Ask HN: How to Assimilate into Silicon Valley

2 points by pducks32 10y ago ↗ HN

Hi, I'm college freshman who grew up dreaming about coming to the valley. I've been programming since 3rd grade and ran my own freelancing company back home before coming to school out here. But now that I'm here, I know that the world is being changed around me and I really want to contribute but to me everything just looks like a standard California town. I want to meet programmers like me but can't seem to find any user groups or meet ups that aren't in SF (I don't have a car), and I can't get a full time job so I'm trying to find internships and am trying my best but it feels like you need to know people to get in the door. So does anyone have an advice for me on how I can be a member of the cradle of innovation I've always loved?

2 comments

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ScottBurson 10y ago ↗

Have you tried meetup.com? How about the Hacker Dojo?

brudgers 10y ago ↗

My take from afar is that Silicon Valley is not a particularly easy place to be a student...which makes it more like most places in the US that are not college towns or Boston. Given the amount of opinion against college that comes from local elites, it may in fact be worse.

My standard advice about college is deciding where you want to spend the next few years learning what does and does not make sense for you. It may be the case that Silicon Valley does not actually provide what you need at this point in your life. Just because it works for someone else has no bearing on it working for you right now. Part of getting older is realizing that things I imagined were good weren't, things I imagined were bad, aren't, and things that I had never heard of exist...e.g. Python when I first started reading Hacker News.

Good luck.