Instead, I applied to the local city college and spend the first semester taking high school math, physics and chemistry. Then after two more years, my English improved well enough that I was able to transfer to a four-year school, majoring in engineering. I also worked part-time in a laundry at minimum wage to save enough money so that I can move away from home to finish my degree.

After my bachelor degree, I worked summer before returning to graduate school. Then after my master, I worked a few years before returning to get my Ph.D. Then I worked again and after a few years, took a teaching job at UCLA.

When I was forty years old, I left the comfort of academia to start my first company.

I just took life one step at a time and every step of the way, I didn't ask for any favor, except for a chance to prove myself.

Now after two companies, I am retired.

You can do anything you want in this country, even if you weren't born in this country and didn't even speak the language. Just don't take no for an answer and always accept responsibility for your own failure.

Hot damn, I love the American dream, and I love hard working immigrants who show the rest of us, when we get lazy or self-pitying, how it's done.

Dennykmiu, it's great to have you here in the US. You're an inspiration. Thanks for being here, and thanks for posting!

Hoo-ah!

It is great that you have succeeded and that people with your background can succeed in the US. However I think it's likely you are blessed with some characteristics that others don't have such as

- High intelligence

- High motivation

- The capacity to master another language

- Reasonable mental and physical health

- Some degree of luck (or at least not too much bad luck)

When giving advice for others you should keep in mind that they may not have the same capabilities that you do (I'm not talking about juliusmcfly). The flip side if your attitude is that everyone who isn't successful is substantiatlly to blame for there situation.

> I was merely saying that life is short and it is important not to take no for an answer. This is true if you are an immigrant or not.

I still agree with your general attitude. Regardless of anyone's abilities an attitude like this is likely to get the best results.

It is true, however, that someone with all of those aforementioned traits and opportunities has no excuse. I think people that consistently try hard enough will eventually be blessed with some degree of luck.

In light of the other comments, I would like to add: not just in the US. You can do that in any civilised country.

BTW, I think Turks in Germany are actually doing very well.

Yeah, you might end up as president.

Yes I fully realize this is a racist attitude, but I honestly haven't seen anything noteworthy to make me think otherwise.

(FWIW...I think a ridiculously large proportion of "whites" are incredibly unskilled and unintelligent as well....but it seems to me they don't put effort into it, they are just accidentally incompetent).

Do you think, just maybe, that you're reading a bit too much into my question??

That's your disclaimer.

I think we can accept this as a general truth, correct? My question was related to why this is, as in, is this position deserved (as in, not earning a better position, in the aggregate), or is it due to being underrewarded for performing the same work as other classes.

I was hoping someone could point me in the direction of studies on this specific angle. As noted, I am fully aware that my current best guess on this is racist, that is not my question....my question is, is it correct (despite being racist). I know all "broad minded" people such as yourself "know" everyone is equal, but others, such as myself, prefer some study into it. All I have to go on from my perspective in life is what I see/encounter, and people's opinions (often based on only a theory).

Maybe you meant to say there is always an ironic comment made on every website?? lol

Let me spell this exchange out for you:

- Several comments applaud the US for allowing immigrants to succeed.

- I point out that it's not the US, it's the OP. He could have succeeded in all of western civilization, as immigrants do.

- Gaius thinks only the US, UK and Canada are 'countries with long traditions of immigrants both assimilating and contributing to their culture'. He especially thinks Turks in Germany and Moroccans in France are 'an economic and social underclass'.

- I point out that this has to do with historical factors: there are many Moroccans in France, because it was a French colony for a long time. You could practically consider those Maroccans French. I point out that for those reasons, they are more comparable to African Americans, who also happen to be 'an economic and social underclass' (if that term applies to Moroccans in France, it applies to African Americans in the US. I'm going along with the discussion here, not arguing about a term I may not like). On the other hand, Algerians are well integrated in French society, as are Turks in Germany.

