I've been where you are right now. Only I was married with 4 kids and one on the way. No job, No home, No degree, and what looked like No future.

I don't know what your exact circumstances are but here is how I went from there to working for Google.

1. I got exposure. I hung out online with open source developers and participated. I did stuff in perl and blogged about it.

2. I did whatever I needed to to survive and support my family while doing the above. For awhile I worked as temp manual labor for Labor Ready. It was first come first served but if you did a good job companies would request you and you would have a job any time you stepped in the door.

3. I eventually managed to get contract work and continued to hone my skills and ability as a coder.

4. Finally I got noticed and was recruited by a company in chicago that later got bought by Google. I survived the transition and have been working at Google ever since.

You're path might not be exactly the same as mine but there are two key parts of my experience that you can learn from. Fisrt OpenSource gives you Exposure and Skill building that you can leverage. Second that menial jobs are a sometimes a necessary stepping stone but that they can be temporary.

Good Luck and don't give up.

Wow. I didn't know about the stuff before your numbered list (except that you had a family), but I remember finding your blog when you were at #1 and still doing Perl. I was motivated to get involved with FOSS because of it. Really inspiring. I don't know if I've ever said that to you but it's true.

THIS is what I want to read here. Thanks mate, and best to you and your family. OP: I wish you good luck. You will find your way.

That is an awesome story, good job Zaphar! You make it sound easy and it can be. Just keep taking the next step, keep learning, moving forward and getting feedback and almost anyone can take themselves somewhere.

What is you blog BTW? It's not listed on your profile or twitter.

I should say it was anything but easy. It took a lot of hard work and there was a lot of stress along the way.

Sorry, poor wording on my part. I wasn't trying to make your struggles look easy. I actually found it heart wrenching to read about them. And was trying to point out that change can be easy when done in small steps systematically. Although it almost never is ;)

I don't update it as much anymore but it's at http://jeremy.marzhillstudios.com/

I was also in your situation and my experience was just like zaphar. I was a high school dropout (I mostly completed 9th grade. But, not 10th.) in "no place" Florida. I wound up a sysadmin at MIT by:

1. Hanging out in tech channels on IRC

2. Teaching myself to program C with the GNU toolchain

3. Getting a 2nd job doing 1st level remote tech support (my first tech job) in addition to a full time job driving a forklift to save money for books/computer equipment while I lived with family/friends and slept on couches.

4. Joining open source programming projects and reading tons of other people's code.

5. Going to a programming job interview and beating all the other more experienced and formally educated candidates by walking into the interview with a working demo I wrote in the weeks before of what they wanted to hire a programmer to build running on my laptop.

6. Realizing a lot of programming was going to be outsourced and teaching myself sysadmin work so I could pivot.

7. Working as a sales engineer for an IBM BP to get corporate formal sysadmin "education" (certifications).

8. Applying for an MIT sysadmin job based on my IBM certifications. And, getting the job because I was better educated than the other applicants.

Obviously, a lot of that took years and there were other jobs (construction, concrete, moving furniture, factory work, etc) and stuff in between and countless set backs. That included tons of people that wouldn't even talk to me because I was a drop out. I did eventually get a GED and an AA degree from a community college (night school). But, the points listed really were the important events.

You need to treat your career like a start-up or any big goal. Decide what you want your life to be like and think of every possible way to get to that point. Then go. Be aggressive and relentless in getting there. There's going to be tons of failures and setbacks. Don't look at them as something that stops you or traps you. Look at them as pivots, as steps in the iteration that will get you where you want to be.

I wanted to be a part of MIT since I was a kid (because that's where the GNU software that gave me a chance came from). Here I am. There are plenty of people here that followed an ideal path to get to their current place in life (best wealthy families, best private schools, scholarships, mentoring programs, best research groups, etc). But, there are also plenty of people like me that can look back on the same kind of crazy path of "anything and everything necessary".

Like zaphar said, don't give up. Be dedicated, aggressive, and relentless in discovering the path to what you want to accomplish. That's the most important thing.

How does one find an (appropriate) open source project to contribute to, especially as a C#, Asp.Net or Java developer?

Your lack of ability to google or search on your own is a bit worrisome, but I spent a few minutes doing your work for you. =)

There 18k+ open source repos on github for c#: https://github.com/search?l=C%23&q=c&type=Repositori...

There are 44k+ open source repos on github for java: https://github.com/search?l=Java&q=c&type=Repositori...

I'm not even gonna bother for Asp.Net.

Now, for some real advice. 'Open Source' and microsoft don't exactly go together like peanut butter and jelly. Yes, there are some open source projects for the MS ecosystem but it's just not in the culture.

If you don't want to transfer your current skills to the Linux world, you should find a large, open source c# project and just run with it.

Good luck.

I think: By saying "appropriate" he wasn't really asking how to find open source projects in his language of choice, but how to know which ones will eventually get him noticed, or how to pick the open source project that seems to have meaning to other people, etc.

It appears that the op may have had a stroke of good luck by picking the perfect OS projects. It would be a bummer to extend yourself in an area that nobody cares about if the whole purpose were to get noticed.

If using Open Source as a self-promotion tool, it's important to choose wisely.

What's important is getting noticed by whoever you collaborate with. That helps you form a network. It doesn't have to be a high profile project it just has to help you form a network of friends who know you and can vouch for your work.

Yes! Exactly. Thank you for understanding what I meant.

I want to hear about the decision process behind how or why Zaphar chose the open source project he did, and how others here choose their open source projects?

Just a little advice, so that I too (and others reading), can (wisely) choose our first open source project to contribute to.

I just chose what I liked and had fun with. Hung out with people working on Blender. Hung out in the perl IRC channel on freenode. Hung out with a group doing an Open Source game called Planeshift which wasn't high profile in any way but it gave me experience. And put me in contact with people who had connections.

Hah I really like the IRC idea (especially since I don't know anyone like you do). Just joined the Ruby channel as a test at: http://irc.lc/freenode/ruby-lang

As an example of an excellent C# program that's pretty widely accepted in Linux/Gnome, why not take a look at Tomboy Notes? http://projects.gnome.org/tomboy/

There are lots of opportunities for addons/etc, and it's reasonably extensible. Could be a great first project.

Thank you.

Here are 97 popular (>200 stars) projects on GitHub in C#, sorted by popularity. Just switch language to see the same in Java. https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E200&type=Reposito...

I was never really that into the Microsoft world but others have mentioned places to look for OpenSource projects for those platforms.

There is no reason you can't move platforms or languages though. If you know C# or Asp.Net you know enough to get started in ruby, python, perl, or any other language. You don't have to limit yourself in this industry.

That is true. Funny you mention Ruby as I have just completed Code School's Try Ruby course this weekend!

However, how could I make any particularly meaningful contribution in a language I am just learning? I feel that any issues or new features in an open source project probably require some fairly advanced knowledge, no?

A lot of my blogging at that time was about what I was learning. In fact those posts were the most instrumental in getting me the job in Chicago. My blog showed up for a lot of howto searches for perl. Which got me noticed by a company needing perl programmers.

Blog about what you are learning. Your contribution will be helping others learn from your experiences.

Thank you Zaphar! I have created my first post in dedication of your reply! (See the "P.S.")

http://paulsantana.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/the-effects-of-a...

Thank you. That is a really excellent idea.

You'd be surprised what you can tackle even when learning a new language. A lot of the bugs in an open source project aren't unfixed because they are tricky but because no has had time to work on them.

You're most valuable contribution will be time and willingness to tackle something.

Interesting. I would have figured easy bugs were squashed in seconds by expert developers. Shows how new I am to this eh? Thanks for all the advice.

You are my hero, Zaphar. Great job.

Work anywhere you can until you can save up about $5000. Then go to Australia on the working holiday visa. You can make $16/hr picking tomatoes or as a barista or $25 an hour shuffling stuff around at a building site. Save $20K while enjoying life, then move to California and do a 2 year degree at a community college for $36 per credit. Get good grades then transfer to a UC to complete a bachelor's at in state tuition costs.

I second the idea of going to Australia. I have a friend who did so and managed to make $20/hour as a barista. Granted it won't be easy, but it will give you the chance to get out of Yakima. I've spent time there and I understand your desire to get out. From the sounds of it I think the change in scenery alone could do you some good. I wish you all the best, and I admire your strength.

Saving up $5000 is simply not feasible for a lot of people.

For some, yes. A single mom with 3 mouths to feed perhaps. A kid with no real responsibilities? As I see it, he (presuming here, I know) has as much as 100 hours of free time per week. As much as he dislikes home, if you're living there rent free (which is a luxury if you're over 18, IMO) then work is pure gravy. You're not entitled to free time to entertain yourself. If you want it, freaking work for it. Or spend your time whining on HN and Reddit about how you have no time.

I'm a developer today, and do ok by industry standards (not great, just okay, for now). However, I grew up in a less than trailer trash home, my dad was a janitor, my mom was nuts (I used to watch her talk to invisible people in a roach infested kitchen), my siblings were sucked into the poverty mindset. I was born with a serious medical condition. I've had some other crap go down that I'll barely tell my close friends, let alone an Internet of strangers, but trust me when I said I've had to rebuild areas of my life more than once. So what. I won't tell I have it all figured out, but I will tell you I will not be defeated. And I have little sympathy for those who tell me the horrible hand they've been dealt.

I realize that we live in a world where only the kids of the rich get to succeed, and the only way to start up your own business is to join an incubator. If you believe that, then you will be taken advantage of. Either push to be successful, or be the kind of person that the successful use to get there. They're more than happy to take your money and your spirit.

Thanks for sharing your story. I have massive respect for people like you. Keep going brother.

He's going to have to save up about that much to move pretty much anywhere that has better jobs, though.

So now you understand his mindset of feeling like he is trapped in the town he currently lives in.

Yes, but one can save up $5000 in a summer working full time in food service. I did it as a prep cook when I was 19.

$5000 in three months working in food service?

