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Who says you have to be a programmer for the rest of your life? The biggest mistake I ever made was buying a house, because that meant I had to live there long-term.
I've been in IT for nearly 20 years and only ended up in it because I had a B.S. degree and good math skills. Now after 20 years, I'm sick of it. I am sick of where I live and what I do. I want to do something else and live somewhere else. Since I now have 2 B.S. and an M.S. I have many other doors that I can enter and don't have to be coupled to IT. I am planning on leaving IT and teaching in the next 5 years. I don't want to do it quite yet as I'm making very good money and will probably never make that much again.
As for you, go to school, even part-time until you know what you want in life. For some people, including me, I still don't know what I want. Do some freelance work and go to school. School sucks, but there are girls there and there is social life there. You will be giving those up without college and the opportunity to move into something you might love because you don't have a degree.
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Tony Foo wrote: The biggest mistake I ever made was buying a house,
Many places that doesn't matter now.
Used to be that the rule was 5 years for a house and 3 years for a condo. If you could stay put that long then getting out after that would be a positive net income.
There are quite a few places now where one can get out of a house after just a couple of years.
One cannot guess about market down turns of course. But right now most larger cities in the nation have substantial year to year gains in housing and there is no problem selling. Even Detroit is seeing an up turn. Problem isn't is selling so much in buying. And it can even be more of a problem if one wants to target specific neighborhoods.
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I see what you're saying. I felt it was a mistake because I bought the house for a woman and she eventually went her own way. Also, it will cost me real estate fees to move and as I told my Dad, it makes no sense to sell a 200k house with a tiny mortgage to take out a loan on a 300k house. And lastly, if I wanted to work in another city or country, then getting that contract and quickly selling my house would not be so easy.
I'd prefer to live in a luxury apartment, as long as I had a garage to leave the car, especially during the snowy winters.
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Tony Foo wrote: I see what you're saying...
Well yes, if you want to live in a house and live in the same place then upgrading might not make any sense.
But there are still regions where, although the housing (and employment) market are reasonable they are still less in comparison to other regions.
For example much cheaper to live in Tampa FL versus San Jose CA.
Tony Foo wrote: I'd prefer to live in a luxury apartment, as long as I had a garage to leave the car, especially during the snowy winters.
So look for a place with an "attached garage". (I know this because your post could have been written by me - all of it. And I looked to see what the apartment market looked like.)
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James_Parsons wrote: I'm only 19
Then now is the time to switch if you want to. Just remember, whatever you switch too, needs to be able to pay the bills, and afford you a comfortable lifestyle(family too, if that is a factor), for the next 45+ years.
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Joined the service.
Learned a trade.
Grew up.
Got out and went back to school.
Arguing with a woman is like reading the Software License Agreement. In the end, you ignore everything and click "I agree".
Anonymous
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Service wouldn't take me. Tried for about a year
i cri evry tiem
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Several mixed up things there.
First two years of work represents a junior level programmer in my world. Somewhere around 3 to 5 you might move to mid level, and somewhere at 5-7 you reach senior. I do not consider education an equivalent for actual work experience. However the normal comparison is that a 4 year degree is worth 2 years (so a junior), MA represents a mid level and a PHD is a senior. I consider those last two laughable if they have no comparable work experience (working while getting the degree.) The exception there can can in very specific hot technologies - deep learning would be one of those now.
Second STEM has nothing to do with the job market. STEM activism isn't filling the pipeline - not even close. You might be in a place that is saturated but it doesn't mean the entire nation is.
Third, employers don't have any idea what they are doing when hiring. And that is helped even less by developers who (might) excel at programming but then think that they can evaluate other people via asking some ill thought out questions that they 'think' are technical. The developers have neither the conversational experience (after all not their job) nor education/hr background to evaluate what would in fact make a good interview process and questions.
Consequently they end up floundering around while rationalizing that their process is 'good'. So a prospective interviewee must just keep trying.
Fourth however an interviewee must accept the possibility that they just do not do interviews well. Not surprising, again just like the interviewer, their skill set is not targeting those abilities that work well for an interview. If one really ones to excel in being an interviewee then a career is sales is probably the way to go.
James_Parsons wrote: I find it hard to learn anything anymore
That is the sad reality of work and passion. You hit the wall early because you started young. It is the rare exception that continue to have that passion for a lifetime. And that has nothing to do with programming - it applies to every human activity.
James_Parsons wrote: I'm only 19, so I fell it's still possible
Of course it is possible. Possible at 30. Possible at 50.
Possible isn't the question. The question is what.
James_Parsons wrote: I got moved to South Carolina
I wouldn't live anywhere with less than 1.5 million in the metropolitan area that I was in. It gives more companies to apply to. If you want really hot than the San Fran area (San Jose, Silicon Valley) or Seattle are great big sucking black holes for IT talent.