- Someone completely misses the point, because he mentions something that gaius himself had already covered as not being a good argument. (Perhaps it was only a joke?)

- I rehash the original point

Now if you would please care to explain what is stupid about that?

1) Perhaps it was only a joke

If you want to be taken seriously this doesn't work when addressing an often times sensitive topic .. Communication 101.

2) You stated ... I point out that this has to do with historical factors: there are many Moroccans in France, because it was a French colony for a long time. You could practically consider those Maroccans French.

A Moroccan would never consider themselves french. (if your interested in references no problem) Thats calling an Assyrian and Iraqi or white or jewish..

3) You quoted.. African Americans are as much 'an economic and social underclass' in the US as Moroccans are in France.

This is where you quoted Gaius then added the note above.. Don't hide behind a quote from someone else then add your own statement and then attempt to pass it off as the original statement.

4) You stated.. It is about what is the state of affairs in the world

How does this beginning comment and the subsequent comments thereafter address the question of the original author? I see a point possibly that he can make it regardless of his socio-economic status and that others has.. just say it.. keep it simple your going into dangerous territory otherwise... you message gets vague.. and losses its point and got clouded with your own statement which was pass off as a quote by Gaius..

The American Dream is truly a wonderful concept.

Remember, too, that 20 is still way young. It feels old to you, because it's the oldest you've ever been, but you haven't really cut off any options yet.

menloparkbum said (emphasis mine) "What you should really do is make a complete system and put it out there for people to use. A web service, an iPhone application, a desktop application, whatever. "

pg replied "Yes. Making stuff is the way to learn, the way to meet smart people, and the way to increase your morale."

If the OP were to build a significant library or subsystem for an existing language/ecosystem, say a natural language processing library in Erlang (I know some people who need something like this today), or create a version of Django with SQLAlchemy, that also worked well with django-admin (I know people who need this too) that would count (I think) as "making stuff" (pg) but not necessarily "make a complete system" (menloparkbum).

So is it necessary to build a complete system (a webapp that uses the NLP library), or is significantly enhancing an existing system (just writing an NLP library, with just enough usecases to drive the library design) enough (to make progress)?

If you want to get a programming job it's a good idea to publish a lot of stuff to github. Personally I find it more satisfying to build applications vs. libraries. Others find the opposite to be true.

Well, sorry to say, that isn’t how it works. Don’t get me wrong, if you really work at it I’m sure you can do it but you are WAY behind the curve if you’re 20 years old and have done nothing but tinker with BASIC and C. That said here's my advice...

First, accept you need to work day and night to accomplish your goal. Again, you’re already way behind so you have a lot of catch up to do just to be competent. You should be looking at 70 to 80 hour weeks of pure hard work (including your grocery job).

Second, learn Python (or some other language) backwards and forwards before you even start anything else. Tinkering doesn’t prove anything. Anyone can write a "hello world" app but true programmers have to think in a very specific, logical fashion. You might not have the aptitude for that and there’s no point wasting time pursuing this goal if you’ll never be able to get good at it. You can learn everything you need to know with a search engine these days so there’s no excuse here.

Third, stop thinking in generalizations. No one succeeds by saying "I want to found a start up." You need to latch on to an actual idea and you need to start working on it as soon as you are able. From where you live and the experience you have I figure you’ll need to create a whole product just to interest anyone.

Again, I apologize for the harsh tone but I think it’s justified. As rude as it sounds someone who gets in your position usually doesn’t get out. Getting out will not only be the hardest thing you ever do it will be close to the hardest thing anyone’s ever done. You literally have to remake yourself at a time when many of your instincts have already been formed. It’s not easy, it’s not fun and it will be tons of work and tons of time before you see even a little bit of results.

But if you want to succeed you have to commit yourself to that reality.

How do you learn Python backwards and forwards without using it to do something first? I may be the odd man out here (?), but for me, computers and programming have always been a tool to accomplish something, rather than an end in and of themselves. In my case it was laziness--I couldn't stand the thought of repetitive, redundant data entry and so I set about creating a database app. I had zero background in programming but I did have a) friends to ask questions ("Can you tell me about Alan Turing again?") and b) a compelling interest (said data entry). The logic and the programmer's mental place will come with time.

