheap straight up, I'll just pay in cash as soon as I find a school that cheap around here.

I just checked with a diff comm college, I'm going there. I can go for ~1500 a semester.

I'm super frugal and have no vices other than computers, I can afford that twice over.

Problem solved until I want to go to Uni I guess.

I've often wondered why it is that colleges have gotten away with raising tuition 7% to 10% per year for decades on end.

This post is, indeed, very honest about the reason: Your college degree is a badge of social class that every other college grad will look for. If you don't have one, many college grads will assume that you are shiftless and lazy and whining and self-pitying and that you potentially have a series of pregnant girlfriends.

Colleges are charging you -- are striving to put you deeply into debt for a decade or more -- for admission to a club. And, make no mistake, I do generally recommend that you join that club -- the advice here is correct; you should fight to get a degree from one school or another, because the perks are real. But let's not lose sight of the reason why college grads get ahead and folks like the inventive and hardworking techs in my old fab, or my military-veteran uncles with their high school educations, get sneered at. The reason is prejudice.

Incidentally, I for one am willing to take the OP at his (her?) word when he says he's having trouble getting an affordable loan, particularly given the recent turmoil in the credit markets:

http://www.thinkfinancial.com/blog/index.php/student-loans/s...

I've always thought that it's the loans that end up raising tuition. It's the same way the easy loans raised housing prices. Too much money chasing too few goods.

Hmm... I wonder how often these loans default and if the derivatives markets trade them...

I'm not sure about the derivatives market part, but remember that (in the US, at least) most student loans are administered by the federal government, and are 'guaranteed' by them. That means if you don't pay up, the government will fuck with you in all the various ways a government can (confiscation of tax refunds, wage garnishment, etc - and don't forget student loans are not covered by bankruptcy). That is why my loan interest is less than 2% over the fed funds rate - it's worth it to loan money at that rate, because there is effectively no way to avoid having to pay up, short of dying.

Raising tuition by how much? Back in the 90s when I was an undergrad an unsubsizded stafford max was about $2600. Last time I checked (2005) the max was still around $2600 in 2005 dollars! They didn't even add on yearly for inflation. So whatever is driving costs, I seriously doubt government largesse.

I appreciate your candor, but you're missing the point. No source of funding, no school.

It's not like I need to "snap" out of anything. I want to go back to school. As I've already said I've spoken with a financial aid advisor, things are grim and don't seem plausible failing a windfall.

My car is mine, I'm not an idiot, I'm just poor.

You're quite right, problems don't fix themselves, they also aren't fixed because you one says to fix them.

As for girlfriend/pregnant whatever, I'm not having kids. This isn't some post-adolescent, "lol I hate kids". It's just...I'm not infertile, it's just that the idea of dumping as much time and money into kids as is required to do a half-decent job or better is a bit repulsive to me.

To illustrate my point, I decided not to pursue a fairly cute girl recently because she would cut into my coding and learning time. Nothing in the world is as important to me as my work and my intellectual pursuits.

I know you got a couple "hear hears" for your bluntness but I'd appreciate it if your tone reflected the generally friendlier and quieter atmosphere here as opposed to reddit/digg. Frankly, this sort of uninformed rudeness to someone you don't know is the sort of thing I'd expect on rowdier places like the aforementioned, and it saddens me to run into it here for the first time personally.

Dude, sorry for the tone, but yes, you need to snap out of it. I don't feel particularly sorry for you because I was faced with the exact same situation as you, and I ended up in some pretty lofty places. All under my own power, so it's not impossible. No source of funding? Go to a fast food place and get one. You say you code in C#. That's good, it's a technology people expect to pay money for.

Anyway, see my other post about how I did it, just so you have an example.

To illustrate my point, I decided not to pursue a fairly cute girl recently because she would cut into my coding and learning time. Nothing in the world is as important to me as my work and my intellectual pursuits.

This may be unpopular on this forum, but in 10-15 years, you should expect your views to change 180 degrees. For that reason, it would be unwise for you to focus so narrowly on your "interests". You are young, even though you may not feel so, and are still in the process of growing. Allow yourself to do so.

After reading a few of your comments in addition to your post, I'm going to side with the crowd that thinks you are whining. That isn't a personal attack, but an understanding of where you are based on what you've written and where I've been in the past.