Doing that in a year or even six months is plausible, depending on how lucky his circumstances are, but three months strikes me as a bit of a stretch. At $10/hr * 40 hr/week * 12 week = $4800, ignoring rent, food, incidentals, and taxes.

I worked 10am to midnight 6 days a week.

Based on my friends' experiences, you often have to fight tooth and nail to actually get overtime at some retail or fast food places. In other words, simply working more is not always an option.

If that were to become an obstacle, one solution may be to get a second job.

And yet the OP writes that he's having trouble getting even one of these jobs. It may be hard to believe, but some small towns have a vast, vast excess of people wanting these jobs.

I can believe it. I'm from somewhere which is in many ways worse off than Yakima. That's just the best idea I have. If he can't make any money at all, I don't know what to suggest other than join the military. But I'm not a military guy, so I wouldn't feel comfortable suggesting that.

I could also suggest he goes off to western north dakota to work in the oil field, but I don't know if that's such a great idea. I have some friends that have done that. It sounds horrible, and they look like they are about 15 years older than they actually are. Plus you need the money to get there, and need a car, all of which is probably $5K+ anyway.

No you can't. 40 * 8/hour = 320 @ 4 weeks (3) = $3,840.

How in the world could anyone save $5,000 in a summer when they're not even pulling in that amount?

EDIT: Even working 80 per week only brings in $7,680. Factor in bills and you're still not hitting 5k, guy.

Hacker News definitely attracts geniuses these days. You have to work more than 40 hours a week.

Edit: What bills does he have? Food is free, because you work in food service. Rent in a place like Yakima is < $400/m. Summer starts in May. Also, after 40 hours a week you get overtime.

One of the problems the poor have is shifting schedules that keep them from working multiple part-time jobs to get to 40 hours a week.

I've never heard of a food server job that hired fulltime workers or allowed those reaching 40 hours to go beyond that.

Assuming, of course, that you can actually get 40 hours...

What would you have him do then?

Another idea once you've saved up a couple grand is to outsource yourself while you continue learning and improving as a developer. Move somewhere with rock-bottom cost of living (southeast Asia? Boliva? ...you get the idea) while you do freelance coding online and build up a portfolio. Earn in dollars, live on pesos.

By moving to a lower cost area than Australia you still get a little of the "awesome, I'm traveling!" thing with low enough costs that you can try to do work that is relevant to your ultimate goal of getting a career in technology.

NO. Don't move to Bolivia, Perú or some of those other countries (don't get me wrong, people there are great, I've had a great time, etc), but if you think Yakima is a tech hell, you won't believe how bad Bolivia is - I've worked for them. And you'll feel even MORE alone and depressed, you won't know how things work, you'll lack a lot of safety nets you don't even think about in the U.S., etc. I can't speak for Southeast Asia.

Stay in the U.S. and try to keep in touch with the comunity.

the point of relocating to a cheaper country isn't to earn a local wage

Of course not, the point I'm trying to make is that most people are severly underestimating the culture shock.

Also, if he finds Yakima "hell", being very close to tech centers, how can you expect him to adjust to somewhere that's REALLY in the middle of nowhere in tech terms - and, while you might think it's easy not to get sucked into local wages, he's unable to make US wages living in the US. In my country, a US McDonalds wage (8 dollars an hour) is much higher than most midlevel manager positions, and higher than standard developer wages.

I second that plan. Or instead of farming in Australia do something else that is outside your comfort zone. Do some WWOOFing, crew a vessel at sea as a janitor or cook, get a job in McMurdo for a few seasons, do something from cooljobs.com, look for low-level embassy jobs, teach English to students abroad, apply to the peace corps. And frankly, many giant evil multinational corporations have some of low-level international jobs, sell-out for a little while. ;)

I used to work in the canneries in Alaska during the summers off from college. They pay you minimum wage but the long hours means most of your work is at the OT rate. It's crap work, will put some stress on your body but clearing 10k for a couple months work was not impossible and you get to meet a lot of interesting characters. This was 20 years ago though - not sure what things are like now.

You can always get a job working in an Alaskan cannery. Most coastal towns will have one. It is not crap work -- it's fish guts work. They will probably pay minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour at the moment, but generally you can work as much OT as you like. Many canneries will pay your way from Seattle, and give you room and board as well -- for certain values of "room" and "board".

If you're lucky and social, you can find your way onto a fishing boat; deckhands will usually get a percentage of the catch ($$$), and the work is easier.

I've been through Yakima a time or two before. A gritty wind blew continually -- it seemed like the kind of place where not even the dust wanted to settle. My sympathies to the poster.

I like the Australia idea, but I'd save up $10k before departing. Relocating to another country is expensive.

I suggest to find some freelance programming jobs online. He could make some money writing articles about the stock market for SeekingAlpha.com.

In terms of education, I think he should do some courses with Coursera or one of the other free online institutions.

Make that $20k the cost of living in Australia (especially the Sydney or Melbourne areas) is very high at the moment. $2.5kAUD/month is average for a single bed apartment.

Also getting a rental unit without previous references from Australian landlords/agents is particularly difficult.

Be prepared to spend out a lot of $$$ getting set up.

Just in case the OP reads this and is interested, this exaggerates somewhat for Melbourne. Particularly if you're a kid coming over on a working holiday, which actually sounded like a really good suggestion for the situation.

Yes you'd be looking to pay that for a nice, new or renovated single bed apartment in the middle of the city or an expensive area. As hinted at though, as someone with $5-10k in the bank coming here to be a barista there's no way you'd be able to get a lease for one of them anyway.

Head even a 20 minute tram ride out from the city, however, and suddenly you can pay AU$1,400/mth for a 1 or 2 bedroom place in an older building. (Though you may struggle to get a lease anyway...)

If you were on a working holiday you would likely be better off finding a shared place with some like-minded souls, and end up somewhere around $1,000 for rent + all your bills and such to live somewhere pretty nice.

yep, this matches my experience in Melbourne

Where do you get these tomato picking jobs? Seriously, though. I'm moving to Oz in three months and I've been craigslisting and gumtree'ing like crazy, but I have not had any replies. Can you give me the name of some farms to call about harvesting jobs?

The first thing with these kind of fruit picking jobs is they are pretty seasonal and differ quite a bit from state to state.

I spent 9 months in OZ, most of the time in northern Queensland working at a lime/lychee farm and some time at a banana farm. Since you are not in OZ yet, I doubt you will have any luck with gumtree/craigslist. Even if you are there it's pretty hard to get the job that way - the farmers really like to make sure you WANT to work and can physically do the work (at least I didn't manage to find work via gumtree).

The thing you have to do is go to the farms directly and talk to the owners/recruiters face-to-face. We bought a cheap 2500$ car between 3 people from Sydney and started driving north along the coast. There's quite a bit of work in the tropical areas during the summer months - bananas, mangoes, limes, lychees, avocados in late summer etc.

So my advice would be - get a cheap car, travel and work at the same time! (some farms hire only for the harvest period which for some produce isn't very long!)

Hope this helps a bit

Go to a hostel in Bundaberg, look at the wall. Or call a hostel in Bundaberg and ask them now. I don't think anyone offering fruit picking jobs cares about 'a guy who's going to move to australia in three months' enough to ever reply to an email though. The only people who would reply to that are the ones who will charge you money for it, there are too many kids wandering in each day looking for work on the spot to talk to someone on the other side of the world who probably is just daydreaming and won't ever turn up anyway.

If you are in the Melbourne/Geelong area try Bellarine Hydroponics.

> You can make $16/hr picking tomatoes or as a barista or $25 an hour shuffling stuff around at a building site.

These figures sound good compared to US min. wages, but given the (substantially) increased cost of living I'm not sure this is good advice.

I think it is good advice. The guy is in a rut. Going to Australia will do two things. One, open his eyes to a new part of the world. It's something not many people do and it will be fascinating and exciting. The second thing it will do is get him a high paying job that requires no skill. I think the idea is to try and live on an American cost of living, but in Australia. I don't know if that's possible, but I'd bet it's possible.

It's expensive but it's workable, and you can still save money. The minimum wage is federal, so you get paid the same as a barista in Sydney as you do in regional Australia. Also, I suggested it because the working holiday visa is available. I'm not sure if there any other countries which even offer such an option to Americans.

New Zealand offers a similar Visa, but you'll be better off in Australia if you want to make money.

Agreed, I'm in AU now with my brother and he makes $20 an hour working retail at a bookstore. Housing and the rest is expensive though, so count on finding a shared house and a commute. And living cheaply while you save + work on your coding abilities.

Go anywhere else. Hike somewhere. Getting out of the rut and mindset is one step of many.

I do second the concern that Australia is expensive though. But there's no language barrier, work around and lots to see.

I changed careers five years ago. Up until that point of my life, I'd primarily worked in customer service jobs despite having a B.A.

What I did:

1) found the first job I could in the Seattle area (it was a call center job)

2) attended tech / startup community events (meetups, hack days, etc)

3) got lucky by meeting helpful folks in the tech community

4) worked on side projects on nights and weekends to grow my web development skills

5) found my first paying freelance dev work

6) found more paying freelance dev work

7) took a webdev job at a startup

From there a lot more has happened, but I've been in a webdev role ever since and continued learning new skills and taking opportunities to grow and contribute.

This is only one story and one perspective, but I hope you find a way out of the problems you're facing.

> "attended tech / startup community events (meetups, hack days, etc)"

This really is the key to doing what you love. "Hanging around" leads to opportunities, whether it's through open source contributions to a project you like, pestering people at meetups, being a particularly keen and vocal user of a product you love.

You are 22. You have 8 years, or 70 thousand and 80 hours until you turn 30. If half of that time is spent sleeping, you still have over 35 thousand hours to dedicate yourself to becoming a master at something. If Malcolm Gladwell's law of 10,000 hours is valid, that gives you three and a half chances to start something, completely waste your time, and start anew. And that's just until you turn 30. It's not that you have no life... it's just that it hasn't even started yet. Now go read this thing about Ang Lee http://jeffjlin.com/2013/02/23/ang-lee-and-the-uncertainty-o...

