Seeing as you're working (full time I assume) at some web company, and you're only 18... have you skipped going to school to pursue a career for which you already had the necessary skills? If so, then have you had any doubts about this path? Any advice for someone who's currently in school but also freelancing design and thinking of dropping out to pursue it?
Asked by Anonymous
Yeah, I made the decision of skipping college when I was 16 as I had already spent 6 years of my life learning everything I believed I needed to learn to take my first step in to the industry. I definitely had some major doubts in the first few months of working but they were generally just me worrying if I did really know enough to skip going to college. But the honest truth of the matter (which my parents always told me) is you can always go back to school.
The worst thing that can happen if you find out you don’t actually know enough is that you can just go to back to school/college and learn some more! The only tip I’d give is that I think you should try to get a job at a startup first of all as the atmosphere at startups is generally a lot more relaxed than a larger scale company. It’s probably also easier to get a job at a startup as they don’t usually have the requirements of a larger company (i.e. a computer science degree). It also means that once you’ve spent 1-2 years at the company it will be a lot easier to move to a bigger company as you’ll already have 1+ years of professional experience under your belt which some companies are happy to class as equal to a formal qualification.
7 Notes