There are many poor college kids. In fact, I'd say 75% of them can't really afford to go to the school they go to. Yet, there they are. While not having a millionaire for a father makes life more difficult to us all, it shouldn't stop you from what you want to do.

Yes, getting a PT job, taking out a big loan and possibly going to a cheaper school will both be tough and a compromise from the ideal. So fucking what? 99% of life is compromise. What matters is that you continue to move in your intended direction. What you can't get today, ensure you can achieve tomorrow.

I don't know you, but what I read from you is fear. Fear of failing, and fear of disappointment. Your excuses are only justifications that you use to avoid admitting that you are afraid to act. This happens to everyone, and is certainly common around your age - transitioning from child to adult. Do not allow this fear to control your life, or you will never accomplish anything. You will die lonely, unloved and incomplete.

Your situation matters little. The obstacles in front of you are stagnant. What matters is what you choose to do. You are the part of the equation that is flexible and fluid. Don't waste that.

PS - Go ask that girl out. You will look back on it later and wonder what if, so save yourself the heartache by just finding out now.

No heartache, if she'd been interesting enough to pursue for the sake of long-term, I wouldn't have minded losing the time.

The problem is that the kind of girl who interests me intellectually and understands me (outside of my programming interests) is supremely rare.

I've mostly accepted that either chance will favor me and I'll run into the "girl", or I'll focus on my work. I don't really care.

It doesn't help that I refuse to have kids, that narrows down my options as well.

You're 20. Of course you don't want to have kids. Very few people at 20 want kids. I certainly didn't.

In fact, at 26, I was settled on being single for the rest of my life. I'm now 33, married, and have a 1 year old son. I laugh at my past self and understand how naive I was.

I'm not suggesting you'll be the same, just that you pay attention to the fact that you are seeing the world through the eyes of a 20 year old. :-)

You won't run into "the girl" though if you are standing still.

It's actually not very hard to get back into school.

FWIW, college doesn't teach you anything important about programming or computer science. You can get plenty of jobs without a college degree. When people try to claim competence because they have a degree, the most common reaction is laughter. The code examples you see on TheDailyWTF are probably all written by people with degrees.

You need to actually show that you know how to program and are good at it. Nothing other than solid working code shows that. So write some code that other people use.

It's a tough situation; I was in a similar circumstance including parents salaries disqualifying me for financial aid (my father passed away a month before I started college, but the lookback period for financial aid is 3 years of income. Unfortunately he made 3/4 of our family's income and after his death we couldn't easily afford college).

The reality is this: without a degree, and no experience people have to take you on your word that you know what you're doing, and they're loathe to do so. You're going to have to probably deal with low pay until you get enough experience to be able to convince someone you know enough to pay you the salary they'd pay a grad. It may not be a great situation but I did it as well. My first 'real' job was $8 an hour "tech support" for a mom & pop ISP that involved 10% phone support, 40% systems administration and 50% programming. I got overworked and beat on, but eventually I got enough experience to jump to a 'real' programming job (who also underpaid me and overworked me, but a year there gave me 2+ solid years of demonstrable experience and I was able to call the shots a bit more).

Continue your work on Ubuntu and other open source projects. Not only will it continue to build experience, and get your name on projects which you can hold up to a prospective employer, you will get to know other developers who might be in a position to help you find something better.

The pay and the hours will suck at first, but it improves. You can't be aiming at an $85k target with no experience though without coming out disheartened. Focus on the experience first, and THEN the money. It follows quickly in hand if you do it right.

Since nobody mentioned it, New York tends to have a pretty decent market with a fairly broad skillset. You're always best off of course moving to a city for a job you already have, rather than moving to a city and then finding a job. You might find yourself in a messy situation if you just move blindly. There are still a good bit of companies that will pay moving expenses - at the LEAST, if you're clear in a cover letter that you're looking to move to a market with a more established IT industry, and you'll pay moving on your own it won't disqualify you just because of location.

Good luck!

I am not aiming for $85k, I'm not aiming for any sum of money. I just want to make a living coding. I'd be happy with $30k if it were matched with a decent work environment.

I have been considering moving to a better IT market, I just felt weak when it came to getting a programming job, so wasn't certain if I'd be able to get one remotely.

Thanks for the tips.

With all due respect, you're exhibiting signs of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Degrees matter, sure. But there's definitely a way you can demonstrate knowledge without having one. Here is a good read:

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...

