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[SlyStalker]

Hello everyone. I have two things that I'd like to talk about here.

1. Teenage Issues
I'm not sure whether my problems are generic teenage rebellion issues but I'm finding my parents a bit rough to interact with. I love them very much (as people usually do) (no, I'm not saccharine) but I feel like they are trying to suppress me and control me all the time. In addition to that, they lavish my younger brother with more time, attention and affection than they ever showed to me. The greatest problem is that we have slight financial issues.
I have a full scholarship which saves us a few thousand, so and I thought that would've been a good thing, but now they put a lot of pressure on me to perform at school and I cannot slip up even once. The one time I did, I made myself a timetable so I would improve, and I was hoping that this would demonstrate to them that I am a reasonable and sensible person. Apparently, it didn't.
Anyway, I don't think I'm coping very well compared to other people in this stage of their life. My parents both had/have anxiety/depression and this worries me somewhat. I am seeing a counsellor and I wonder if I'm just being a pussy. Hope not.

2. Contracting work
I have realised that I have some pretty good skills and I want to use those to start earning some money (programming, general academics). How would I do that? Should I look on Elance?

[SanDiego]

ad 1) What you experience is quite normal for your age; and no, seeing a counsellor does not make you a pussy.

[acetech09]

1. Agreed. Fairly normal. Not pussy. My parent was the same - he wanted me to be set up the best I could for 'a future', and thought that anything below straight-A's would leave me disappointed later in life. I dug in, rebelled a bit, but now having a (knock knock knock) great life doing what I love. He does admit he was wrong, and doesn't have any more regret for letting me get away with things.


2. Do you have any idea what your ideal occupation would be? Whatever you do, avoid an unrelated job like the plague. Part of me thinks that I'm doing so well right now is due to me never faltering from finding hobbies and employment directly in line with what I wanted to do. Instead of doing homework, I built robots. In my field, relevant experience >>> academic marks.

You have some programming skill - if you want to pursue computer science, maybe try to find a QA position for a local software company. They might not pay as much or have as good hours as some other jobs (Local junior QA is around $15, you can be a delivery driver for $20), but having that on your resume is, pardon the cliché, priceless.

[SlyStalker]

2. I would really like to go into game development (preferably independent, so I can do what I want with some friends instead of sitting in an office ) and I know that I'm still ahead of most of my peers at the moment because I actually have some experience in making games from scratch (with code, not Game Maker or anything). I'm also good at writing, but I haven't really tried blogging or anything yet. The problem is that a lot of people ('professionals') don't take me seriously when I tell them I'm 15. Basically they don't think I have the skills and unfortunately, I don't really have anything to put on a portfolio yet to show them that I do.

[acetech09]

snip

I had that problem too when I was 15 (wow, that seems like so long ago when it really isn't at all) and looking for work. Solution? I invested heavily on independent projects to build a portfolio, and I made contacts however possible. As far as I'm concerned, cold applications/inquiries are dead applications unless you're greatly overqualified. Also, be willing to take a junior position.

Again, relating to when I was in a similar position - I thought I was qualified enough to take freelance from-home gigs, etc - but I quickly learned that there were people who could over-resumé and underbid me in a heartbeat. The supply of those kind of people is unfortunately very large - but the amount of people with a respectable work ethic and ability to show up somewhere sometime is much smaller. And working in any kind of professional business environment (even if it's largly work-from-home with office visits) will teach you an incredible amount of things in a short period of time that will rapidly close the competition gap between you and the pros on elance.

Sorry for the big text blocks, but as it is with advice, I don't want to hold back on things that have a chance of helping someone out during such a critical stage. Take what you will :p

[SlyStalker]

-snip-

The problem is that I'm a generalist. I know that I want to go into IT/Programming as a career, but as for freelancing, then I'd be better at writing.

[metime00]

Acetech's suggestion of independent work to build a portfolio is a great one. The beauty of programming is that you can do it independently. When you say you're at school I assume you mean a university. If there are job fairs at your school, going to those with a backlog of independent work is a winning combination. I managed to land a great internship with a subpar GPA even because of the experience I got from independent work.

