For me, I went to school for computer information technology (System administration) and computer sciences (software engineering). I am now 10 years into being a game developer. I made fun of a lot of people who got into comp sci just to be a game developer because I believed if you didn’t love coding itself then making a game was going to be a huge pain. And all of those people dropped out of comp sci before our final class.

My first job, was at ThePlatform For Media, Inc. (Comcast Subsidiary that did all the VoD streaming) as an Application Support Engineer. Basically, I told real developers how to use the API and tools we had our engineers set up. I was an engineer middle-man. I went from that to T-Mobile HQ as a Product Realization Engineer. Basically, I matched the technology we had with the market and resources we had to build tools that helped us… Yawn… sorry I… Anyways, I built software to help bill customers easier. Fucking BORING.

This is why I got into games. Games aren’t boring. They bring meaning to the code I write. I know why I am writing the code. There is strong reasoning behind it. I work with designers to make systems that have meaning and impact on the artwork we are making and delivering. That’s very motivating.

So find something you like doing, find a field that gives you a strong reason to do what you like to do.

What should you avoid? Avoid not using pieces of technology because someone you don’t like contributes or benefits from them. An example of this could be something like Twitter or Windows or such. You might want to say “Well I shouldn’t use X because Y person sucks and I don’t want to give them money.” While this is typically smart and what I would agree with, it usually comes with an issue. “The alternative is terrible and slows down my productivity but at least I am not giving money to people I hate.” This is the wrong mindset. Be as productive as you can be first. Only switch to something when you feel you can make that sacrifice in being productive. At the end of the day, we still live in a capitalistic society and there is no ethical consumption under capitalism at this point. The ethical thing is to actually be productive as possible then cut time out to be unproductive as you switch, potentially raising awareness as you do so because you’ve been able to be productive. So know what you are losing by switching to an alternative that makes you less productive.