The Developer's Code

Essay 13

Work Outside the Bedroom

I began building websites in my college dorm room in the late 1990s. By my senior year, my time was split two ways; I was taking a few courses to finish up my credits during the day, and I was freelancing in web design from my dorm room in the evenings. Homework? What homework?

While some of my contemporaries were working minimum wage at the dining hall or computer lab (remember those?), here I was, in my boxers, moving a mouse around the screen making five times as much per hour. My commute to bed was a step, or sometimes two steps on a bad day.

For awhile, I was living The Life. I was getting my degree and earning a respectable salary for a college student working from his bedroom.

The fall after I ...