Hi there, I'm 22 years old and I believe I will make a few important decisions in upcoming year, so I wanted to ask you hackers about it.
I'm from Turkey and currently studying Electrical Engineering in a major university in my country. I will graduate this year most probably with a GPA around 2.8/4.
Since the beginning of the college, I've seen it as waste of resources(money-time). But my family insisted on it also I didn't knew what else to do so that I came till the end, but I wasn't succesful in terms of academic achievements. Also, since I see myself as an introvert, I wasn't able to use to social opportunities(networking and etc) the college gave me. Now that I'm graduating, I have different routes ahead me. However to ask these, I believe I should mention more about me.
I liked computers and all kind of technology since I was a kid. I wrote computer programs since I was 12 and still doing it. I'm reading about technology, and all kind of hacking on net everyday. The problem is I wasn't able to consistent about my habits. Let's say, I got interested in Android a few years back, learned about it in a few weeks, then started making a cool photography app using it. I worked on some weeks, then I didn't complete it. After some time, since I wasn't using the skills I learned consistently, writing code everyday, and not knowing what to build, I forgot the things that I learned. This pattern goes on consistently, I learn things, I build basic things then some time passes, I go to where I start. I know(you might not call that knowing) a lot of programming languages, but never went deep on in any of them. I sometimes feel like I'm jack of all trades, and master of none.This is the bad part.
The good part about me is that I know how to learn. Give me a subject I have never heard before, I can somehow master it in a very short time and show you good results. I can research, I can google-fu. I'm confident about myself on this because nobody I know is doing this self-learning thing better than I do.
And about the EE major, I learned a few very valuable things in the school and I believe the most important thing the school taught me is the signals and DSP stuff.
Now that I'm graduating this year, I want your guidance about what to do. I told you these things, because I believe who I am is important when it comes to deciding what to do.
I believe if I work hard, I can be succesfull in tech industry, but there's not much going on in tech industry in Turkey, so here are some routes ahead of me :
1. Working in self-defense industry in Turkey : The defense industry pays somehow well(about 2k dollars, which is really good for a fresh graduate around here), you work 8:00-17:00, and have a boring life. I don't want this, I observed there's not much research and development going on in these institution(believe it or not), also I'll have a somehow limited life. Once you are in, it's hard to go out because you kind of like the benefits and working hours.
2. Grad school in Turkey : The main aim in my head to go abroad, preferably the valley, but I think that no company would hire me right now, so that I can make a masters degree in Turkey(maybe work in the industry too), try to become succesful, and if I can, I would seek a phd in U.S. with a fellowship. I can't directly go there right now, because no clever university will give me a fellowship right now. It might sound weird, but I think that this is one of the few ways to get to the valley from Turkey.
3. Found a company! : This is the option that excites me. I have a few ideas, like manufacturing and selling mobile ecg devices, manufacturing and selling person arrangable hearing aid devices, selling asic based(converted from fpgas)bitcoin miners, building a music processing app, building a personal timeline website and so on. However, I feel like most likely I will fail, even if I don't I have no idea of how to make money on these websites or how to find customers for products. Also the startup economy in Turkey is not as half as the U.S. so that this would be hard.
I can also do this in England, there are some arrangements between Turkey and U.K. so that I can go and live there given that I have a company, but first I need to make funds to move to England.
Also, I need to say that, it would be good if I start to make money soon (the finances of my family).
The main point is, I want to do hacking, I wanna build cool technology. But I don't now how. How?
Currently I'm using an Asus N56VM as my main computer, using Windows 7 along with Arch Linux. The laptop is really cool, have an i7 with 8 gigs of ram and has a 1920x1080 screen.
Thinking about buying an 27" imac nowadays. Mainly for ios development.