That is a really inspiring link, thank you for sharing.

It got so discouraging that Lee reportedly contemplated learning computer science so he could find a job during this time, but was scolded by his wife when she found out, telling him to keep his focus.

Wow, if only more spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends are so supportive...

Producer/audio engineer will get you no where. There are a million "producers" out there without work, and honestly focusing too much on the music industry was really what set me back on my career by about 5 years. Call it a hobby and move on.

"Programmer" however will solve all of your financial problems for the rest of your life. Invest as much effort as you can into building up your skills and tell everyone you can about them. Email every business in town with a list of your tech skills. Go on ODesk make a profile and list those skills. Respond to every gig posted on there. Check Craigslist, Elance, rentacoder whatever. Find a few gigs, build your skillset and once you are confident enough in what you do, work will just start to find you. As soon as you can afford it get the hell out of your small town and move to a larger market. Everything will change

This is how I got out of a similar situation. I hope it helps:

When I was there, I made a flyer: "Computer Whiz-kid Seeks Work" .. like a news paper headline. Did some bullet points:

* Website design/fixing * Desktop Publishing * Data entry * Virus Removal * Computer Speedup

then some blurb .. I'm 22 and really good with computers. Give me a call if I can help you out with anything.

I distributed 100 fliers in a trading estate and a shopping mall, and got 3 job offers. One turned sour and the guy tried to sue me, one was a one off, and the last one got me a job converting .eps and .ai files for a sign writing plotter machine.

This company had associations with gangs and a drug using boss, who sometimes slapped me on the back of the head and called me a fing idot. However that job set me up for my next job and following career.

At that time, I was 13k in debt, and had no degrees. To get off the street, I bought a car for $150 to live in. The Methodist city mission was very helpful to me, giving me free, or $2 meals once a day. Also the Hari Krishna restaurant had good cheap food.

From the car, I moved in to a friend's part-under-the-house where the supports and dirt is, and lived rent free in exchange for doing chores.

That's when I managed to get that job controlling a sign writing plotter. Also I had to go through 6 months of being sued and had a bit of a breakdown, but it's all good now.

At that time I was 20/21. Now I am 38.

I hope it works out. Just keep sowing seeds, and soon enough some will start to sprout. I think the best place to get work and help is the larger cities.

Wow! Thank you all for reading/responding, I really didn't think I would get any sort of response. I'm very much taking your guys' insight into consideration and will be contacting some of you! I'm feeling beyond motivated right now. Seriously, thank you guy's!!

Side note to the advice being given here: getting a job, any kind of job, is usually the best way to get to know people, and this should be your ultimate goal: having people you can turn to for a talk or a walk makes wonders to remove the shitty feeling of having no life, even if you have no car and barely enough money to survive.

(Speaking of which, we should probably organize HN meet ups more often)

As others have said, you need to get out of that town.

I live in San Francisco and love it, but the cost of living here isn't exactly low and unless you have a job lined up or are already freelancing, it's going to be tough.

Instead consider other towns. Others have already mentioned Seattle, but I'd also consider Austin, specially because you mentioned both tech AND audio engineering. Austin is the live music capital of the world for a reason, and it has a great tech scene to boot (not to mention a really low cost of living... I say all of this being born and raised in Austin).

If you'd like some contacts in Austin (or more advice) I know of a few tech startups hiring, freelancers who could help you find good first gigs, and have a ton of friends and even family in the music industry in the city. Shoot me an email and I'll see what I can do: cullen@sponsorfied.com

At your age I was working in a bookstore for 7.75 an hour. After that, I worked a graveyard shift at a residential treatment facility for 11/hour. Since then I've built and sold companies, raised venture money, etc. I started the good stuff near the age of thirty but I enjoyed the low-money years.

Step one is getting yourself happy. Punt the toxic people in your life, focus on friendships, exercise, and mental health (it sounds like you're depressed), and save up a few nickels. There'll be time enough for financial ambition down the road.

I'm in what might be considered a precursor to this situation. I'm a high schooler and although I have a fair amount of technical skill, finding employment has been a fruitless endeavor. I fear that my inability to find freelance work or secure an internship will preclude me from the vast majority of jobs. Moreover, my grades are fairly mediocre (something largely attributable to depression and general apathy), which effectively prevents being accepted to most colleges. This then puts me into a situation whereby I'm forced to attend a state university, which, although technically has a lower sticker price, has a higher net cost because state schools don't meet full need. Moreover, in many cases obtaining a degree from middling college is tantamount to not having a degree. (Obviously, the majority of institutions still have a positive ROI but the return plumets as one descends college rankings.) I spend every day worried that I'll graduate with a relatively worthless education and little employment experience into a market in which I have no capacity for employment saddled with tens of thousands in debt.

Boy, if you start contributing to some open source project at your age, you'll be so ahead of the game. And you can do it from anywhere, for free (well, provided your access to HN is free.) Get yourself early exposure and it will be like a an investment fund that keep on giving compound interest.

I have a degree from a state college and do quite well for myself. I don't work at Google or Yahoo, but since I graduated in 2006 I've never been without a well paying job, or offers for one.

If you're studying computer science or a related field, your ROI is going to be just fine at a state university.

Move in with someone. Attend community college for 2 years taking basics (anything that can transfer: govt, hist, math, bio, chem, engl) on only PELL grants. With a 0 EFC and independence, you should qualify for Pell. A Pell grant should cover books and tuition. Finding someone to take you in should not be that hard. People love helping others in need.

Second, transfer to somewhere that will take your GPA and translate it directly into scholarships to pay for the rest of your education. Transfer that into a masters.

The US college is made for poor people to aspire and start again. Don't take out Stafford loans until you're working on a bachelor's degree.

(Source: 23, no life, homeless, no money, no car. 3.93 in community college, transferred to university that covered 75% in scholarships and 25% was Pell/Stafford. Now 27, still degreeless, but by choice. Finally, landed a decent job.)

If college is not an option due to existing loans, and this is a complete shame, craigslist jobs can actually land you freelance work. If college is an option, ie: no existing loans, shoot me an email.

Honestly, probably one of the best things you could do is join the military. If you are tech savvy, then chances are that you can score high enough on the ASVAB (entry test) in order to get into a really high speed career field. I joined the Navy, became an arabic linguist, left after a few years, and got a programming job as a contractor for 102k/year. Here's the process you're looking at if you want to take a similar route:

1) See your local (you might have to travel a bit) recruiting station and ask to start the process in joining. I recommend the Navy of all branches, because I've worked with people of all the other branches and the Navy gives you the most potential to succeed long-term -- they are the only ones that promote the idea of cross-training, will burn away your outer weakness by some extremely crappy years of work ultimately making you a better person, and allow you more technological opportunities than any other branch.

2) Your recruiter will ask you about your past. This will include drug use, prior convictions, etc. Hopefully you don't have any felony charges, or you won't be able to join. There are waivers for various offenses, but some will preclude you from getting a security clearance job.

3) Take the ASVAB. It is an extremely simple test which tests very basic concepts that you should already have formed a mental model about if you're a halfway decent programmer. Example: This lamp post is 30 feet tall and casts a 50 foot shadow -- What is the hypotenuse? (That was a real question). There are also mechanical things (what type of wrench is this?) and basic english things. Score in the 80+ range (out of a possible 99...which I maxed out without breaking a sweat and I'm not a genius) and you can almost guarantee yourself a security clearance job.

4) Your recruiter will take you to a MEPS station. After they do a bunch of physical tests on you (normal physician tests like stripping you down and checking your parts), you will be taken to the most important leg of the journey -- the guy that will assign you your rating. If you did well on your ASVAB, this part will be a breeze, because he will mostly be interested in fitting you in to where you're comfortable. As a programmer, your goal is to get one of these ratings in order to get yourself into a job that can leverage your skills. Even though I was an arabic linguist, I was allowed to build unlimited amounts of tools in order to support missions, and that eventually just became my job. I was in the military and could come in to work whenever I wanted to and basically do whatever I wanted to. This is the exception more than the rule, however, but it's still a possibility if you have an excellent work ethic. The jobs that get you into said positions are: CTI, CTT, CTN, CTR, IT (secure). All of these will require a 6 year obligation (4 year + 2 year extension).

5) Boot camp. It was basically one of the more enjoyable periods of my life. Every day is mapped out on a bi-hourly basis about what you're going to be doing from the minute you get there to the minute you graduate. You can look on the schedule and see what you're going to be doing 2 hours and 4 weeks later, and that will be exactly what you'll be doing. The structure will allow you find out things about yourself and your capabilities which you might not be aware of. I had barely graduated high school (1.8 gpa) and had a couple months of work at subway, but the experience awakened a great motivation to succeed in me, and it just might do the same for you too.

6) A-School. Depending on the rating (job) you chose, this will be different. For the non-CTI jobs, you'll be going to lovely (sarcasm) Pensacola, FL. The experience is great, and it's a good stepping stone to re-introduce you back into the world after having everything taken away from you in boot camp. If you chose CTI then you'll be going to the Defense Language Institute (DLI). It's basically college, except you're paid to go. Would recommend.

7) C-School -- most likely still in Pensacola if you're a non-CTI, and if you're a CTI it will just be at your final duty station. This will be where you learn more advanced things, and will be influenced by your scores on tests in A school. The great part about this is that there's no homework since everything is classified, which is why I was able to do really well here. Only knowledge and practical ability matters (which is the common theme that you'll find in most of the Navy).

8) Final duty station. This can be many places around the world, but if you specifically want to program then you want to be stationed at an NSA facility. The NSA is the only government agency that really promotes people to think outside the box -- trust me, I've worked at all of the others. I never programmed anything for real until I went there, and there was a program we used where you had to add the number 9 to a calculation before entering it in. I asked "shouldn't the computer just do that?" and no matter how many trouble tickets we submitted, no one would resolve it. So, I asked the person who had created the program 20 years ago if I could modify the program to fix it -- he handed me the Perl cookbook and said go for it. That spawned an entire career. You'll find that people there, although odd, will be more open to change than anywhere else in the government.

