Ask HN: I am 23. What's next?
I grew up by the city in the suburbs where you had your typical gang per neighborhood and cops cruising around the area at all times. Drug deals were a regular thing during class time and it was likely that if you followed in your parents footsteps you would be pregnant at 17 and potentially graduating high school with a drug problem. Most of my friends fell victim to drugs in one form or another, so I learned to steer clear of most of that stuff. Plus my dad told me he would kill me if he ever found out (little did I know he had his own problem with it all).
My parents split apart, but before my dad rolled out he set a solid work ethic in me. That or I realized home wasn't the greatest place to be around and decided it would be best to make money while disconnecting from my "family". I started work at 14 changing oil and found the ability to make my own money was the most liberating experience ever. I made a point to ditch the required high school work forms and limits and cut a deal with my boss, 30+ hours and I would make it work. During the summer I put in well into 50 hours as much as I could and enjoyed life.
Fast-forward a couple years and I am in high school goofing around in a networking class. I was told before joining the class that graduating from this school would land me 16 college credits and 19 if I passed the certification. Call it what you will, but I found high school to be a joke, so I went to college at night starting in 11th grade and decided I would make the whole school thing go by as quickly as possible. During this time I continued to work full time, and volunteered at some tech startup doing Internet sales. I also did the usual teenager activities like going to parties, hacking companies in the city, doing graffiti and running from the cops.
Jump ahead 1 year after high school and I am working for a government contractor building circuit boards on million dollar contracts. I graduated high school early, bent the rules as much as possible and was the proud owner of an A.A.S degree in network technology. I later moved on to doing network engineering, but remained with the company for a year before making my next big leap. Meanwhile at home I was planning on moving out because the situation was only getting more annoying.
I realized that finishing my degree was critical to making any money, so I made that my top goal, but knew I would be bored doing nothing but school. You have to understand that at this point I had pushed myself far beyond my normal means and what once was difficult was now the "norm". Sleep wasn't required and all I wanted to do was work. I decided to go to a local college that took in all my transfer credits where a lot of the courses were online. I managed to re-write parts of my degree and pull 18 credit semesters while working the 50 hours as a security engineer while still having some sort of life.
I graduated early with my B.S in Information Assurance and managed to get a couple speaking engagements in the middle of that. I spoke at one of the biggest hacker conferences in Vegas, on career panels with college professors and offered my advice to those who asked or listened. Fast-forward some more and I have written articles for magazines, been offered crazy jobs with crazy money and have vacationed in some pretty cool spots. I have since fixed some of the issues with my family and feel as if I am becoming a more understanding person in regards to substance abuse and mental illness (things I have dealt with a lot).
Life and work are great and just in this year I have been to Canada, the Bahamas, Europe, California and Vegas. A lot of these were for speaking, some for vacation, but all of them great trips. When I got back I would tell my family how things went or what was on my mind. In some cases I wasn't too excited over everything and the comments my family made were more or less that they wish they had my life. It wasn't that I wasn't happy with all of this stuff, but it made me wonder if this is what people worked for. Was what I had someone else's dream?
I work at a university now doing forensic investigations and malware analysis. I could be making a hell of a lot more money else where, but I enjoy the people I work with and what I do everyday. I often stay late and base a lot of my life around doing things in the general area. Because I am staff, I get tuition benefits and while I thought I would never go back to school, I am thinking now it may be worthwhile since it's free. I am not sure if I want to focus on technology or if pursuing a degree in something else would be more of my thing. Either way, I think it would be nice to experience a little bit of the college scene I missed out on by rushing before.
Outside of work I race road bikes, workout a lot, am not too social, but keep enough friends around not to be terribly bored or alone. I go on several trips throughout the year and keep life interesting through funny experiences and the general mentality that life is about stories, not salaries. I know it is who I am to continue working like I do and to do everything I try to the fullest. I am excessive, easily bored and always seeking some challenge. I am far from being old or done, but there are times when I wonder if I will burn out. Will I work too much? Should I be doing more? Should I be doing things differently?
I guess the last thing I would point out is that I recognize I don't know everything and that I haven't tried everything. There is still a lot more I could be doing and a lot I could change both around me and within me. The "being a better person" aspect seems to take longer than changing what I'm surrounded by, so I hope this doesn't come off like a poor me, help me out sort of posting. It should be instead interpreted as someone who has done a decent job for being 23 and wants help knowing how to make life even more awesome. Hopefully a few people will read this and understand the sort of personality I have which I think helps in these questions.