Hi Dale,

I ended up starting out at UC Berkeley and during that first year of school I got my first real introduction to programming and computer science. However, I was also running a failing dial-up Internet service business (a cousin of mine had gotten my parents to purchase it so I could run it and earn some money/learn a bit about business, which was cool during high school) and was trying to maintain a long-distance relationship (which ultimately failed) and working part-time in the dormitory computer lab.

Because of the relationship, and the stress of dealing with the business failing (and closing after my first semester in school) I ended up not doing too well my second semester and ultimately decided to come back home.

At the time, back in 2006, things were still in boom mode and there were lots of cool new developments coming up back in my small town so I saw this as an opportunity to do something to make my community a little bit better.

I didn't necessarily want to continue with school (looking back, that was a pretty dumb thought) so I'm glad I followed my sister's advice and enrolled for an online degree program and worked my butt off over the next year and a half (with my AP credit and the credit from my classes I did pass at Berkeley, along with CLEP Exams I took along the way to get out of certain requirements, I was able to finish my Bachelors, and have that all too important piece of paper, before I was 21).

During that time I was in school I had started up a new business hoping to do a bunch of web development for local business and start making an income I could live off of. After that didn't really materialize I figured it'd be a good idea to start pursuing a "real job" where I could earn a regular salary I could depend on.

So months before I officially graduated I had started my job search in my local area. I blame most of this on luck, but I applied for a number of IT jobs, which I got "Thank you for applying" letters and a few web development jobs, but kept on getting rejection letters. I also ended up applying for a webmaster job at the local college in April 2007, but even though I kept on checking in each month, there wasn't any movement on actually hiring anyone for months.

So in late 2007 or so I ended up releasing a site which I hoped would "change things" and raise a bunch of money for education by encouraging folks to purchase their online products through a non-profit which would be setup specifically to collect and then distribute affiliate fees earned by all of the local individuals that made their purchase through this site (as an example, you might click on the Amazon link on this site and then be taken onto the main Amazon site after that to do your regular shopping, but since you went through that non-profit's site it would bring back a bit of that purchase to the community and I was hoping that money could go to paying for field trips for schools and other stuff that normally gets the ax because of budget cuts nowadays). I learned a few years later, but I guess that work is what eventually made the college move forward with looking at all of the applicants for that webmaster job and I impressed them enough in the interview that I was offered that position in early February 2008. That day I got that call that I was going to be hired is probably one of the happiest I can remember (it's a good feeling to know that your hard work and talents are appreciated).

Those good feelings were tempered dramatically when the Friday before I was supposed to start working, my younger sister passed away in a car accident driving to her high school. Going through such a difficult time right when you begin working somewhere really showed me how much people care about each other down here and I really appreciated all of the support I received at my new workplace during those early days.

Over time, I've learned so much and each week and month most often has something new to work through that you didn't know about before. I'm essentially self-taught in most everything related to programming I've accomplished since that first year at Berkeley, but it was a great foundation. However, if there's one thing I have learned over these years is that there is so much I don't know and which I would love to learn. The hard part is finding teachers, particularly where I live because we have no connection to startups that could teach us the wide variety of skills I'm always hearing about here on HN. I'm starting to get to the point where I'm just going to start learning some of this stuff on my own, but it's hard to justify sometimes when your day job doesn't necessarily need you to learn those things (it's always an additional driver to know that this thing that I'm trying to learn is going to be directly applicable to work).

I have a small software business I work on some weekends, but it's super small ($200-$300 which about $150 in overhead). One of my goals this year is to try and increase that amount (it's been basically the same each month since I started it back in August 2010), not because I want it to replace my day job (if the business takes off that'd be wonderful of course, but I think I would still want to keep my day job and use that extra money to help my family or my community in some way).

I think the main thing you're talking about though is that you yearn for something a bit more, and I can't say that I don't have those same wishes too. I'd love to work for a startup or a big company, but not necessarily because I think they'd be better than my current workplace, which is really great, but mainly because the types of problems would be different, there'd be more people I could learn from, and those sorts of things (additional learning opportunities).

As jawns mentioned, it has to do with your risk tolerance, and working for a good organization can be very good for you particularly when you're just starting out. Gaining that experience is crucial to allowing you to continue getting positions at other organizations if you're not happy with your current one. If creating/joining a startup sounds attractive to you, just try and make sure you think through all of the possibilities (I'm an optimist so I always think things will turn out great for my businesses, but after those past failures it does help make you a bit wiser...or at least more understanding of your own limitations as a business person, haha).

All the best and good luck for you in your career!