Once you have 6 years in (which will be the minimum for a job like this), you'll be 28/29 with a lot of skills, experience, and a security clearance. You'll have met people working at various contracting companies that will hire you, or you can apply at various government agencies that will easily snatch you up.

About me: I started out as an EW (electronic warfare technician) tech which was 2 years of electronics schooling. I served on a ship for 2 years and cross-rated to CTI to learn arabic. After finishing 9 years total in the Navy, I collected a total of 62,000 dollars in bonus money. I left the Navy with no debt, a car, a lot of money in the bank, a 92k offer and a 102k offer and three full months of collecting my Navy paycheck after leaving (terminal pay). I took the higher job offer and worked that for a year, conceiving of, writing the requirements for, and building (by myself) a computer program that saved the government an estimated 3 million dollars (along with writing a bunch of piddly scripts and API's that have saved a few million more and continue to be used). I'm 29 now and have saved up enough money that I dont have to work for 2 years and can focus on bootstrapping my own startup. The Navy and my work ethic (and ability to save money) gave me that, and it can give it to you too.

If you'd like more information, message me and I'd be glad to help.

I almost joined the navy right out of high school. I went through much of the recruiting process, but ultimately decided against it. For me, that was one of the best decisions of my life. For you, you should consider it, but give a lot of thought to it before you even start the recruiting process. Military recruiters will lie to you and your family (maybe not all of them, but it happened to me) to make sure you join and if you don't have a lot of determination to exit the recruiting process, you will likely get sucked in even if you change your mind.

My first chief, who is a great inspiration in my life, was once a recruiter. I asked him how he felt about recruiting, and if he had to lie to get people to join. His response was this:

"I never had to lie to anyone about joining the military. The secret is that no one walks into my office if everything is going right in their life. I just find what that problem is, and figure out how the military can solve it."

Recruiters can't effectively tell you lies if you know everything you need to know. In my case, my father had been a sonar tech and had told me what to expect like what I posted up there -- I already knew what I was getting into when I walked into that office. Don't go to a recruiter (and potentially waste their time) if you haven't done the due diligence to research a very life-changing decision.

Some recruiters will tell you flat-out lies. I had three (two from one branch, one from another) try to convince me that breaking my arm twice as a youth wasn't worth telling the processors. The pair that tag-teamed me were conveniently ignoring the framed statement in their very office that said that lying about anything during your recruitment process was a violation of the UCMJ.

I really hope those three guys were in the minority, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

It's very important that everything medical before and during your career is documented. First off, a lot of the physical and mental stress down the road can exacerbate previous conditions and lead to more major problems. Secondly, everything that occurs and is documented in your military health record can be treated for free by any VA medical facility for the rest of your life, even if you don't have health insurance.

That being said, certain common diagnoses will preclude you from entering service: ADD/ADHD, bi-polar disorder, bad knees, fibromyalgia, among other things. Obesity is kind of a no-brainer thing -- there's a maximum body fat percentage and height/weight ratio.

If it's in your health record right now, then it should definitely be declared, in my opinion. You'd only be doing yourself a disservice later on by not doing so.

Yes, I absolutely agree with this. Too many people rush into life-changing decisions like this. It's also nice to hear another perspective on recruiters. Mine really did lie to my parents, however. We met with my parents, he told them one thing, then we left to go back to the recruiting office and he said "what I told your parents wasn't true, I just didn't think they would say yes otherwise".

It's a common thing when you're in the military to toss around disparaging comments about the person that recruited you. Personally, everything my recruiter had said was true:

"When they ask you if you want to be a Nuc, say no." -- he could have got a lot of good will at his recruiting office if I chose to be a nuclear tech, but he was absolutely right in telling me this. They never came to ask me, because I had never taken algebra in high school.

"If you have a choice between an east coast and west coast ship, choose west coast." -- Absolutely agree with this. West coast is a much more relaxed attitude compared to east coast, unless you're forward deployed.

"In bootcamp, get the yeoman job." -- I listened to him and was able to get the division yeoman job. This allowed me to travel around base by myself -- something you'd appreciate if you've been through the bootcamp experience. It also led to me getting a meritorious promotion (only 2 or so recruits per division of like 30-50 got this), and getting promoted earlier decreases the amount of time required for you to advance to the next rank.

"Run a lot before you go to bootcamp". Ironically, he was a very slow runner, but I took his advice and worked out nearly daily for the two months before I left. At the time, in order to pass the run test and graduate from bootcamp you were required to run 1.5 miles in 12:15, which would have been nigh impossible for me had I not practiced a bunch beforehand. I eventually got it down to 10:25 in bootcamp, which is a decently admirable run time. Women get approx. an extra minute longer.

I could see how that's the case. If you're referring to what I said, you'll note that I said nothing about my own recruiter other than that he lied to my parents to increase the chances of them agreeing to let me go, because I was a minor. Which he admitted to doing.

That sounds nice, but what about the actual military stuff, where you actually have to participate in war? Surely that is the biggest caveat of using the military as a self-improvement exercise.

That and being stuck in there for X years. Sounds like you lucked out with your military career but it seems like more the exception than the rule?

Very nice counter to my brief rant (not that you intended it to be). Well said. Except for the language and particular rate, my experience was essentially similar to what you describe.

I would add, though, that it doesn't necessarily go the way the recruiter describes. Yeah, if you take the tests and sign the six years, it will likely go that way, but it is the military, they do own you, and if they want to they can have you do anything because they said so. And you don't get to quit.

The military was a positive experience for me, and it is for many people. But I stand by my rant.

This is a great option for a lot of people. Glad to see you posted this. Spend 4 years in the military and you leave with great experience, have learned how to "work hard", you're respected by your peers and future employers plus you likely have a bunch of money in savings. Really wonderful option for the right people.

I wish I had gotten good, detailed advice like this 25 yrs ago. <sigh> If only. :-(

If your really passionate about software development consider joining App Academy http://www.appacademy.io/

It actually free and you only have to pay them once you get a job after graduating from their program. Plus the job will be in San Francisco area and will pay well like about 80K which will help you get out of your current situation and then you can decide what to do with your life after that.

Hey there, for what its worth: Try and start building a portfolio if you're having trouble finding a job. You're 22 years old - don't worry if it involved bi*chwork; the best thing you can do is ditch any sense of entitlement, and I'm not saying you have any! I worked in customer service for almost a year before saving enough money to train as a programmer.. it wasn't easy but with the right attitude it was a blast. You are in no hole - you are 22 years old with a passion to make your skill awesome! Hope this helps and work hard - feel free to contact me off list. Just remember, nothing comes easy, we all have issues attaining our perceived goals.

Best of luck to you.

This will sound obvious, but since someone else commented about your portfolio: open a Github account if you haven't already. Push all your work there. Put the link to your Github on your resume and on your blog. Put your resume online, use Zerply or one of the other services. Link to that from your blog as well.

The above works best in conjunction with the other advice here: get into the open source software world. Hang out on IRC while you're working. Read the documentation. Blog what you're learning. Make the most of free resources. Go to meetups related to technologies you're learning if you can.

Hey OP, hope you read this! I am from the Tri-Cities, so I can relate. At my very first job in high school I worked with a Flash developer from Yakima who had been homeless and living in a drug-addled abandoned building with no floor - so there's definitely hope.

If you're interested in moving an hour and a half south, they have &yet, which is a strong agency but was just starting when I moved. I went through damn near every decent web company in the area before finally moving out to Portland because of how unhappy I was there and how uninspired I was by the quality of the work being put out by the area.

Eastern Washington - Spokane possibly excluded - is a barren wasteland for honest web/tech work outside of freelancing and working out at Hanford, and I'm not sure Yakima has anything worth investing time in either. The cost of living in the TC can be pretty cheap if you're able to find a gig there, but public transit sucks. If you want to apply to some dev jobs in Portland (which would probably be more difficult than finding some in the TC) and get an interview or two out here, you're welcome to stay with us. I have some friends your age that are also into audio production and we have jam sessions with our gear sometimes at our place. Would love to have you if you get any leads.

I am in touch with a few developers still living in the Tri-Cities, too, if you'd like me to reach out to them as well.

I was in your situation about three years ago, and I'll tell you what I did. I found a startup company that was willing to hire me for $15/hour as a low level computer tech. A computer janitor, essentially. I worked "in the field". My job roles consisted of configuring hundreds of computers by hand, performing keyboard and screen replacements, and occasionally having to physically deliver dozens of computers to our clients' office locations. My fellow techs had never progressed beyond high school, and I had just graduated a liberal arts college with a CS degree. I felt a little ashamed. To get attention from management, I started writing software to automate a large portion of my job. Surprisingly, and fortunately for me, no one had thought to do this before. The company's sysadmin was excellent, but he lacked a flair for programming. Management soon moved me into a sysadmin role, and I became the company's go-to guy for writing programs that would make configuration changes to our thousands of client machines in the field. My pay was increased and I got a desk. It helped greatly that I was the only person in our company's US office that had any programming ability. I guess my advice to you is to first get your foot in the door doing the most trivial work they'll give you, and then show them what you're really capable of.

You sound depressed. If you're 22 and in good health, you have your entire life ahead of you :) .

You're already living in the United States, a dream for many.

There's probably an entry-level job in one of those chains or retail stores you can get which will allow you to study on the side - my brother moved from Uruguay to Canada at about your age, worked at KFC while studying and is now an extremely sucessful manager in the advertising business.

As zaphar says, if you're tech-savyy, you don't need the degree - getting exposure will do the trick.

Yakima looks relatively close to Seattle, which is a hot spot for tech, and I've heard Portland also has a good tech community. Try to go to events there and socialize. After you get better known, you might get some freelance work or maybe you can get a position and move there.

I don't know about rent in Yakima, but maybe you can share an apartment with someone interesting/who shares your interests, or at the very least is motivated.

I'd try to find some kind of counseling or support group. If you can't find any in Yakima, there are several in Seattle:

http://www.freecounselinghelp.com/category/counseling/counse...