Definitely get some F/OSS projects under your belt. It's a great way to show what you can do, and you can work on them completely on your own schedule. To show that you know compilers, help out with code optimization in Rhino. To show you know networking, help out fixing an IM client's file transfer. To show that you know web programming, rewrite phpMyAdmin as a webapp, or make a web-based learning tool for kids like Karel The Robot (Google that).

At least for me, I don't think it was the degree that helped with jobs, it was the side projects I worked on in the 4 years of (what I realize now were) oceans of free time.

I understand what you're saying about Dunning-Kruger, but I could sit here and tell you about the merits of Linux Kernel asm-level syscalls versus DOS interrupts.

I know i386 and PPC asm.

I have a passion for algorithms, in particular, I like in my spare time to create mini-benchmarks of sorting algorithms against various arbitrary datasets.

I know my stuff. I just can't demonstrate the more advanced work I've done because it usually violates US Copyright Law.

EDIT: Let me qualify this by saying there is tons more I need to learn, and want to know. For example, I really REALLY need to learn more about web application development.

It doesn't matter if you tell yourself you know your stuff. I don't think anyone ever says "I don't know anything." You need to prove it. Companies don't care what you tell them, you need to show them.

If all the intelligent work you do can't be shared... you need to do some intelligent work that you can share. Otherwise nobody will know you're good.

Get involved with open source projects. If you get yourself involved in a community that already exists, and you show you know your stuff, you will be showered with job offers. If you do your own thing and then whine on HN, you will be unemployed forever.

I'll second the recommendation of working on open source projects - with many hiring managers, the only way they're not going to care about a degree is you have commercial quality code out there that they can see.

The other thing I would suggest is to do some research on companies and target a few likely ones - watch their jobs pages over time to see how they hire - then look for projects that would be appealing to them. Individuals have to do marketing just like companies.

I know a previous employer of mine recently hired a web designer right out of high school based on the strength of his portfolio.

Here's what I did; I went part-time off-and-on for 4 years and it seemed like an eternity and sucked big time. Finally quite my job and financed my 1st year of full-time (State) college with my credit-cards, worked in the Unix lab. In my 2nd year I got an internship, as a software engineer, that paid well and continued the internship part-time till I graduated.

One summer (3 months) working as an intern and I made more money than working 6 months at my previous full-time job ... also after going full-time to college I made life-long friends that I would not have met going part-time.

On the other hand, if your want to continue as a programmer, U might not really need college if your really, really good. But, a good Computer Science program (and not a whimsical Informations System program) will teach you skills and knowledge that will be invaluable throughout your career. Also, having a degree can be a requirement for many jobs, they might not consider your resume or cv if you don't have one.

Even earning $1600 a month you can go part-time to a state college and start working your way to a degree. Tis better to have a degree even if it takes too long that to not have a degree and get stuck in a rut.

My advise, find an inexpensive state college with a good CS program, go to their open house, talk to their funding specialists. Be prepared to give up the niceties of life for a few years and you'll manage somehow.

OR, come to Boston and sigh up for Ycombinator! :)

I'm not making 1600 anymore, that was when I was a programmer. I make ~1050 a month post-tax.

There are small companies who've realised that most graduates lack the skills they need and have to be trained in house. Find one of these and I'm sure they'll take you on after you've explained your situation. Best place to look would be local user group meetings. Also keep an eye on those companies that advertise positions on Joel on Software and the like.

++1 for Joel's job board. I just started an awesome job I found there. 10 people, I'm the 4th programmer, great environment, best coworkers yet.

If leaving Ohio is an option, get yourself out of there and into a major center. Though Columbus is a large place, you won't have nearly as many options as you would in say... Silicon Valley, Boston or New York.

Don't let past experience set your future expectations in terms of being hired. People do hire based on merit, so be persistent.

Lean towards smaller companies without bulky HR depts. HR people are generally looking for degrees, because they do not have any other way of reliably measuring the value of a programmer. With smaller companies, your resume has a better chance of winding up on the desk of someone who knows the difference between C# and C++ or Java and JavaScript.

Be persistent. There is work out there for talented people, regardless of their degree (or lack thereof)

The problem with moving is the cost! It's can take a lot of money to move, especially to SV, Boston, or NYC. Plus, as an out-of-state resident (state) colleges will be too expensive.

