High-school dropout here. I was homeless for ~16 months around 2010. I knew I wanted to get into IT but I figured I should not pursue HTML, PHP or .NET jobs, as most schools and educations here taught exactly that. I knew I couldn't beat the competition, even though I had experience using those languages.
I went into *nix, Python and C instead. Hanging on IRC taught me hacker ethos and the lingo that comes with the work. Made friends, embedded myself in various communities. Got job offers through some communities.
First job was doing 50% support (servicedesk) and 50% Python. It was horrible at times. But I did have a job. I met a guy there that went out of his way to personally get me up to speed with Python/Linux - like a mentor. I worked there for a year but we always kept in touch since.
Fast-forward 8 years later; I can now actually code some decent stuff and that mentor just joined my team and we're reunited again. But that's off-topic.
TL;DR: Learn something that is in demand and be prepared to make sacrifices.
I went into *nix, Python and C instead. Hanging on IRC taught me hacker ethos and the lingo that comes with the work. Made friends, embedded myself in various communities. Got job offers through some communities.
First job was doing 50% support (servicedesk) and 50% Python. It was horrible at times. But I did have a job. I met a guy there that went out of his way to personally get me up to speed with Python/Linux - like a mentor. I worked there for a year but we always kept in touch since.
Fast-forward 8 years later; I can now actually code some decent stuff and that mentor just joined my team and we're reunited again. But that's off-topic.
TL;DR: Learn something that is in demand and be prepared to make sacrifices.