A non-refundable round trip bus ticket from Yakima to Seattle is about U$ 30 according to Google, so you might be better off paying for some local counseling.

I'm reminded of the Dave Matthews Band song lyrics:

  Twenty three and so tired of life
  Such a shame to throw it all away
  The images grow darker still
  Could I have been anyone other than me?

You might be feeling down right now, but it is quite likely to be temporary. The future holds promise for you. Whether it is concentrated effort or serendipity or rationalization, you will likely be in a better place before you know it.

Hopefully I'm just being paranoid but on the off chance I'll say this:

You sound pretty depressed - remember the best functional description of depression is an inability to create detailed mental images of the future - Your entire psyche is focussed on trying to solve all the things you've got going on (which is natural because want to fix this) but be careful about it distorting your perspective.

Slow down your thinking and try not to freak out - like others have said you are young and that gives you time to learn new skills. .

If things get bad or you just want to talk email the Samaritans in the UK - http://tinyurl.com/bfghx6q - it's all anonymous and they won't care or even know about the US connection unless you tell them (If anybody knows the US equivalent or one local to the area, post it below). There are literally hundreds of people out there that want and can help with these situation but you've got to seek them out - Western society is terrible dealing with mental health issues but once you fire up the bat signal decent people come running. Good luck

Good suggestions here already.

You might look for jobs on Craigslist. It sounds like right now you're looking for anyjob, for cash/rent. Be willing to do about anything, you're not choosing a career right now you're just taking money from people without stealing. Depending on who you work for, some of them might have interesting ideas or contacts.

If you can get to North Dakota you might work in the oil fields, but I hear it's hard to find a place to stay; boom times and all.

I don't know the producer business, I'm guessing there's much more opportunity programming. Don't know your experience. Pick a language, start making stupid little things and put them on github. The first stuff doesn't have to be impressive, doesn't have to be web whiz bang, just anything that gets you thinking in the language. If you get far enough along before you get an interview you can take the earlier ones down. If you're lucky enough for someone to consider you earlier, for the type of job you might be talking about, you can point to even your small silly projects and say "hey, this is what I've been doing to build my skills."

Whatever language you pick, learn the debugger, it will teach you more than the debugger.

Read something enjoyable, it's a cheap way to do something good for yourself and to get your mind off your troubles. Make it non-career oriented at least some of the time. You can get things at the library, or a used book store. Finding a good, old, funky used book store is a delight.

Your health matters. Exercise as well as you're able. Challenge yourself to eat as well as you can on the least amount of money. Beans and such go a long way for very cheap. These two things can be some of your reading. Learn as much as you can practically use about them.

Help someone.

!!!NORTH DAKOTA or the military... It be BOOM times in the oil patch. Housing is tough, but find a job that will put you up at the man camps. Search google for north dakota oil jobs and whatnot...

Summer is rolling around so make sure to be there before all the southern guys come back up after leaving for the winter. I plan on looking for a oil field job soon. After years in college, grad school, working at a corp job doing ASICs/FPGAs paying less than 70k, I hear its pretty easy to make +100k in the oil fields. Just make sure you are "mobile". I won't be slack work but you will be able to bank enough money to go to school. I hear of plenty of college age kids working the summer in the fields and end up staying in the fields( not going back to college). If I where you, plan on working a year or two, saving up a "pile of money", and then working on some degree. Remember, you will be a old man in tech by the time you get your degree and what will reduce your chances for employment. Tech is a wicked mistress!

.... If not, look at Udacity and the other MOOCs.

Update: I also forgot mentioning looking at getting a two year degree from a technical school in electronics/medical electronics. There is a massive shortage of two year degrees level skill workers. That's what the real crying of "shortage of skill labor" is all about. I have two cousins making "serious bank" by servicing medical imaging equipment. They make my high tech engineering degree salary look like peanuts. Both of their employers (siemens and ge) treat them like kings (training, benefits, continuing education, job security, bonuses, promotions). Their education was cheap and they made "real" money right out of school. Do the coding on the side as a hobby or slowly have someone else like the company you work for pay for your education.

Too many people what to live the Silicon Valley lifestyle. If you can get into a top 50 school and are backed with some family wealth, you to could do it. But if you think you are going to be the next 'zuck'... you are going to be in for a rude awaking. Remember that zuck was from a well to do family, super smart, and went to an ivy league school. Most Silicon Valley companies only want people like him. The rest of us do not get to play in the big game... Life is tough. Get use to it. You will be happier.

I'd leave the military as a last resort, just above stealing. Not unless serving your country is your undeniable calling. And if you've got any doubt, then it isn't.

I say that, having joined the military after high school because I had no clue what to do with myself. And for me, at that time, it turned out well.

However, the US hasn't used its military for anything good or honorable since World War II, except possibly the first six to nine months of Afghanistan. If you join the military you'll likely have to kill someone for no worthy reason, or you'll have to order someone to do it. For fucking Wall Street, and so whoever's President at the time doesn't have to take Viagra.

Fuck. That. Shit.

Don't waste your soul.

(Apologies to any veterans or family.)

I just want to again say thanks to everyone who responded or took the time to read what I have written. I've gotten A LOT of good feedback from just about everybody and have even gotten some job offers. Now that is amazing. I'm truly inspired by not only some of the stories posted but also from just words of kindness others have left. Thanks again everybody!

* You're not the lone ranger, many of us have been there. You're right, you're not in a good place.

* ANY job, if you can pare down/get help with your living expenses, is a plus, especially now. Discipline yourself to save to go to the place where your best chances are. Leave no stone unturned.

* Get help! College environments have lots of services and opportunities for people your age - counselling, jobs lists, ride boards, tutoring opportunities. If you've gone to a college, go there. Don't be shy about spelling out your predicament. Someone may hear you who's been there.

* Avoid the drugs, make sure your personal appearance and demeanor is as good as you can make it. Don't give them any excuses to overlook what you know how to do. Doesn't matter whether you score high on their tests if they don't like your look. "Really tech savvy" is NOT easy to find these days, if by that you mean MAD SKILLS. Sell that hard. If you mean "learn fast and will study hard", sell that. And mean it.

I know how you feel, I am 19 and I feel like crap, but I am chronically depressed, so I might be in a different position. Did you try seeing if you suffer from depression? I have/had self loathing issues and depression, which lead to procrastination (I wasn't lazy, I would be genuinely busy doing a billion things void of any productive outcome). The procrastination lead to obvious under performance, etc etc. It was a form of self targeted, passive, destruction (look at me being all sciency).

P.S: I was on pills until recently, when my psychiatrist told me I can stop taking them to see if I still need them or not (they also make me very sick for a short while, roughly 20 to 60 minutes on average), and I am starting to fall into my old and bad habits, again. Just thought I'd add that if anyone's wondering about how I feel.

Something has to replace the pills, so why not exercise? Start running or powerlifting. Get active though. This is coming from a guy who has wicked-bad spells of depression that border on madness. It's scary, but I feel better after identifying what my keystone habits are and then DOING IT: http://zerotosuperhero.com/mindhack/find-your-lifes-last-kno...

See, that's the thing. We live in a pill generation. An era of instant gratification and 3 minute microwave meals. The pill is symbolic of our mass illusion that nothing requires effort anymore. Don't succumb to the lie. Take the time and do the work to take care of yourself

alex [ at ] incept design dot com <<I have a project I will pay you to start on right now

Thanks! I sent you an email as soon as I could.

I hope he sees this.

Here's what I'd do if I were you and were really backed into a corner with no support:

1) Get a job at a call center, this will suck but you can at least pay for rent off of this.

2) Make flyers and/or find a place that will hire you on to clean Bonsai Buddy off of grandmas computer. If the job pans out enough you can quit the call center.

3) Save up all the money you can.

4) Move to Southern California or anywhere with a growing tech scene. Rent an apartment / room in a cheap part of town (Oakland, parts of LA) that you can use public transit initially.

5) If necessary repeat steps 1 or 2 until you can get a job doing something more. In this time attend meetups to meet other people in the industry you want to be in.

we're hiring, give me a shout-

Someone give this man a trophy... Or at least an up vote so it gets to the top of the page so the OP doesn't miss it or spots it easier!!!11one

I would love to know what position you are hiring for. Email me please @ novasixx@outlook.com! Thanks!!

How can you be reached? I'd like to help some how, possibly offer you a free place to stay in the Bay Area (Talk it over with my room mates) and pay for your flight. Please leave your contact info

Wow, the power of charity!

novasixx@outlook.com!!

When I was 22, I was homeless, too. I didn't really snap to this fact until many years later: I had no home, therefore I was homeless. Everything I would want to say to you, someone else has already said in one of the other comments (eg, rejected by the Air Force, turned out that the best place for me was in college). So I'm just posting to tell you to keep your pecker up (hey, it's Scottish and it means keep your spirits up, it just sounds funnier). I'd hug you, too, if I could. Keep working to outrun your fear.

I can give you advice that I would give myself at 22 if I could.

Connect with people who have similar interests than you. They're out there either online or otherwise but find a group of like minded individuals - preferably find a group that gets you to connect face to face. If you aren't comfortable hanging out with them because you keep kicking yourself about your shortcomings, you need to get over that. But once you find a group just show up. 80% is just showing up.

Don't over-think. Find something that's interesting to you, and instead of thinking "wow I don't know if this will pan out" ask yourself "do I enjoy this?" If the answer is yes, do it. Don't worry too much if in three months from now you have a better idea and your current idea doesn't seem so interesting anymore. You're building up experience.

Be social, go someplace that's interesting. Talk to people, even if you're no good at it, you'll build up social skills. If people don't want to talk back, go find someone else that's interesting that's more receptive. Eventually you'll make friends and build up your social skills.

Build a support network from friends and family that you know love you and care for you. They are there even if it's a small group of people. Tell them what you're trying to do and talk to them. They may not have good advice but they'll listen and be supportive.

There's a lot of other good advice here, but these are just some of the things that I tell my brother who is almost twenty.

