I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I live in one of the most expensive cities in the US and make barely above the local minimum wage. I decided to learn to code, but there's all this anthropological stuff that I don't know, and I don't have a network at all.
I keep getting discouraged and giving up. I write code and don't publicize it. It's all niche anyway. There are months where I don't apply to anything, but I hardly ever get called back - I graduated from college, but with a liberal arts degree. (I got really bad advice.) I apply to fifty jobs and get one phone screen, and then I teach my friends in the Bay Area about how compilers work and so on. I know a guy in a similar position who gave up and became an expat, and I've been helping him learn Python, but I don't let on that it probably won't pay off.
My lease is almost up, and my roommate is going back to college anyway, so I'm going to move back in with my family and work full-time on getting a job and grinding interview problems. But they don't even have an internet connection! Maybe I could get dialup to work. I don't know. I'll probably become a regular at the local McDonald's.
I don't think I'm any good. I'd give up, but the alternative is aspiring to someday become an assistant manager of a fast food joint.
Working these crappy jobs, I've met a lot of people in similar positions. Smart people from hopeless backgrounds who ended up working nothing but retail, or IT guys who can hold their own in web development shop talk but lost their jobs in 2008, ended up homeless for a while, and now push carts in warehouses.
How the hell do people without traditional backgrounds make it? Do I have to go through a boot camp and give up another few months of my life? (Besides, I tried that once already and it didn't pay off - although that was right after I finished college and realized I had some toilet paper, so I had hardly any work experience.) Does it all come down to networking?
I keep getting discouraged and giving up. I write code and don't publicize it. It's all niche anyway. There are months where I don't apply to anything, but I hardly ever get called back - I graduated from college, but with a liberal arts degree. (I got really bad advice.) I apply to fifty jobs and get one phone screen, and then I teach my friends in the Bay Area about how compilers work and so on. I know a guy in a similar position who gave up and became an expat, and I've been helping him learn Python, but I don't let on that it probably won't pay off.
My lease is almost up, and my roommate is going back to college anyway, so I'm going to move back in with my family and work full-time on getting a job and grinding interview problems. But they don't even have an internet connection! Maybe I could get dialup to work. I don't know. I'll probably become a regular at the local McDonald's.
I don't think I'm any good. I'd give up, but the alternative is aspiring to someday become an assistant manager of a fast food joint.
Working these crappy jobs, I've met a lot of people in similar positions. Smart people from hopeless backgrounds who ended up working nothing but retail, or IT guys who can hold their own in web development shop talk but lost their jobs in 2008, ended up homeless for a while, and now push carts in warehouses.
How the hell do people without traditional backgrounds make it? Do I have to go through a boot camp and give up another few months of my life? (Besides, I tried that once already and it didn't pay off - although that was right after I finished college and realized I had some toilet paper, so I had hardly any work experience.) Does it all come down to networking?
Is there any hope?