Also, how is he behind the curve at 20? Don't most people alternate between periods of coasting and advancement? 1500 on the SATs isn't shabby, and if he could pull that off without preparation, his ability multiplier on those 70-80 hour weeks ahead should be enough to get him "caught up" after a few years, if not to expert level then at least middlebrow.

Completely agree re: "I want to found a startup". That may work for some people ("I want to be rich"), but it has always failed to motivate me. If he has something he wants to do and a startup is the best vehicle in which to do it, then yes, found a startup.

You may be right about "the hardest thing". That has the ring of truth.

FWIW, many of my coworkers at Google had never written a line of code before they got to college.

One observation though - and this is a gross generalization, and obviously doesn't apply to everyone. The people who never studied CS before college and never worked on outside projects tend to be less innovative, less willing to think outside the box. So they're more dependable engineers and often write cleaner code, but they're less likely to come up with a crazy idea or go beyond their established job description.

There are exceptions, of course. Wonder Wheel was done by someone who didn't program until he was a couple years into college, and was initially interested in being a filmmaker (and he's only a year or so out of college, so that's only 3-4 years total experience).

I didn't write my first real program until I was almost 20. I had written some HTML and BAT scripts for MSDOS as a teen but little else.

Then I started really programming a few months before my 24th birthday. It took me less than a year and a half to get to the point where I was confident in applying for nearly any programming job, regardless of the language or skills required. So I would say if you decide to dedicate yourself to it and you are smart(which it seems you are), you could be fairly advanced in <1 year. Definitely not far behind.

My piece of advice: move to the Bay Area!

It is 10x easier to become a better programmer by working with other programmers face to face while getting paid. The job opportunities out here for programmers are probably 50x better than Georgia. So if you could do one thing, that would be it. (Unless you are attached to living in GA, which it doesn't seem like you are).

However, to Tom's point... I think he has many. I picked up on the same tone and think you should carefully evaluate what Tom mentioned in regard to your situation. You're young and have a lot of time so try to remove that pressure from your shoulders, but you really need to get focused on obtaining a basic set of tools before you build a <insert startup here>. Whether it's through college, or sticking your face in front of a monitor for ~40+ hours a week and self teaching yourself X,Y, and Z.

I would say good luck but real entrepreneurs win because of perseverance.

I disagree that it will be close to the hardest thing anyone has ever done. Come on now.

It will be extremely hard though, harder than most things, and I am up for the challenge.

It doesn't even have to be your best idea, it just has to be AN IDEA. Just get one full idea implemented and put it out there. Do not get distracted by people who tell you how hard everything is or how it's not fun or how you need to be an expert in something before you can start executing. Just get something done. It's almost the only thing that matters.

In the end, you can get a lot further than you think by just puzzling things out for yourself. Try something, see where it fails and adjust as necessary. You'll learn as you go and you'll have the advantage of knowing that what you learned is actually useful knowledge, because it solved a real life problem you encountered.

But yes, just do it. There's also a lot of value in collaborating with others - see if you can find some person/people to at least bounce ideas if not code off of.

Well, you could be right. I think inherent in the advice I gave above is the idea that it might be too harsh but people who prepare for the worst sail through situations that are easier than the one's they were prepared for.

That said in my observations of the world I've found changing yourself is the hardest thing anyone ever has to do. That's why the astronaut who was successful enough to beat out everyone else in the country can't seem to kick his smoking habit. Or how a guy who managed to become President of the United States TWICE, which is not easy to do, can risk it all for a brief liason with an intern.

Bottom line: Our own vices are generally the hardest opponents to beat

Alternatively, I could just refuse to acknowledge the accuracy of any of this and bicker over minutiae and semantics, but I choose not to.