However, UMass Boston has a pretty good CS programme at a cost a lot less than the big local private schools.

One idea - get your IT resume together, see if anyone you know from your tech days is hiring, and fire it off. Don't let a lack of college stop you.

Another idea - do a bit of networking in the city (meetup.com groups etc) if you want to stay there. If not, probably soft-relocate and couchsurf in San Francisco or Palo Alto, then network there.

With your background, you'll get hired in no time.

There are some truly free universities. But you've still got to pay for essentials. The MIT curricula are on the web somewhere for free. Including texts.

If you do your own open source project, it can work for you. It's hard work and it can stereotype you. If you do a great job at building a new test thing for, Ruby, say, you'll have a hard time escaping the stereotype for 'test' and 'ruby'. But it can work.

You can lie on your resume and then work crazy to get your jobs done. For certain lazy, pointy-headed bosses and certain smart and ambitious programmers this might be the best solution. You can easily do better than the idiots these fools would otherwise hire. If you do this then change jobs every 2 years. You'll then have enough of a real resume that you can drop off the original baloney.

Actually stealing the money to pay your way through school is against the law and the hard time simply isn't worth it.

I have friends in university administration and another whose a college guidance counselor; They say there are many more scholarships available than people think. If you're willing to dig you can find some. There are often local scholarships available, for example, there might be something from the banks or the Chamber of Commerce in Columbus. Or your church. Or your dad's union, or business group.

Spend a day on the web searching for federal and other scholarships. I understand it works.

As a general rule, if working as an employee, try to avoid large corporations. Working there sucks anyways, and they won't hire you (and pay you good money) without a degree. Look for small companies that are looking for sharp individuals. Anything under 5-10 ppl is good, if they are more than 15-20 they're probably already loose the edge.

You could also be bold and be independentish, but that's much riskier, and is hard without some family background.

The best thing to do at this age, if possible is to go to a regular University and get a degree. Even if you go to school, get a job for the experience. The best way to learn programming is to learn from other experienced programmers who review your code, you review their code, ask them what they think of technology-X, etc. You don't get that at school. While at H.S. I took some courses (e.g. UNIX, C) at the local comm. college, and it retrospect they were pretty low-level, so as a rule of thumb don't count on getting anything worthwhile out of there.

Disown your father.

This is actually not a bad suggestion. If you file for emancipation, you can then file your own FAFSA. Once you do that, if you have no source of income, you'll qualify for all sorts of government grants and loans.

Look into it. Filing for emancipation requires some paperwork but shouldn't be terrible.

From the sounds of it, it might be very likely that his father is not the curmudgeon that he appears, but is in fact attempting to teach his son a very valuable lesson, one that will allow him to avoid the perils that his mother faces.

My Father could afford to pay for me to go to Princeton, in cash, on a yearly basis.

It has nothing to do with debt management.

I am extremely frugal, and as said elsewhere, I'll be going to a community college I found. I am paying the tuition in cash. That isn't something someone with poor finance skills can do.

I don't think the lesson he is attempting to teach you has anything to do with money, btw.

My Father is a literal sociopath, he isn't trying to teach anyone anything.

Fair enough.

So emancipate yourself, and get financial aid. It doesn't sound like there's much holding you back.

I didn't know you could emancipate yourself post-age-of-18.

I already found a solution via community college.

Get the degree. I've dealt with people who failed to get the degree and found it a problem later in life. It's easier now than when you're 40ish and have a family. And believe me, it will come back to haunt you at some point when you're older and you find that perfect position and they require a degree.

As far as moving out of Columbus, I can't really say that would be necessary, and don't do it without a job lined up. There's a lot of experienced programmers on the street now, and you'll never know if you're going to the wrong market at the wrong time.

Finally, Network, Network, Network. The user group suggestion above was a good one.

If you're in Columbus, in state tuition at Ohio state is less than $9000 a year, so it is hard to imagine being unable to find money for school. You can make that kind of money working part time at a bar.

I found a solution, but I'd still like to correct you.

You can make that kind of money part-time at a bar, while homeless and never eating.

9k is the sum of what you'd make working part-time at a bar here.

It may be different in Columbus. A popular bartender at the right bar in SF can make $400/night in tips. However, I paid my way through school in the midwest with academic scholarships and a part time unix systems administrator job. The school I went to cost twice as much as Ohio State, and I graduated with no debt, so I sort of agree with "gm."

shrugs I found my solution: community college as a launchpad for getting high grades and going to Uni for free.

