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Hi Bert, I felt like I had to respond to this, because our backgrounds are so similar and I was facing the same questions years ago. here's my advice: Travel while you can. You'll learn more valuable life lessons in a year of travelling than you will in 10 years of, well, doing almost anything else. I am Dutch, studied Electrical Engineering too, and left Holland when I was 24. I left for a 1 year working holiday in Australia, but I ended up spending 8 months in New Zealand as well, so was away for 20 months. It turned out it's pretty easy to get a temporary work permit in NZ as well if you have some technical skills, and I was able to fund a much longer trip by doing some consulting for the bank of New Zealand. After 6 months back in Holland, I left again, this time on a one way ticket to Indonesia. After exploring South East Asia for another 10 months, I ended flying to San Francisco to visit the US for the first time, in hopes of being able to find a job in Silicon Valley, make some money there and then move on with my travels. I never moved on. Almost 14 years later, I'm still in the SF bay area, and I am now founder and CEO of my own bootstrapped startup, and an independent software consultant. I'm married, have 2 kids, live in a great place, and have always felt that that decision to go traveling was the best decision I've made in my life. Without those travels, I don't know where I'd be right now, but highly unlikely that it would be here. I think the things you learn by traveling to an unknown place, with unspecified plans, prepare you better for entrepreneurship than pretty much anything you would learn in an office. On the road, you'll learn to be comfortable with the unknown, you'll be forced to look for creative solutions, to pivot when necessary. You'll widen your horizon and expose yourself to new places, other cultures, new ideas. You'll learn valuable social skills, you'll learn to get along with people that you have almost nothing in common with. You'll experience all the benefits of having to venture outside of the fairly small demographic that you are in at home. You'll learn to appreciate and make the best of what you have, however little that may be.
Maybe I was just lucky, being able to find jobs on the way, and making it to San Francisco at the height of the dot-com boom, when developers were treated like gods and immigrant work visas were easier to come by. But you may be surprised by the random opportunities you will end up walking into if you just go out on a whim, like I did at the time. Some people may have thought of me as a lazy bum as I was roaming around the world, but I always knew that it was the right thing to do for me, and that it would make me a better person, a better dad and a more successful entrepreneur down the line.
If you need any more convincing: I've never talked to anyone who regretted going traveling. I've spoken to hundreds of people who regret not having done it before they were tied down by careers, families, mortgages and other adult responsibilities. My advice for you, save up some money, do some consulting and get a little bit of working experience, and then venture out into the unknown. Try to find some work abroad, even if it's unskilled work. (I also picked kiwis in New Zealand and worked in a small factory in Sydney). And then, while you are away, you'll have plenty of time to think about what you want to do with the rest of your life. Or somehow you'll find that those questions will be answered for you. |