Julius, if you move somewhere new, you may find the process of metamorphosis becomes easier.

This is the beauty of college: the total newness and change of scenery allows one to change and improve oneself. One's reputation at home no longer matters. One remakes oneself and begins spending time with other motivated people.

You can create a similar situation for yourself by moving. With determination, you will be able to shed the bad parts of yourself and develop the good parts. Moving somewhere new could be a great help. I highly recommend it.

Now let's talk some more specifics. You'll probably need another year to establish residency in Georgia. In that time, you need to make yourself a more attractive candidate so you can get in. If you can, get yourself down to Georgia Tech and get a job around there. A system admin job in the school's IT department would be ideal. Sit in on classes, conference with admissions officers, and call in any favors you have to get a good recommendation from someone in high school. Study for the ACT (or SAT if GT doesn't take the ACT). Honestly with half a year of preparation you can raise your score a ton. A strong standardized test would improve your application a lot. Take classes at a community college for a semester near GT. Get at least two kick ass recommendations from professors there and make sure you get a 3.5 GPA or higher. Note, getting good recommendations is an easy process. Just let your enthusiasm for computer science show, go in to the professors office hours to ask questions, and work on an independent project with them. Honestly, since GT is a public school, there are probably incentives in place to take a certain number of community college students per year and that can help you.

Some people here might advise you to teach yourself what you need and try to make it on your own. Let's be realistic. You don't even know if you are capable of working hard yet on highly technical projects. School will teach you that, and give you the ability to get a job if starting a company doesn't work out.

To give you a bottom line, you need an associates degree, at least a 3.5 GPA (> 3.7 is much better) in your community college classes, and at least two excellent recommendations from professors there. You also need a kick ass essay, which you should spend a lot of time writing and sharing with people. Any personal connection you can establish with people at the school before you apply is just an added bonus. You can make it happen, and three years from now the world will look completely different.

First of all, while GT is definitely your top (and really only) choice in the state for any of those three departments, you don't necessarily have to start out there. Look up Southern Polytechnic State University - it's in Marietta, just a short ways outside Atlanta, and it has a few serious perks for your situation: - It's a whole lot cheaper (about $10k less) than GT is, particularly for students who are not in-state. - It is an engineering-focused university that will get you up to speed reasonably quickly and let you start taking some classes that will transfer well to GT (but not as well or smoothly as you might expect, so be careful). - Transfering from Southern Poly to GT is almost a guarantee -- as long as you do well there, you are pretty much certain to be admitted.

Second, whatever university you wind up going to, be sure to get involved in activities outside of class. They don't all have to be focused on programming or startup stuff, either -- my time working on GT's student newspaper helped in my job search nearly as much as my degree itself. Plus, the things I did had the additional benefit of exposing me to a much wider group of people than the typical CS crowd, and keeping me sane during tougher times.

Last, don't give up, especially once you actually get into university. GT's engineering, science and CS programs tend to smack people down in their first couple of semesters, and the worst thing you could do is let that get you down to the point of dropping back to your current situation.

Same at my school. The Intro to CS class (which I never took) was famous for failing you if you left out a semicolon on the written exam--"It won't compile."

Just keep plugging. There are hoops in place to thin the ranks. It's loosely based on merit, but the actual results can be quite arbitrary. Keep SICP in one hand and Kafka in the other.

I was just browsing that same page, actually. GT is a good school.

GT also has several public events where there are profs / researchers showing their projects which you can attend (especially if you are a student) and possibly even work with them (if you can help with something specific). You should definitely come visit and get to know them. When you apply to get in, having a rapport with a professor goes a very long way to getting in.

1) Keep Moving. If I only had two words to tell you it would be those. You're behind the eight-ball as far as education, math in particular, goes but you can fix that... but it's not going to fix itself. Take any other classes you can in parallel but Just. Don't. Stop. What you're looking at as an crushing, insurmountable mountain of work is really only a few years.