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jschell wrote: I wouldn't live anywhere with less than 1.5 million in the metropolitan area that I was in.
I live in a very conservative 1 million persons metor area and besides having less options for employment, there are less options in just about everything, including: dining, entertainment, and even companionship.
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May I ask what city
i cri evry tiem
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Columbus, Ohio 
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:/ The Columbia, SC metro doesn't even break 1,000,000
i cri evry tiem
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... and Columbus is probably one of the better places in the state. Just imagine Youngstown, or worse, Cincinnati.
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Yes, Columbus is nice, clean, and the economy is strong, but there's little to do. The university area is cool, but it's not for older folks. I almost moved to Cincy in 2004, but Great American Insurance would only offer me a 3 month contract to hire; so I stayed in Columbus.
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Amusing. I looked at a job in that very city just recently. And increased my rate substantially because of the downsides after investigating it (including size.)
You might want to think about whether you want to be there in 30 years or not. If not then easier to move now than in 30 years.
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I just hate the west coast ad really don't want to work in a startup environment
i cri evry tiem
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I "remade" myself by doing little freelance jobs, that after a few months grew into a long list of "small" accomplishments, that eventually got me a series of contracts that have now run over 5 years.
That fact that I have "remoted" all over the world, impresses some very much; even though I never left my "office".
All those little jobs, add "key words" that can be very meaningful to a client, even though they may not seem important to you at the time.
"Optimized stock trading algorithms for a client in Amsterdam" versus "coded C# subroutines".
"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then".
― Blaise Pascal
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It's not easy, and I think STEM is oversold to a great degree. When you hear them saying "we need way more of x people", run away from x as quickly as possible. What that statement translates to is "we don't want to pay x workers anything, so we need an oversupply." It's odd that they never say there's a need for upper management or CEO, despite the stratospheric wages.
Balancing that, nothing is worse than working retail/foodservice, so if that's your only other choice stick with IT. The company I work for hires 200+ skilled welders or mechanics for every IT job, so if you have an aptitude for those skills that's another option.
If you want to go further with self-education, you might look into volunteering on an open-source project. That would get you past the "project without a real problem behind it," and you could point to your ability to work with others. Also, concentrate on your debugging and testing skills. Those are gold.
Good luck!
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I think I'm starting to gain some steam on a MCV project I started. I've never had such a hard time learning something new.
I've decided that Entity Framework is both good, and terrible. However, it's not good until you've figured out how to address all the terrible stuff, and even then it's not so much "good" as it is a horrific series of compromises and workarounds that you've learned to live with.
I've decided that MVC is the evil twin of EF. My view that web development sucks big hairy donkey testicles has not changed. At all.
If it wasn't for the possibility that I could make a butt-load of cash from this, I'd stop working on it.
I think I'm getting to be too old to code.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: it's not good until you've figured out how to address all the terrible stuff, and even then it's not so much "good" as it is a horrific series of compromises and workarounds that you've learned to live with.
That is the best description I've ever read! And even better, it can be applied to so many things, like all those Javascript MVVM frameworks out there (there are a few exceptions.)
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I think I'm getting to be too old to code.
I so get that, though I've come to realize that I've gotten too old to code the way everyone thinks coding should be done. 
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Marc Clifton wrote: I've come to realize that I've gotten too old to code the way everyone thinks coding should be done.
This!
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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I dipped my toes in it a few years ago and they came to the same conclusion, thankfully it looks like I will be able to push WPF to retirement. Even when I had a looked at the web stack I rejected EF, I rolled my own in the 90's and see no benefit to moving to a crappy black box tool like EF.
I may decide to learn it next year but maybe I'll just learn to play golf instead.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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The problem with EF is getting it to do what you want it to do instead of what it wants to do.
It's a love hate relationship at best.
Someone's therapist knows all about you!
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I've decided that MVC is the evil twin of EF. My view that web development sucks big hairy donkey testicles has not changed. At all.
For once we totally agree. The Model View Controller pattern by itself is a great thing. It's wise to separate the views from the presentation logic and the data model and this way keep things orderly. Still, web development is a pain, even when it's done in a disciplined way.
And let's not begin with that sad apology for a programming language, known as JavaScript.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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The pros out weigh the cons for EF and our shop (and myself). Once you learn what EF can do and what it can't do and what it shouldn't do, then you should be fine.
I can do more with EF in a shorter amount of time then any other method. I can even import stored procs with complex types and use them in EF in a POCO type fashion, if needed.
What you are feeling right now about EF is lack of experience, IMHO, and I have seen this before. Once you get your experience up with it, then you should be fine, as I said before.
Good luck. 
BTW: EF is not the only solution for data integration. Some people think this, and then they get frustrated that EF is not putting them on the moon, and making kick ass fresh salsa and chips. Just saying...
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