I can afford to pay for CC out of pocket. It's cheap.

Columbus has a severe labor surplus/job shortage. This rust belt area is dying hard. I was lucky to get my $9 an hour job. I live alone, I pay all my bills myself. Columbus doesn't give me much margin to work with, were it not for my frugality.

Get out of Columbus ASAP. Go to Portland, San Francisco, Raleigh, New York, or leave the USA - we're headed into worse economic times than the early '70s, things may get very grim here. Also if you're into Linux, spring for RedHat or Novell certification. You can hang out in the sysadmin world for a bit while you save up to continue your education, build a track record, and gain valuable practical experience. Learn to present a good resume and keep applying for jobs - the worst that can happen is that you don't get a phone call.

I had the exact same problem with no help and no cosigners. Eerily exact actually. My dad wouldn't help or co-sign and his income was too great to help with financial aid, and my mom was in no financial position to co-sign.

So, what did I do? I spent every waking second of my senior year in high school applying for scholarships (merit-based, not need-based). So my advice to you would be to do the same. You may be out of high school already, but it's never too late. Spend the next semester applying for scholarships (sign up and create your profile on fastweb.com for starters).

After you've gotten a few, go take out student loans for the rest. Though a co-signer helps, I never had one, so I know it's possible. I got most of mine through Sallie Mae. Of course the downside is you get approved with an 11% interest rate (especially with the economy the way it is now). But if you're truly as skilled and disciplined as you claim, you should be able to make that back up no problem once you graduate.

Of course, playing devil's advocate here, there are many people for whom college is not right. Many people spend their entire lives paying off student loans because they got a degree in some field that doesn't pay well, and for which the difference in average salaries between a college grad and a high school grad is not enough to feasibly cover the cost of the college degree.

However, with programming, and the level of competence you're claiming, a degree would definitely be a wise investment for you. So, get in the game and take care!

You definitely don't need a degree or a cert, that's for sure. Just keep at it and you'll find something. Columbus is no Silicon Valley (althugh it wouldn't hurt to consider relocating to a more geek-friendly city -- we just moved to Seattle and love it), but even Ohio should be able to offer you something. Though you'd probably do a bit better in Cincinnati. =)

Here's my situation. In no way am I trying to say I'm doing better or worse.

I graduated with Physics BS two years ago. I work 4 hours a week as a teacher/mentor. ($30-40 an hours) And I code AI the rest of the time. I live in a van on a co-op property to illuminate rent money so that I can work less for money and code more.

This is just temporary, but I do love the lifestyle. I have never learned as much and as more efficiently as I do now. So if you have a specific project to do, do it yourself or find other bright people to partner with. If not, it's time to network.

You will get a good job lead either by having a lot of accomplishment, or lots of good networks. And the latter seems to work for most people.

It sounds like you have done a lot of good work for other people. Have you exploited your network yet? Email friends of friends, past co-workers of co-workers, find out what they are doing. I'm sure if you dig hard enough you will find someone interesting that needs your help.

Get a part time day job doing something physical (window washing, carpet cleaning) that does not require too much thinkin'.

While doing that, start to build your programming client base while working late days and evenings. The two incomes combined will be modest (close to $1,600/mo), but you will be able to take some tax breaks for owning your own biz (write-offs include gas, computer, travel). Plus, this schedule will allow you to make mistakes while programming, dealing with clients, and more without you loosing your livelihood.

Commit to this for two years. At the end of 24 months, review your position. If your programming business and clientele are supporting your desired lifestyle, then move into full time programming. If not, then you may want to reconsider a life of 0s and 1s.

Come to university in Finland / Sweden. Tuition is free in both countries. Housing costs, but it does so everywhere.

http://www.studyinfinland.fi/ http://www.studyinsweden.se/

I took the same job, from a factory - the owner set me up working as a "ebay poster" , I asked the company why they didn't move beyond the 21-23% fee ebay takes and build there own website to sell their products.

- they had already spent 5k and in 2 years without sales, they said "No Way!" ...

- i went home and bought the domain www.econoPalletJack.com for $10.20 - I built the site in 2 days (yeah its not perfect) but with a #5 in google for pallet jack and 20k/mo in sales it all worked out, I have since left the company but the owner and i are still greats freinds (wouldn't you be if a guy left you 20k/mo residual)

- have hope and make things on your spare time, little programs perhaps to sell, find a hurt point that you are passionate about and do it.

