c0w
Joined 12 years ago
Joined 12 years ago
If you're not motivated enough to buy textbooks and work through them on your own I'd suggest looking around for a trade school that will allow you to specialize in programming. Your coursework will be pure programming.
> I want to just work on something for someone.
As a sophomore it is unlikely that you have the necessary skills to do much of anything for anyone, software-wise. Why not start a few projects of your own and learn as you go?
> Living at home is the last option I want to explore.
It's probably your best option, in my opinion. With your lack of coding skills its very unlikely that you'll be able to find a programming job, leaving low-paid, low-skilled jobs as your only other option. Working a 9-to-5 is tiring and it will be very hard to find the motivation to come home from work, study, and code. Why not live with the parents for a few years while you teach yourself how to program? Free room and board is a pretty sweet deal.
> Is there some sort of person I can talk to about how to go about getting a job
There are always mid-clients/recruiters and monster.com, dice.com, etc. With the little amount of programming skills that you have, no real resume, and no portfolio it will be difficult.
Have you heard of Venture Capital?
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When evaluating viability you want to ask yourself questions like "Is there really a market for this?", "Would this substantially improve the process of doing X?", "Am I creating a new market here?", "Is this an incremental improvement to an existing product or process or am I adding exponential value?", "Are there companies currently in a position to compete?", "Could an established player in this space do this easily and push me out of the market?", and ultimately: "Would I use this? Regularly?".
Difficulty is fairly obvious and deals with the question of energy in, and whether it's truly feasible for you to pull something like this off in a reasonable timeframe, given your resources at hand.
ROI is the ultimate question that asks "What's the upside?", "Is it really going to be worth my time to solve this problem?", "For the time (money) I invest in building this, is it going to pay out more than the other projects I could have been working on?" (opportunity costs).
Good luck!