[joeclark77]

Are you a kid in school? If so, I suggest approaching companies in your local community and specifically saying you want a job "for summer vacation". IMHO the biggest risk for an employer is getting stuck with someone that's no good and has to be fired later. By coming in as a freelancer, intern, or summer employee, you take that risk away. And given the desperate shortage of good IT people out there, if you prove yourself better than terrible you'll very likely be asked back.

I would not target "software companies" but rather ordinary companies that lack IT talent. Lots of businesses out there need simple edits to their web pages, or SQL queries from their ETL or CRM (systems they buy but don't know how to work with "under the hood"), and could use your h elp.