2) Get a degree in a field you care about and can find work in. The school doesn't really matter. The old "just get the piece of paper" advice is generally considered deprecated, but you do need to have the skills. Unless you go somewhere that is actively known for its bad program (and even then that's only likely to be known locally) it will be a net positive.

3) Attempt to seek out people that are smarter and more curious than you are. I can relate to your high school experience, and I don't have a lot of hopeful to say about the people that stayed in the town I grew up in. Always keep your eyes open, though; you may find people that seem smart at first that don't seem like it after you see their weaknesses.

4) The "cities full of intelligence and ambition" thing is romantic but won't pay the bills. Be on the lookout for cities that have a solid economy and job opportunities for people with your skills and education. I suspect you'll do better more toward the west than the (north-)east, but I don't know much about the south-east. You may be better off right now than you know.

5) Use your desire to learn about geek stuff (SICP, Python, et. al.) to feed your general sense of curiosity, and your "technical taste" but don't bank on it for preparation for entrepreneur-hood. {major dissenting opinion ahead} I believe that people searching for the next big thing in the fields of the last big thing are generally wasting their time. Too bad for me (and possibly you) this industry is what I love. Tech is a great industry to be working in, but every big thing started with an itch to scratch.

Good luck!

There's plenty of work in Atlanta. I don't know if it's interesting or if the companies are pleasant, but it's there.

North Carolina and Washington, DC are other options if he wants to stay kinda local. In DC now there's high demand if you have/can get security clearance. Not sure if that would be desirable work, but it certainly exists. And if there's anything of the anthropologist in him, he might find the beltway culture interesting.

But it seems joining military is not really good choice since invasion of Iraq. It seems like the best way is try to build something that you like and learn from it. School can only teach things that can be taught, and unfortunately there is no school to teach creating stuffs for arts and technologies or fiction/poem writing! You can only learn them by doing, from trials and errors.

It is your will power to be successful matters. You are 20, so you are much more luckier than people who figure this out in 30s or 40s and have no guts to choose the path.

A lot of people 'place out' of these using AP exams - you can take them even now. This should help you move faster.

No seriously guys. Here's the problem:

20 years old. Doesn't know what to do. Options are college or work. And how is this "problem" anything other than universal? And how is the advice anything other than banal? Go to college. Keep working. Whatever.

I understand you are 20, and you still have a lot of sorting out to do, but you know what the answer is?

There is no answer; just get it done. There's no real need to write out this essay about why this, how that... its nonsense, either you want to do something and you start trying to do it, or you don't

Somebody has to say it.

Stop talking, start doing.

I do alright as a professional, self-taught programmer, after working my way through various tech support and later testing jobs, but I long for a better foundation in math and comp sci and am trying to go back to school full time. I can say this from my own experience...if you're not reasonably sure you want to knock out a bachelor's degree, don't. It doesn't get easier as you get older but there are still lots of opportunities for adults returning to college. I didn't need a degree to make it as a programmer and many others didn't either, but I also got in during the dot com boom so had some easy experience to go on.

It won't make you a successful startup founder, but it will give you a ticket to employment as a member of the professional class. That's enough for a lot of people.

What state are you in? Why not go to the flagship state university while you figure out what kind of startup you want to do?

Being employed as a member of the professional class isn't all that I aspire to, but there is no shame in that. The idea quite depresses me though.

If the idea of being a member of the professional class depresses you try shooting for the stars before going to college because that's what college is preparing you for. If you want to do the startup thing, surely the thing to do would be move to the Valley, do open source stuff, and just keep trying.

Uh, yeah. that's what your parents always say. I can't tell you how many people told me I'd be working at gas stations if I didn't get good grades and go to college. By 20, my wages were competitive with my parents.

If you don't have education, you need experience. Get a job as a windows monkey/cable bitch at an office or an ISP. Work for people who are better than you are. Yeah, you have a few years of getting ridiculously underpaid ahead of you. I remember getting paid $7/hr to fix computers, when customers were billed for my time at $80/hr.

move up to a better job every year or two. Linux pays better than windows, so as soon as you can make that jump, do so.