I think if you can't find a job and you are aspiring to have other skills but don't have them yet your best bet is a focused job with manual labor as the core component. You might think I'm joking, but manual labor has the benefit of focusing the mind, and there are numerous labor intensive jobs that pay very very well.

Here are three you might consider: working on a fishing boat / working on a oil rig / joining the US Armed Forces.

The first two of those are very good money with a bit of risk with not a particularly long time commitment. After you are out of your financial hole you can transition to doing something else. The Armed Forces is not a bad option if you are looking for something that could be a longer term option for you and potentially include training in skills you are interested in.

Also, in general, getting jobs is first and foremost about confidence. I suspect you don't have a lot, so going out there and doing something where you can build confidence (my suggestion not knowing you is through a body focused manual labor activity, but that may not be the best), and then use that confidence to build skills, and then go out and get a job that makes use of those skills. That's a general strategy that can carry you for your whole life, the trick is to avoid getting stuck in a depressive cycle (which seems like where you are now).

Anyways, good luck mate, wish you the best!

Your are not the only one, this game was rigged from the start. At 24 years old I tried to started my own businesses to employ my friends who did not have the same opportunities. My business failed, do to an employe error. The police and the EPA went after me like it was the BP oil spill. I'll be paying the IRS or the Franchise tax board 40% of what I make for the rest of my life. Cops and robbers have teamed up and the average American citizen is caught in the cross fire. Currently I am reduced to farm out my skills to international corporations. I'm considered lucky to have a job working 12 hours a day.

I believe the tech workers should be moving towards private unions to get standard wages and mentor programs. We need to move away from this dog eat dog individualistic suppository programmer complex.

Most tech managers are just trying to suck the life out you to further promote their career with zero consideration for you well being.

Of course you can go work for a Google or another large corporate outfit. Remember that for every job we hold we are cutting an unknown number of American jobs.

Food for thought, there is a special place in hell for the greedy and traitorous. Personally I feel as a part of the high tech sector we are heading in that direction. No one stands up for worker rights in high tech.

Right, the economy sucks, there's no work, you're at the bottom of a hole, and all the sides are steep, and you're worn out, in trouble, and it's all coming at you at once. :-/ I have that sometimes. Maybe it's all coming down already, but... it's probably not all going to come down at exactly the same time; there's some playroom to juggle with. Take things one at a time, first things first. (And it goes without saying: Make sure you're healthy and sleeping and eating as best you can) . And sometimes something is going to fall over. And sometimes you have to let it, no matter how it hurts, because it's more important that as many of the other dominoes stay upright as possible. If they do, you can probably salvage something or at least use them move on. At some point you'll get a toehold, then a foothold, and you can start climbing out, slowly - 2 steps up, one step down.

tl;dr. Don't overstress. Take problems one at a time. and grimace when some of them asplode anyway.

ps. you're only 22. I know folks in their 40's who still struggle! (but somehow they manage to be happy every day. <scratches head>) . I think you'll figure it out. Either the road to traditional western success... or maybe you'll find your own path. :-)

pps: {{hug}}

I think you need to take a step back... you are only 22, trust me life is only getting started and you most likely haven't faced your toughest moments yet.

In life it is important to have the right perspective as this shapes your attitude and attitude is everything.

I am 32 now but in around 2001 I was about your age and I had an associate degree(CS), but the job situation sucked. The unemployment rate back then was much lower than it is today....perspective.

I think you need to consider taking any job until you can get on your feet. When I was 22 I was working at a call center taking 50+ abusive phone calls everyday, as I stated above I already had an associate degree...so again adjust your attitude.

Lastly, you may have hung around HN long enough to get the vibe that college isn't necessary, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Peter Thiel may tell kids already on their way to Harvard, Stanford et al to drop out and start a company, that advice is the absolute worse advice for 99.9% of kids....again perspective shapes attitude and attitude determines outcome... seriously figure out a way to enroll in college and get a degree....

hope this helps.

founder @APPYnotebook (www.appynotebook.com)

Here is a random suggestion. Yakima has a number of Churches and one of the types of people you can find at a Church are older people who are befuddled by computers. You can also find people to talk about what is important in life and what isn't. Not saying you should convert, just saying that its a place to hear a point of view.

Offer to help people get their computers set up, or fixed up. Be scrupulously honest, do not lie and do not exaggerate and do not try to be anything except helpful. That will get you money to eat and buy the basics. You may still be homeless but you will start connecting with the community in a helpful way.

Yakima does have some electronics stores (BestBuy and Radio Shack) and if I were in your spot I would look to see if either of them needed technical help. Its not that hard to learn how to pull apart, clean, and re-assemble a desktop PC.

Don't give up, and each morning think of at least two things you can be thankful for and hold onto them all day. Be open to opportunities that may present themselves.

I don't have a degree and I consider myself pretty successful. I'm no Zuckerberg but I haven't been unemployed since 18 (I'm 26). And, like others who've posted, I have to beat recruiters off with a stick. There is a lot of work out there if you have a good online presence.

Those are my credentials, now here's my advice: build a portfolio. And I don't mean a portfolio site or physical portfolio per se (though that would be best), I mean a body of work you've done that you can show off. All a degree really is is a piece of paper that says "I know how to do all this stuff. Contact these people and they'll vouch for me." Sure, some companies simply won't hire people without a degree, but you don't want to work for them anyway. Remember, you're smart, you're technically savvy, you're young, you're ambitious. Companies want YOU. Now, all you have to do is PROVE to companies that you can do the job. That's what a portfolio is for - it's actual, physical (or virtual) examples of your work; it's evidence that you know what you're doing. Make a blog and write some compelling articles. The blog, design, and articles are all examples of what you can do. Are you a designer? Make some icons, logos for companies that don't exist, or redesign an existing popular website just because you can do better or can offer a fresh outlook on their design (here's a guy that did this to Facebook: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Facebook-New-Look-Concept/650...). Are you a developer? Find an interesting open source project (or 5), learn it, and start fixing bugs and adding features right away. Maybe even start your own open source project (you have a GitHub account, right?!). Remember, your portfolio doesn't have to contain work you've been paid for; it can be filled with things you did on your own simply because you love what you do. My portfolio is what got me hired when I first started out (it also pays to be confident and have some good interviewing/interpersonal skills; confidence is really all about perspective, though, and is, if you lack it, something you can achieve through things like reframing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_reframing, http://changingminds.org/techniques/general/reframing.htm).

A few more things:

1. Companies aren't charities (even many charities aren't charities when it comes to hiring). They aren't there to hand out jobs to people just because those people need a job. They hire people because they have a void and believe that person can fill it. It is necessarily a mutually beneficial arrangement. You have to show companies that you are the person that can fill whatever voids they have.

2. If you don't have a resume, make one! Then put it online, on every site you can think of (LinkedIn, careerbuilder.com, monster.com, etc). If you contact me (my email is on my HN profile) I'll help you with your resume!

3. Many companies put in job descriptions that they require a 2 or 4 year degree. Sometimes this isn't really the case and, if you can demonstrate that you are the right person for the job, they will hire you anyway. This is what happened to me for my first job (it was a Fortune 500 company, so even they'll hire people without degrees sometimes!). So respond to every job description that looks interesting to you!

4. When you get an interview, and I know you will, do some research on the company before hand. Look at their website, check out what their doing, learn about their business domain, etc. If you're a web designer and/or web developer, think about ways you can improve their website and let them know you "had some ideas" while you were checking it out (don't make it seem like you didn't like their site, even if you didn't; be diplomatic about it).

5. I know I said I have to beat recruiters off with a stick; I don't actually beat them. Pro-tip #5: Don't burn bridges with recruiters. I have turned down more recruiters than I can count while at my current job because I'm not looking for work, but I always a) respond to them quickly, b) thank them for taking the time to contact me, c) thank them for considering me for whatever jobs they have available, d) let them know why I'm not available, and e) let them know that I'll keep an eye out for them if someone I know that fits one of their job descriptions is looking for work (and I mean it; I have forwarded several friends to recruiters). Sometimes I'll even talk to recruiters on the phone so they can get to know me (I always tell them up front that I'm not looking for work, but sometimes they want to talk anyway). Because of this, I have a huge list of people I can contact that might be able to help me should I find myself out of work.

I'm sure other people will have other perspectives and experiences. I hope this or something else on this page helps you!

EDIT: Also, when you're not spending time working on your resume, contacting companies and recruiters, committing to open source projects, redesigning popular websites, making logos for non-existent companies, or otherwise beefing up your portfolio, spend time making yourself better (for free!): https://www.coursera.org/, https://www.edx.org/, http://ocw.mit.edu/, https://www.canvas.net/, https://www.udacity.com/, http://webcast.berkeley.edu/, http://www.academicearth.org/, http://ocw.tufts.edu/CourseList, http://www.open.edu/openlearn/tags, http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/, http://ocw.nd.edu/, http://law.duke.edu/webcast/, http://oyc.yale.edu/. There isn't much room for anything else if you're serious about this.

EDIT 2: Added udacity (thanks philwebster!)

I second both Udacity, and applying to every job where the description seems to fit you.

I was in a similar situation just a week and a half ago - almost 25, took 6 years for a 4 year degree(something you can't do in India, looks really really bad on the resume) and had no experience other than a failed stint as a freelance web developer and a useless 3.5 month stint at a company where I did nothing.

So, till last Sunday, I had pretty much 0 value in the job market. I had a Github account and some small projects on it, but nothing more than decent and I kept thinking I'll apply for this awesome position when I finish that amazing project. And I would've kept doing that for a long long time, but there was a thing came up where I had to travel to another city and I figured since I was going there, might as well apply to a few positions in companies based there. So early Sunday morning(2am ish) I send out a bunch of applications. By Wednesday I had a new job with payed more than what most of the guys I went to college with earn(in some cases it might be as much as 2x), had a standing job offer from another place for when I leave the job I hadn't even started yet, one co-founder pushing me to come over for an interview and offered to better what ever I'd make at the other place, plus 3 other inquiries.