Check out http://YouNoodle.com - do a search on your city and then contact the founders of the startups in your city.

Run with the first one that raises capital, or has it already to hire you.

Research some VC portfolios and contact the companies where you'd fit in.

A uni degree isn't everything, but you need to know how to optimize your time, to be able to keep learning, and to be positioning yourself for success in the best possible way - through a startup.

If you can, a blog will help with your writing skills and something to show employers.

If you get to college, take freelance jobs over the web that can be performed remotely like from elance, getacoder, programmingbids and the like.

Most of all Good Luck and don't be like your dad to your kids.

Employers want to hire people who can solve problems. And right now, you're problem is that you need a degree. If you can't figure out a solution to that problem one way or another, who is going to believe that you have the tenacity and smarts to figure out out other problems (such as programming problems). Figure out something: take out loans in your own name, work during the day and get a degree at night, go for continuing education courses. If you want it enough you will be able to find a way. And having the degree will help to solve the problem of people not wanting to hire you for lack of a degree, which is going to be with you for your entire career if you don't get one.

You're doing everything right. (And your life is supposed to suck, given your situation.)

1) You picked software development, the right career choice for you.

2) You've programmed at home for years, which is also right.

3) You entered college. Very important and correct thing to do.

4) You left college. Very correct thing to do, given that you had to pay lots of money but could not secure a loan in time.

5) You've tried to get work in a field you enjoy and are comfortable with. Very correct thing to do.

6) You quit your work. Very good thing to do given you were not treated like an adult, and underpaid. Very important to recognize this.

7) You started another job, that pays you even less, but you were right to assert yourself and look for another job since the other had everything going against you.

You need to realize that it's not the lack of a degree that's hurting you, but your age. If you were five to ten years older, you would be taken more seriously, as well has have better references--degree or not.

In the mean time, you may as well finish a C.S. degree at the most affordable college you can find. You were right to investigate a community college, but I would recommend just attending a four year school because it might avoid transfer credit issues; however, since it's July, find and enroll in a community college program that:

1) grants an Associate of Science degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or Engineering;

2) has a charter with a four-year public school you might like, that has guaranteed admissions and full transfer of credits to a C.S. program at that college, allowing you to enter as a Junior.

The only thing you are doing wrong is whining (you were correct in this case, but I wouldn't do it from now on. I would also not walk around thinking you've got the best plan for you, ever, being a software developer and possibly working for a high-tech company in four years, either.) Just enjoy the experience. Also, try creating applications for others to use while you're in college.

There, you're all set! (The reason I don't recommend whining further is because sh*t happens to everyone. And especially it being two years ago, don't stress over it, and don't even bring it up... You started college, had financial aid screw ups, then continued college--a pretty normal occurrence.)

However, DON'T LOSE THE PASSION. I can sense a lot of "if I only had a chance" energy and that (in my opinion) is the best energy one can have towards making something great.

If you can somehow get the local co-op job listings @ your uni, you'll find a lot of entry level positions for intern type jobs. Try applying for places w/o transcript requirements, read a bit about algorithms, and you could find yourself with a $2500/month entry level programming job.

Oh...and you should probably take gm's tough love to heart - he's on to something there.

get a degree dude. you'll start off making at least $50K minimum if you do computer science. Build your life financially then do your own thing.

Oh, I'm based out of Columbus, OH, but I'm not especially beholden to the city.

I'd get the heck out of there, first of all, and second, dedicate some time to open source work, which is a great way of 1) proving your abilities, and 2) meeting people.

It's doable: I got my first programming job in my early 20ies, with no college. Good luck!

Actually I contributed a great deal to Ubuntu. I did some multimedia/userspace/64-bit debugging and I helped out with the tech support in #ubuntu. Nothing with my name stamped on it though, I just threw bugs at MOTUs. :\

Where would you recommend as an alternative to Columbus? I seemed to have the impression we had a decent IT/Software Dev market here. (indeed.com/salary says the avg C# coder makes $85k. shrugs) That's partially why I was disheartened, thought I was having trouble finding a job in the context of a good market.

I'll look into contributing more time to open source stuff.

