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I need some advice, I am considering going to grad school for CS. I have a few big projects I came up with on my own that I am extremely motivated to work on and complete and try to turn it into a career.

I am currently completing an internship working for a big company, decent pay, 9-5 hours in an office. I feel like working for the same company many people would enjoy and like, is extremely boring in my opinion and procedural at times and kills my motivation. As a result, I am kind of unsure if I should continue to get my CS M.S. degree and start working for a big company? What I would enjoy doing most is working for myself and developing my own project, but I am not sure if I will be able to finanically support myself doing that and I do not want to miss out on a big opportuinities/ job offers to work for a company.

With that being said, I will never know if my project will ever succeed if I don't give it %110 of my time and dedication, so if I decide to go that route and work on my own project, I will have to set everything else aside, If anyone could give me any advice on what they think about my situation?

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there is no way we can give you accurate advice about what to do, and making life changing decisions based on advice from random people is a terrible idea – Ryathal Jun 5 '12 at 20:03
Welcome to Programmers.SE. If you check the faq you'll see that such topics as "career advice" and "what project should I do next" are explicitly off topic. – Caleb Jun 5 '12 at 20:05
I know, I was just hoping to get a some direction, from people that may have been in a similar situation... – Mark Jun 5 '12 at 20:06
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@Mark There's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to get some advice. Even advice from strangers can be helpful if it helps you develop your plan. This just isn't the place. You could try a discussion group if you think it'd help. Much better would be to talk to your professors, advisor, and other people that actually know you and also know something about the value of the degree you're consider and the challenge of starting a business. – Caleb Jun 5 '12 at 20:10
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If you can't work in a company for someone else, your chances of having the knowledge and discopline you need to succed in a business you won are pretty close to nonexistant. What you do know about accounting, marketing, sales, human resources, etc? You have to do it all when you are the company. If you can't be motivated to do the unfun stuff, then you can't succeed at business on your own either. Time to grow up. – HLGEM Jun 5 '12 at 21:18
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closed as off topic by Ryathal, Steven A. Lowe, Caleb, Jeremy Heiler, Demian Brecht Jun 5 '12 at 20:38

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1 Answer

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I'd suggest working for a big company to get some experience. Most of your mistakes will be covered by your managers and not you. In addition to that, all startups fail, I wound't do it in the beginning of your career.

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all start-ups do not fail, their would be no big businesses if all start-ups fail. – Ryathal Jun 5 '12 at 20:26
I still think they all do, possibilities to succeed are close to zero and are totally random. You idea doesn't matter at all, it's a pure lottery. – aloneguid Jun 5 '12 at 20:37
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Doing it at the beginning of your career might be the best time to do it. You'll likely have more freedom to enjoy the startup life and gain valuable experience working in a young business. Just because many fail doesn't mean that it isn't something worth doing. It's mostly a personal decision anyway, so it's all subjective... – Jeremy Heiler Jun 5 '12 at 20:38
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-1 for "all startups fail". For every business that currently exists, there was a time when it didn't exist, therefore, at least <number of businesses currently in existence> were startups and didn't fail. Not hard to work out. – AakashM Jun 6 '12 at 8:59
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This has to be the worst answer I have ever read. – Ramhound Jun 6 '12 at 11:52
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