Hello!

My name is Joe and I am a 14 year old (young, I know) budding developer and designer.

I have advanced knowledge of HTML (with XHTML and HTML5 knowledge), CSS3 and some intermediate knowledge of PHP, JavaScript and Python.

I am currently living in England, so I will soon be leaving our version of high school at the age of 16 and am hoping to get my foot in the door by earning some valuable development and designing experience during my last 18 months of school. I am planning on attending college, however most colleges in my area do not appear to have any web development/design units within their many I.T courses at all. I have decided on Games Design, which I feel I can use to expand my knowledge of C++ and Python, which I hope can be valuable to me at some point in my career.

 

As far as a career goes, I'd love to start out freelancing web development and design and perhaps move into a company/create one of my own.

 

I have joined these forums to hopefully get some advice from the community on earning some experience. For example, would it be a good idea for me to set up a simple Facebook page or website, offering low cost/free for relatives web design. I know that many businesses need cheap, reliable solutions for this, as the Internet is now a key way for any business to gain customers.

 

 

I am working on basic WordPress/Tumblr theme editing for friends who want new features added/removed as a free service to help me gain experience and also prove that I can do high quality work, even at 14.

 

TL;DR: How do I get experience before leaving school? Set up a FB page for family/friends?

 

Thanks!

Joe.

Hey Joe!

Nice introduction bud, you seem to have some strong ambitions! Don't worry about your age, I started coding and designing when I was 12 (just HTML, C++ and Photoshop) and worked up from there. Along the way I met some other talented youngsters, one of which made a fortune hacking online games and he wrote the most powerful and widely used MapleStory hacktool at the age of 14! If you can prove your skills and are able to write and communicate professionally then I really don't see age as a problem and you seem to excell in both of those areas (although I haven't seen any of you work yet, I don't doubt your skills).

As for courses, be careful when deciding to sign up for "Design" or "Development"... game/web design tends to focus more heavily on design where as game/web development or programming focus more heavily on coding/scripting/programming etc - or at least in my experience that has seemed to be the case.

 

As for gaining experience... You'll want to develop both an online and offline portfolio that contains examples of your work that you can exhibit to potential clients so they can see what you're capable of. The best ways to do this would be to develop your own concepts that you think a client would provide you with or as you said, creating websites for friends and relatives. I'm not too sure about a Facebook page as you may get spammed by people asking for websites so if you did make one then you want to make sure that it's only visible/accessible to people on your friends list.

 

Hope this helps.

Chris.

'ello and welcome to the forum, Joe!

 

Wow - you clearly have a solid base to build on and have a promising future ahead of you. I'm not a fan of Facebook and use it only for business. Like Alluziion as has said, you run the chance of a lot of spam if you post your services there. Going along the route of websites is good practice for now. If you feel you can charge for each site, great, but it will be invaluable experience and kickstart your career.

 

Taking a quick detour, what's with all these updated avatars at the moment? What happened to the days of soap dodgers, hunchbacks and radio faces that were associated with the computer industry? (I am jesting people, don't mean to offend). Everyone on here wouldn't look out of place in a gym (I'm looking at you Alluziion - showing off your physique - putting a guy to shame;)). No wonder I 'hide' behind my logo. Right, I'm going to start running tomorrow...

'ello and welcome to the forum, Joe!

 

Wow - you clearly have a solid base to build on and have a promising future ahead of you. I'm not a fan of Facebook and use it only for business. Like Alluziion as has said, you run the chance of a lot of spam if you post your services there. Going along the route of websites is good practice for now. If you feel you can charge for each site, great, but it will be invaluable experience and kickstart your career.

 

Taking a quick detour, what's with all these updated avatars at the moment? What happened to the days of soap dodgers, hunchbacks and radio faces that were associated with the computer industry? (I am jesting people, don't mean to offend). Everyone on here wouldn't look out of place in a gym (I'm looking at you Alluziion - showing off your physique - putting a guy to shame;)). No wonder I 'hide' behind my logo. Right, I'm going to start running tomorrow...

 

I take a new picture now and again so when I do I update my Facebook profile picture as well my forum avatar - but yes, I've noticed a few avatar changes recently! Hey I quite like your logo, definitely worthy of being your avatar!

 

Haha, thanks for the compliments but I guess I'm not your usual "geek". I've been brought up around technology with my family (primarily my brother) being good with technology... I guess I'm a geek on the inside - I love anime, games, computers, programming etc but seem quite normal on the outside although I'll happily admit to being a geek/nerd, I'd much rather be proud of that than being an unemployed drug addict. Bodybuilding is a strong passion of mine that consumed a great deal of my time and money! (my second most loved hobby after designing/coding). I hope to one time reach the front cover of Mens Health or similar type of magazine but I've got a long wait to go before I can compete with those guys! They have body's that look like they've been sculpted from the rocks of Olympus by the gods themselves

 

 

Thanks a lot both of you, some great advice

As far as choosing courses goes, I'm definitely going to be careful about what the units of work focus on and require me to do, as I want to earn a wide range of skills rather than just being able to use Photoshop/being able to code well.

 

The Facebook page idea is definitely something that would be open only to friends I have, and not open to the public.

Thanks again,

Joe.

I'm currently in the process of building a portfolio site, even with very limited work to show. I plan to work on example fake business sort of sites if I can't get experience with my friends and family. I feel that my portfolio needs to come first so I can build on top of it.

 

Thanks,

Joe

That's a good idea. If you don't have examples of clients, building mock sites will always show your ability and can entice future clients

Hi Joe, nice to meet u. I think you can start to be a freelancer, you can find jobs in oDesk or Freelancer to gain money

Welcome to the forum Joe

Welcome to the forum Joe,

 

Your experience and ambition is great for someone so young. Enjoy the forum and good luck

 

Lyndsey.