I'm studying at a UK university too, and I always scratch my head as to how on earth people get the money to travel around Europe or Australia before they go to uni. Who funds it?
> In my circles, everyone from 25-35 is simultaneously preparing to FIRE
It's still shocking to me how "chill" this is. "Oh yeah, I'm about to FIRE, no big problem".
Achieving FIRE is such a mind blowing concept to me, Let alone at 25-35!!! Where I live we don't have fat six figure salaries flying around allowing us to accumulate a chunky ETF portfolio to live off of.
Be grateful for what you have achieved!
> Suddenly, having good health insurance, WFH 'flexibility' and a stable jobs are now being viewed as things to be grateful about rather than the norm for well educated and employable adults.
Do you realise how the bottom ~50% of the US workforce lives [1]?! Getting paid six figures or more easily puts you in the top 10% of income earners in the US. Why are you talking as if these should be the norm? They clearly aren't by all metrics. You have such incredible benefits for the work you do, why do you believe you shouldn't feel any privilege or gratitude?
This is a brilliant project. I've toyed around with electronics and microcontrollers and I once wanted to build a full "desktop" PC with an STM32 and a PS/2 keyboard input and a VGA output. Unfortunately, school took over me and I left it.
One thing that I am curious about though is whether you could use such a big project as yours for employment. E.g. if you had absolutely no formal qualifications and applied to a (relevant) company by using such projects in your CV, would they consider you?