alanchavez

You're right.

I could have done community service instead, but I didn't.

I didn't take responsibility for the ticket, and I just let it go. There's no excuse.

That's totally awful.

The company that offered me the job offer told me that they will not be doing any reference check on me.

well it's not 400 but it's in the 400 range.

I know there are no excuses, and I've been irresponsible. However sometimes bad things happen to good people, and it's been a rough year.

Before that score I used to have a score in the range of 700.

Living at home is not an option. I have had bad luck with roommates they all turned out to be drug addicts or extremely loud.

Cable TV is included with rent, I do not even have a cellphone because I don't want to be spending $70/mo on that.

Then again, I'm not making excuses for that, I already have a plan to repay all my debt, and I'm starting next paycheck whether I'm moving forward with new company or I stay with my current employer.

I have a web portfolio, I have three blogs, and post YouTube videos regularly for my blogs. I have commited code to large open source projects, and have released some other projects on my own.

I'm just not good at freelancing, I tried it for a short time and hated every single minute of it.

Thanks for your advice!

I've been working in software development since I was in High School; I started at a small agency in my hometown developing CRUD applications in ASP and PHP for local companies.

Then I went to college and in my first semester, the research director offered me a position to develop software for their research projects.

After I left college, I've been working for an advertising agency 1 year now developing more CRUD applications for local companies.

So "real world" experience (in other words besides doing research and my summer internship at a top national laboratory) I've only got 2 1/2 years of experience.

South Texas (Rio Grande Valley).

No tech companies, no headquarters of any kind.

The company that offered me a job is a big company (5000 employees) and is among the fastest growing companies in the US, so it would be a huge bummer if I got my job offer rescinded, I just can't stop thinking about it.

That is very sad :) That's another reason why I'm looking for another job.

I've proved soon-to-be employers that I'm smart enough to make much more.

I don't want to bad mouth my current employer, but they don't appreciate software development and in general, there are not a lot of software development career opportunities here.

Run a validation test.

LOL. That's exactly what my friends told me.

I personally prefer working with Mods because when you're committing to an open source project because you're somehow limited with the owner of the projects goals.

They have a set of features that need to be implemented, and sometimes there's little room for innovations or ideas.

I find it more interesting when I'm allowed to mod a game because I can come up with my own version of the game using that engine, and if you provide an easy way to script my mods (LUA for example) even better.

For example, when I was a kid I always loved to recreate the american revolution in the starcraft universe.

I'm facing a similar situation in which I've job offer from 3 big name companies and I don't know which one to accept. Those 3 jobs could easily be my 3 dream jobs :( Tough call.

I haven't gotten job offers yet, but I got 3 on site job interviews at 3 big companies using the traditional hiring system.

However, I don't think it's unfair if you make use of your professional network. I'm pretty sure you spend a lot of time building strong professionals relationships at they have to pay off some way or another, so don't feel bad if you get an interview if one of your acquaintances help you to get your resumé noticed.