And all that with a few half decent projects on github and a passionate(I think so) about me thing on the resume.

Granted that there are a lot more better programmers available in the US than there are here in India(my boss was shocked by the level of most coders he interviewed), but still it seems doable - getting a job solely on coding chops.

I'm not saying that if you start applying you'll get a job the next day or even the next week or the next month. I'll be the first one to admit that I got really lucky with the timing(a lot of start ups had put up wanted posts at that time) and with the apparent lack to good programmers who want to work at start ups in India. But unless you apply, you don't find out whether or not you could've got that position you liked.

So code some stuff up, put it online and start applying.

"But unless you apply, you don't find out whether or not you could've got that position you liked.

So code some stuff up, put it online and start applying."

Nicely said!

I second Coursera. I read you want to become an audio engineer. I am in a music production course through Berkelee School of Music on Coursera.org.

You are getting great advice. Pick one thing and do it for 10 minutes.

There are a couple of digital music courses on Coursera, one that just ended (but is archived) and another coming up in October:

* Introduction to Digital Sound Design (https://www.coursera.org/course/digitalsounddesign)

* Introduction to Programming for Digital Artists (https://www.coursera.org/course/chuck101) (yep, this is for music)

Udacity is another great online learning tool for your list. It's extremely approachable and I really appreciate the structure of each course.

http://www.udacity.com

Added to my list, with attribution. If you're not cool with that I'll remove it. Thanks!

Also: https://www.khanacademy.org/ (don't know how I forgot this one!)

Great post. People should stop and read this.

Although I cannot say I hav been in the same situation as you, I can empathize and offer my sincerest sympathies for your struggle. I noticed you want to be a programmer, there are m any options.

Check out appacademy.io. They are a 10 week programming bootcamp learning ruby, rails, JavaScript and HTML5. Because you already have programming experience, you are above the rest and may have a better chance getting in. It's completely free to attend and you only have to pay if you get a job after the program.

It's run by a group of hackers, and you can email Ned Ruggeri and apply once you check out the site. They have classes in San Francisco and NYC.

I hope everything works out for you man. Not to sound too cliche, but what I have found is it truly is the darkest before the dawn. I attended college (I'm 21), got tired of it, started a couple businesses but I wanted to do more. I applied to Dev Bootcamp and got in, and I will be there in April. Keep your head up and never stop hustling to get what YOU want.

Best of luck.

Does Appacademy offer housing? If not, attending the program would be near impossible, as rents in NYC and SF are exorbitant, and would necessitate working another part-time job just for the luxury of sharing a room with several other people.

They seem to help students with housing in terms of hooking them up with hacker houses, hostel locations etc. I could be wrong, but that was the info I got when I was talking with them. I know one student even slept on a couch in App Academy when he was attending.

Why do you think you're going to find a job there? My wife used to teach in eastern Washington, there is nothing there.

You don't need money to get a degree. That's the point of student loans. Are you in-state in Washington? If you can take the SAT's you should be able to get into a decent, cheap state school. You can get a fee waiver for that, btw.

These people telling you to move to California aren't necessarily giving the best advice. Seattle is like San Francisco with slightly less start-ups and 1/3rd the cost of living. Seattle also has Microsoft and a wide variety of businesses that support Microsoft. It also has a great public transit system that means you can live in one of the cheaper areas around Seattle (Wedgewood, Northgate, Central District, Georgetown) and bus to the city easily for work. There are lots of jobs for tech savvy people, so check http://seattle.craigslist.org/ early and often. You can catch a Greyhound from Yakima to Seattle for $18 if you order online early enough. If you can get a loan from your parents or someone, just enough to cover rent for 3 months, you could find a place to live in Seattle and (hopefully!) find a job in that time.

1/3 the cost of living is a bit of an exaggeration. The census bureau (here: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0728.p...) says San Francisco has an index of 164 compared to Seattle's 121.4. Perhaps you meant 1/3 less, which is almost right.

Don't give up! There will always be hope until you yourself abandon it. Don't ever be ashamed about not having a degree; I'm ashamed that I've learned more about programming from a few good books than my overpriced education! You may not think that you have much, but you've already been given everything you need to succeed in life. Don't be ashamed of what you don't know, be eager to learn it. Don't expect anyone but you to change your situation. The first job in a desired field is always the hardest to get because of little to no experience. Don't be afraid to try something in a similar field than the one you intended; you may find you like it better, or it may give you the experience to get your foot in the door in the intended field. Thank you for posting this, and I'll pray that you find a way out of this. You can do it!

There are lots of jobs out there that will pay you to relocate. Consider making this a focus of your job search.

GTFO of Yakima!

Sounds like you're not going to find fame and fortune in Yakima. You'll have to move on. So to get you started, how about:

You list your tangible skills here and ask for work - anywhere but Yakima. I hear that there are some great startups in Chicago, Detroit, etc - much lower cost of living than CA or NY. BTW where did you move from? Is it an option to return there??

He doesn't need to go all the way to the Midwest. Seattle and Portland are much closer and have plenty of cheap living arrangements. He might be in a far-flung suburb with an unfashionable address, or live in an area considered "dangerous" by locals (the "bad" parts of Seattle and Portland are nothing compared to those in Chicago and Detroit), but it beats sitting around in Yakima with no prospects.

Seattle is the most beautiful place I've ever lived (and I've lived in Hawaii). Been through Portland, it's nice too.

I've heard Chattanooga is an option for tech jobs, and Tennessee is supposed to be pretty. Cost of living should be relatively low, if you can get there. Once you get there, or anywhere, do what you would do anywhere: find anyjob and work on moving up from there.

Consider local government for work.

Seattle has plenty of 'burbs with cheap rent and public transpo'.

As a fellow Washingtonian, I totally second this. Yakima is a shithole. Head west, young man.

Why can't you move to Seattle?

I moved into one of those apodment places once I got here during the summer. It's a dorm style place that comes w/ furniture,internet,electricity,heat,and water for like $700.

I then emailed a bunch of companies in the area and landed a junior dev job. The pay is low but I am learning a lot.

North Dakota has a severe labor shortage. There are reports of salaries over $100k for semi-skilled labor.

Another choice is the Perry Technical Institute is in Yakima, talk to them about their 12 month program on Welding. Its not as "tech" as web site design but if you get through the program you can hitch hike over to North Dakota and the Gas fields there and find lots of work. Looking at their course catalog it looks like its about $16,000 total (four quarters at about $4,000 each), You can do that in four years with no loans if you can scrape together enough for one quarter every 9 months.

Alternatively they have a machine shop program which could exploit your programming skills.

I only mention it because young people often forget that there is a lot of need for people in these jobs which currently are dominated by older men preparing to retire.

I was in almost the exact same situation at 23. Broke, unemployed, car repossessed, eviction notice for my apartment and living in a town with no real jobs to be had. I was tech savvy and a beginner programmer, but no real job experience or degree. I'm doing great now at 29. You can definitely turn things around. Seems like most of the important advice has already been dispensed here. Only thing I will add: I was extremely lucky to have friends in NYC who let me crash while I looked for work. Do you have any friends that live in a cities where there are jobs and good public transport? Would they let you crash for a while? Maybe offer to do their dishes and cook them meals while you're there. If you have such an opportunity, definitely seize it.

Its all about HOPE, man! Its the drug that you need right now. Do whatever you need to do to plant as many seeds of hope that you can. You need to slowly work out the things in life that are killing your hope. Building positive friendships will help, too. You have time to build a good life for yourself.

Just look at all the comments and suggestions all these people have posted. If you need help, just ask for it. But you will need to work on changing things that you can and they may be hard. Life can get you down. Even in the darkness of days, there are always bright sunny days ahead of you!

Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

First of all, you have a bright future. Don't sell yourself short or give up. Failure is the key to success.

Contrary to what many commenters have indicated, don't get a job if you can avoid it. If you can get by without a job, put every last waking moment into your passion.

1) If you want to be a programmer, build something innovative and cool and tell the world about it. If nobody cares, try something else. Build a portfolio of things you've done that compensates for not having a degree.

2) Network. Meet people, talk to people and get involved. Help others and others will help on your projects. Network locally as well as with others in areas you want to live.

If you pour everything into your passion, you'll get better at what you do and everything will fall into place.

These material things don't matter in the long run. You've identified your passion; all that's left is to pursue it. But you need to identify what about your personality led you into this situation. You always have a choice, regardless of external circumstances.

Freelance. Join enough online meetups, Linked In lists, etc. Start a website where you blog about topics you're an expert in. (I'd lean more heavy on the programming thing than the audio stuff - not as fun, but you can program from anywhere)

Or: do some overseas mission stuff. I don't mean church stuff, where you pay to go, and are in an isolated bubble of service. No, I mean give up your life, go somewhere for a year or two. You can live on dollars a day (and still live better than the natives), and I think it will greatly benefit your worldview.

Join the military. Regardless of the politics of it, I think most will agree it's an opportunity to learn, grow, and get away.

It helps to have specific goals. "To just be ok for once" sounds nice, but what exactly does that mean to you? It's much easier to make a plan for yourself when you have specific goals.

You might try thinking out -- and writing down -- specifically what sort of circumstances you think would help you to feel "ok." An apartment? A steady, stable job? A car? A group of reliable friends? You don't need a perfect answer, just try to flesh out some basic details.

Once you know where you want to be in life, you can start taking determined action to change your current circumstances. Where do you want to be ten years from today? Five years? Try to answer those questions, then work back to today, determining the requirements at each step.

So, if you have as your goal getting a job at $50k per year working as a web developer at a small to medium sized company, starting x years from today, then your requirements might be:

Living in a city with sufficient job opportunities in the IT industry; specific programming skills; interpersonal skills for working in an office environment; personal and professional references; a resume; some relevant work experience; basic interviewing skills; a permanent address; reliable transportation; food in your stomach; some reasonable clothes; and a few friends and a healthy way to relax during your downtime.

Take each of those criteria, compare to where you are now, figure out specifically what you can do to improve your circumstances, and take action!