I would suggest https://projecteuler.net/ as a good warmup. trawling wikipedia for simple algorithms then implementing them is a useful thing. Try out something that differentiates you from other programmers; try implementing chess in a functional language like Haskell or F#. The two biggest skills, that especially students lack or need, is being able to develop good algorithms (which Project Euler helps alot with) and being able to manage a program with a code base larger than just a few files. If you want to learn F# a great blog to get some ideas about advantages and tricks is http://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/.

Another suggestion that I've heard before from a few people in the software industry is to make a blog about you learning programming concepts and working independently. I've never done it because I'm lazy, but it can be something good to both motivate you to keep learning and working independently, and it can show and practice your technical writing skills.

Especially for programming, an hour spent on work and learning not in your school's computer science curriculum is worth several hours of work spent on homework or studying when it comes to differentiating yourself from other prospective programmers.

EDIT: Oh I just saw you said you're 15. That's great! If you're thinking about this now you're already light years ahead of the curve. Get whatever work you can doing software, do whatever programming you can whenever you can. Because all the time you spend now will pay dividends down the line when you're 20 and have been thinking about problems logically and programmatically for 5 years, and your peers will just be getting started.

[SlyStalker]

I would suggest https://projecteuler.net/ as a good warmup. trawling wikipedia for simple algorithms then implementing them is a useful thing. Try out something that differentiates you from other programmers; try implementing chess in a functional language like Haskell or F#. The two biggest skills, that especially students lack or need, is being able to develop good algorithms (which Project Euler helps alot with) and being able to manage a program with a code base larger than just a few files. If you want to learn F# a great blog to get some ideas about advantages and tricks is http://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/.

Thanks! I'll check that website out. Also, chess sounds complicated, with that MCTS and all.

[Retropunch]

2. I would really like to go into game development (preferably independent, so I can do what I want with some friends instead of sitting in an office ) and I know that I'm still ahead of most of my peers at the moment because I actually have some experience in making games from scratch (with code, not Game Maker or anything). I'm also good at writing, but I haven't really tried blogging or anything yet. The problem is that a lot of people ('professionals') don't take me seriously when I tell them I'm 15. Basically they don't think I have the skills and unfortunately, I don't really have anything to put on a portfolio yet to show them that I do.

Never tell anyone your age. Never, ever, ever. It shouldn't affect how they view you or your work, and tell them that if they push you!
I'm quite a bit older than you, but still young for my profession, and I just flat out don't tell people (although they hardly ever ask). If someone is asking you, make a joke out of it - 'I'm young enough to still have all my own teeth'

My only tip is to specialise. Hardly anyone needs a jack of all trades these days - it's sad, but very true. Not that you can't have other skills, but find one thing and become the very best at it. If you mastered Python (which I'd suggest first) you'd be able to get a job anywhere in the world doing some pretty awesome stuff. Yeah, you'd need to be REALLY amazing at it, but you sound like a well put together guy, and so I'm sure you can nail it.

[metime00]

I would suggest https://projecteuler.net/ as a good warmup. trawling wikipedia for simple algorithms then implementing them is a useful thing. Try out something that differentiates you from other programmers; try implementing chess in a functional language like Haskell or F#. The two biggest skills, that especially students lack or need, is being able to develop good algorithms (which Project Euler helps alot with) and being able to manage a program with a code base larger than just a few files. If you want to learn F# a great blog to get some ideas about advantages and tricks is http://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/.

Thanks! I'll check that website out. Also, chess sounds complicated, with that MCTS and all.

You don't necessarily have to finish it or add AI. You definitely don't need GREAT AI for it to be a good learning opportunity. A chess game for hot seat and having graphics in openGL and user interface is a bigger project than most university CS students will have before they graduate. A good gateway into heuristic algorithms is the good ol' A* pathfinding algorithm. Learning the ins and outs of that and shape rasterization algorithms were a few of the most useful things I learned early on. And put all your projects on github!

I second the never tell anyone your age sentiment, or your grade or class level.