In terms of open source, I think you get more bang for your buck in terms of fame and fortune by working on your own projects, if they're relatively successful, than by playing a small role in someone else's. Sad but true.

In terms of Ohio... I've never been there, and I have a strong bias against flat places (my home office here in Innsbruck is higher than the entire state of Ohio!), so I'd head to somewhere like California, Oregon, Washington, or maybe Colorado, as that's a bit closer to where you are.

hang out at local user's groups. I've thought of driving down to the Ruby/rails UG, sounds like a really good crew

http://groups.google.com/group/columbusrb?lnk=

(i bet cincinatti has stuff like this too. Cleveland's pretty, uh, quiet).

I'm guessing that there's one job category that there will never be enough people for, anywhere: javascript programmers who thoroughly understand DOM scripting, making things work securely in IE 6-8, safari and firefox. So web app's are a little afield of what you've been doing, ubt if your're good at rails or Django, plus mysql/Postgres tuning, plus some Jquery, sojmebody will hire you. Getting a technical job's like parking your car in a major city. Some people have hummers, other have scooters, but when you get a space, you think, hey, that wasn't bad at all

javascript programmers who thoroughly understand DOM scripting, making things work securely in IE 6-8, safari and firefox

Now we are getting somewhere.

Look deep into your soul and ask yourself: "Is there an actual reason why I haven't become a web programmer yet?"

I'm going to catch hell for saying this on news.yc... but stop learning Lisp for a while. Nobody knows about Lisp but grad students and MIT grads, and they're going to hire other grad students and MIT grads, because there's a long line of people with advanced degrees who would love to be paid to hack on Lisp but can't find that job.

Where there's muck, there's brass. Learn some HTML, CSS, Javascript and -- god help us -- PHP, in the form of a good and popular toolkit like Drupal. If you can't stomach the PHP (after learning Ruby or Lisp, PHP can feel like typing in boxing gloves) learn Django, Pylons or Ruby plus Rails -- but, if you want steady work, PHP may be better in the short term. There's an enormous and growing number of PHP-based sites in the world, and nobody can find the coders to keep them all up.

Above all, learn SQL. If you're going to pursue some paper qualification that isn't a college degree, make it database administration. SQL isn't going anywhere for the next decade, companies need those skills, and a surprising number of developers have only the faintest notion of how an RDBMS works.

Web development jobs can be acquired one short-term gig at a time -- it's fairly low-risk for prospective clients to try you out, and the fact that you'll obviously leave for college in a year or two won't bother most of them. These jobs can be done from several time zones away. They can be done for clients that you've never even seen. If you choose your gigs carefully, each one results in a piece of publicly-visible software that can be linked in your portfolio and shown to future clients. Once your portfolio and reputation exist, nobody will care about what degrees you have or don't have.

I'm guessing that most systems programming jobs, and a majority of the Microsoft-stack C#/.NET jobs, involve physically sitting in actual cubicles in offices full of college grads. If you are intent on pursuing such a job, Columbus is probably the wrong place -- it has a relatively low number of jobs in your field and a relatively enormous number of college grads.

Thanks for the excellent advice.

As I said in another reply, I found a community college that is cheap enough for me to pay for the tuition in cash. I'll just get my degree and go from there.

Great it's a good start! :) Just be careful that you don't take courses that won't transfer to a 4-year college (beats me how you'd determine this).

Plus, this discussion is good for anyone else in your position and it'd be good to keep the dialog going as you may get some other useful suggestions for the future.

Why not apply to MIT maybe they'll give you a scholarship! U never know. :)

I highly doubt MIT would want me, my high school grades were mediocre, and I did get a 28 on my ACT, but that was with a hangover. I didn't learn my lesson regarding grades and working in school until it was too late.

UR probably right, but what the heck!

2 other things: put a blog out there. write a few good posts that arent' obviously derivative of somebody else's.

put some apps out there. They can be facebooks apps that target your geographic area, or greasemonkies that do whatever. These are like selling rolexes on the street. OR: take all the posts tagged "C#" on delicious and technorati, figure out which are the best x thousand, use those to produce better .nET documentation. This would be like selling heroin to junkies.

I'm in Columbus, and if you're good at C#, I may know of a place that is usually hiring good C# devs, I worked IT there for a summer, it's a really good company. e-mail me issac.kelly@gmail.com

simple and stupid, but have you tried talking to recruiters?