Having it all written out can work wonders for your motivation and ability to stay on track. You can also include some goalposts in your plan with specific timeframes so that you can periodically remind yourself that you're making progress -- that can really help you make it through when things get difficult, which they sometimes will.

It sounds like right now you need to get traction and put some money in your pocket, and some more in the bank. That means you'll want to get your expenses down as low as possible and save as much of your income as you can. You may have to work some unpleasant jobs to get yourself started, but remember that they're not permanent, and stay focused on your goals.

I hope this was of some use for you. Good luck!

Central's a good school. Good enough at least. Get any job you can in Ellensburg and find roommates. Apply, do things around campus, do anything you can to meet people and get out there. It does not matter if you actually get in or take classes, but it'll help to try.

Seriously you're less then 40 miles away from tons of people going through the same thing trying to get themselves together. Even if you end up doing something completely different, it's a place to start and it's just a hitchhike with a bunch of people you'll probably want to meet anyways away.

It sounds like you are also depressed, which is not all surprising, given your situation. While you are following through on the work/training/career suggestions posted here, also try to hook up with some free counseling resources. If there aren't any readily available in Yakima (which is likely) see what's available online. The suggestions here are great and just starting on some of those may help peel away the depression, but just in case, reach out to other resources focused on emotional well-being, in addition to networking, training, etc.

I'm not sure how realistic it is (I know nothing whatsoever about WA), but there are lots of tech meetups happening all over the country. Weekly groups for various languages, frameworks, etc. That can be a really good place to meet people and network. You probably don't want to show up and ask for a job, but it's a great way to bounce ideas off of similarly-minded people, make friends, learn new things or hone your skills, etc.

I also think getting a job - any job, McDonalds, Walmart, whatever - is an important (even if it's miserable) step, because it's SO MUCH EASIER to get a job when you already have one. Even if it takes several bounces up the ladder, it's very difficult to go from being unemployed to being employed in a good job in the field you're interested in. I've got no degree and no have an amazing job working as a developer for one of the most difficult-to-get-hired-at places in tech. I worked (I will omit the time from 17 years old to 27 years old, because I honestly can't remember all of the jobs I had in that period, but the last year or so I was unemployed) for an office furniture dealership (through a temp agency at first), then got a tech-support job for a small software company, worked hard enough to get a little more responsibility and learned some networking/sysadmin-type stuff, learned some sql, hacked around with Python and Ruby, and got a chance to be a developer. Never looked back. I'm 30, for reference, and I've also been homeless and had to sleep on friends' couches, lived paycheck-to-paycheck or sold belongings on craigslist to pay the rent at times, etc. Hang in there. It's hard to hear, but once things work out and you "get there", you tend not to give a fuck about the path it took to get there.

See if you can get to a tech meetup, or just hang out in IRC, post on tech forums, etc. Get the best job you can, but get any job before no job. Sometimes temp agencies can be a really good way to start - I've worked for several. They're usually indoor, business-casual, 9 to 5 office jobs. Don't expect it to be interesting, of course, but some of these places will get you _a_ job right away as long as you're reasonably polite/presentable and can type fast, and it'll probably be a little bit better than the bottom-end of the retail/fast-food spectrum in terms of pay.

Like zaphar said: Good luck and don't give up.

Dude go get some work. If you are tech savvy then put yourself out there. I have less than a year of programming experience and I turn down more work than I take on. I don't even market myself beyond an odesk profile and a blog/resume. It is really that easy, but if you just sit there and feel sorry for yourself, you'll be in the same spot in a year. Go send quotes for 20 feelance gigs in the next week. Work for 15/hr if you have to... in a few months that will be 50/hr and more work than you can handle.

Hey, why don't you hit us up? We hire remote and we have entry level jobs doing tech support in hosting, and plenty of room to move around and better yourself too: http://www.site5.com/about/careers/

ben@site5.com Thanks, Ben

PS, I'd be happy to tell you more about Australia as I'm here now on a 1 year visa. And just finished a 6 month trip through Argentina and South America if you are thinking seriously of something like that.

Do whatever you can to move. That's the only thing that will improve your condition, I think. Just get out, go somewhere, anywhere--Portland, Seattle, anywhere with a hot tech scene. You'll be able to find something to do in a city, just get out of Yakima.

Go to any city you have a friend willing to take you in. Jump start from there.

Lastly, it will get better. Life can be hard sometimes, but you can always start over. I promise it will get better for you.

One strategy is contacting english teaching academies in South America (there are thousands) and go to live there (of course, you'll need some money to afford a couple of renting months), that kind of work will allow you to make a living without taking all your day. The next step is to join a public university, remember in some countries of South America there are great free public universities that allow foreigners.

At least in my country, universities have no montly cost, but:

1) Spanish only 2) you need money for textbooks and such 3) really bad hours for those who need to work

Rent varies by country, but you'll find that an US equivalent is shockingly expensive - unless you think that you can live by without a fridge or other essentials (remember, in most of Latin America, rent only includes the four walls and a roof, forget about utilities, appliances, etc, unless you explicitly pay for those).

I've found that culture shock means that only people that are NOT in the situation this person is in are able to adapt to the local conditions.

My mother moved back from Canada to Uruguay, and she's shocked by the cultural differences (she lived abroad for 20 years). You won't believe how many things you take for granted that simply don't exist in a 3rd world country.

If moving to Spokane is an option, let me know and I can see if I can set you up with some connections.

Just get really good at something. If you're already tech savvy, be great at developing software that delivers value to businesses.

I'm personally a high school drop out and work as a developer in an up and coming startup. Prove that you're a good developer and you don't need a degree.

I know a job you can get. Get yourself to Sacramento, California and look up the Fund for Public Interest Research. If you can be personable and articulate they'll hire you. You can make decent money (enough to live on) and learn some sales skills while you're at it.

Sacramento is also a great place to get some tech connections. The city itself has a great tech community, and you're only ~1.5h from San Francisco.

I just wrote a book about this, called "Break Free of Your Rut." it's based off my own experience being deep in there, and getting out.

It's 2.99 on Kindle, but send me an email and I'll send you a free pdf copy. dan@enemieslist.net is my email.

It sucks, but it gets better.

do you have a resume/github/anything to look at?

Convert that angst to motivation and create something. Every day take a step towards making that thing better. Before you know it doors will start opening. Most importantly, never give up.

I emailed you some thoughts! (coming from brianfarr@gmail.com )

Not to sound cynical, but you live two hours from SEATTLE. If you have skills, you WILL find work here, particularly tech work. End of story!

Scary.

I was literally where you are now when I was 22. I moved to the big city, homeless, scraped together cash working retail to put myself through one of those seedy, "recording arts" programs. Then I took out some pretty big loans to start my record label and begin living the dream. Boy was I out of touch because it didn't take long for that dream to come crashing down. Facing reality was one of the hardest things I had to do.

First, obligatory advice that ironically won't make sense until you're older and have your own story to tell: you're young and you'll get through this and you'll get old and have your own story to tell. Don't sweat it too much.

It took me almost nine years to pay off all the debt I had accumulated during that hard time. It was horrible at first. However you can beat it if you put your mind to it.

My life started turning around when I was living in a tiny room in the basement of a large boarding house in the worst part of the city. Here's how I did it:

1. I created a cash flow spreadsheet and budget. I stuck to it. The nice thing about having the cash flow though was that I could see what my finances would look like in the future. This helped me to plan things and having that really put my mind at ease because I could visualize the light at the end of the tunnel. It would take me a while but I eventually added an entertainment expense.

2. I don't recommend this long-term but when things got thin I learned how to make decent food on the cheap: lots of rice, bulk dried beans, and as much fresh produce as I could afford. I'd make a tonne of stir-fry and eat that throughout the week. It's important to eat well so the first thing I tried to expand was my food budget... this doesn't include eating out.

3. Snowball those debt payments. Pay the minimum on everything except the most important one. Put everything you can after you're most basic needs are met and the minimums are all paid out. Once that one is paid off, keep going. Pick the next highest one and don't shirk and think you have more money to start going out or something. Just make the payments bigger on the next one... they snowball into one another. After you've knocked a couple of the big ones out then start giving yourself a small weekly budget to go out (and learn to make that small budget stretch... I liked going to bars with friends and we found all of the places that had $2 beer nights and went out on those nights).

3. The best thing that happened to me was finding a job through a friend at a local hosting company making websites. It wasn't anything glamorous but it was my first salaried job and I did everything I could to land it: I brushed up on HTML, CSS, Perl, PHP... I made a rather simple little blog script that I could show them before I went into that interview. I spent as much time as I could online and at the library doing research and taking notes. I think it helped because I got that job and I hadn't done any web programming for a few years at that point.

4. I didn't stop pushing myself. I got better at what I did for a living a little bit each day. I tried learning one new thing each week. And after a couple of years I started to get calls from recruiters and have moved up from there.

(It turns out I love CS and probably should have gone to university instead of trying to be a rock star, but you live and learn)

I'm not sure if any of this will work for you but if there's anything I hope you will take away from this comment it's knowing that there's still plenty of time to work your way out of your situation and get to where you want to be. Don't spend time reading about the over-achievers who've been handed the right opportunities at the right time... and don't listen to the claim that it was because of their drive, determination, and all that. Just use your hustle and keep at it. Most of all, smile once in a while and remember that it's just life. It happens to all of us.

Please come back in a few months and update us on your progress, we're anxious to see how for you've gotten. Good luck!

I don't have time to leave a long comment right now. If you need someone to talk to, add me on gtalk.

Just share more about yourself. People will be able to help you.

What's your skillset?

Don't give up.

That's what your 20s are for. Learn to live off next to nothing and hit the road. The people you meet, the experiences you have, the skills you learn, will feed you and your family for the rest of your life. Take it from someone who was in your position exactly...

Lower your standards and get a job.

You're not alone in being alone, and there are people worse off, I assure you.

you don't need money to start a company. However he may lack credit

From my experience incorporating can cost about half a grand.

Patient (and not unnaturally unlucky) use of http://satoshidice.com/ is probably more efficient.