That said, you are going to be working shit jobs until the recession is over. just remember it is the experience you are after, not the money. But as soon as the economy picks up, if you have been doing the job for peanuts, you will be able to get paid real money.

But the important thing is to have jobs that count. small companies are good, because the owner cares about money, and if you get hired on as a level 1 windows monkey, if you can, it's usually pretty easy to get them to let you take on more responsibility, work on the linux servers, etc..

I started doing that at 15. By the time I was 20, I was living in the bay area making around $60K. Now, that was '00. The crash wasn't too long after that so I had a few years of flat salary, but then things picked up again; that seems to be the way it works. learn things during the downturns, cash in when times are good.

Now, I've chosen the path of bootstraping my company, because I prefer to sell to customers than to investors, which is a little different, but really, knowing how to do something useful is a huge help in starting your company. First, working lets you see problems people have, and second, if you know things, you can rent yourself out for venture capital. I suck at business. I spent four years bleeding into my current venture before I saw black ink. (But... that was my Porsche.) But the thing is, with what I can bill out as a contractor, I've got (what seems to me like) a massive wad of venture capital, replenished monthly. That means I can pay for a lot of mistakes, and I'm finally at a point where it looks like I have the upper hand. (see, this downturn I'm prepared. During good times, nobody cares about money. During downturns, money matters. You should probably try to apply this to selling your labor. Offer to be underpaid for a job you are not quite qualified for.)

I don't want to discourage you from going to school, but it's not the only path. Credentialism is dead.

This is what you need to be able to do to succeed.

Hustle.

Hustle your brains out and figure out what you want to build, build it, monetize it, prove that you can do great things, and the rest will be history.

Good luck man, just don't let your past dictate your future and you'll be fine.

The level of education and facilities in my country are way behind from the US, but thanks to the internet I can learn new things that were not taught in schools.

If you've never taken calculus it would probably serve you well to take it in an actual classroom (possibly at night while working?), but trig can easily be self taught from a book. If you need a little extra help, contact the math department of a local university and ask if they have a list of students who are available for tutoring. It would be a small cost to meet with someone once or twice a week to stay on track with your self study, compared to an actual college class.

I have a hunch that you will be in a lot better position when you join uni and graduate than a lot of my friends who recently graduated and then had the "NOW WHAT?" moment. You are having that moment right now, which is good.

Knowing that you like math is a great start. Also, learning python is another awesome decision. Now while you are trying to figure out your "big" thing(which school to goto etc.), try putting together your love for python/math and build cool apps out of them.

Finally, quit regretting your past. Think you partied too much in high school? There are geeks who wish they had more fun in high school:) Point is, it is about how you frame your experience. Instead of thinking "I was a slacker" ask yourself "what can I build for slackers like me[and profit!...jk]?".

The majority of what you need to know in order to run a startup isn't taught at collage/uni, it's self-taught or learnt through experience

But enough about me.

It's all about a simple idea and then just doing, making an application, starting simple, and working hard without giving up. Doing website design work has exposed me to the skills, now HN is getting me exposed to the mindset, I'm taking steps.

Since you are local, feel free to get in touch with me. We have similar dreams. Hopefully employers and educators will quickly look past your GPA. I am sure they will.

nir@lonick.com

But college helps a lot of other things. So:

If you end up at GT, I'd recommend looking into their Computational Media program. It's a lighter version of CS with extra media studies (games, films, websites, etc). You still have access to all the CS classes if you want them. I am of the (somewhat biased) opinion that you can craft a better startup education there.

UCF also has a pretty good CS/media program and is in Orlando, which might be easier for you.

I scheduled an interview with an admissions officer at Southern Poly, and I spent all night last night working through the Django Book, so I can try to put together my first webapp idea. I've always learned best by actually getting my hands dirty, so I think it will be a good experience.