

Ask HN: Can't go to college and I have to move to a new country - paranoidchip

tl;dr I can no longer afford to go to college and since I am not a citizen of my country of residence (Singapore) I have to move back to my home country (Indonesia) and I don&#x27;t the native language at all.<p>What should I do to get a job or make myself more hireable?<p>Backstory:<p>I have just graduated with a diploma in culinary arts in Singapore, the plan was that I was to continue my education in the US finishing it off with a bachelors in nutrition. This was at my parents direction; I wanted to do CS instead. Unfortunately, my father has been laid off and has been out of work for 6 months, wiping out most of the family savings. Since my dad has been out of the US for more than 2 years, he is unable to co-sign a loan for me.<p>Usually, this would not be much of a problem. The normal course of action would be to get a kitchen job in SG. However, with the foreign worker quotas here, that is no longer a viable option thus forcing me to move back to Indonesia.<p>During my time in the culinary academy + my culinary internships, I had no time to prepare side projects as a fallback plan as I had been working 12+ hours, 6 days a week.<p>All of my relevant projects has been in high school, where I implemented a cluster computing project and various small applications for my CS and IT courses in order to pass my IB diploma.<p>During that time i&#x27;ve built my competence in Python, Javascript, and Django, even though my IB coursework was done in Java.<p>I  am faced with a large challenge of getting employed in any job since I do not speak the language at all, having lived in Singapore for most of my life (i&#x27;m 21, i&#x27;ve been here since I was 6).<p>I think that my best course of action is to work freelance for now.<p>To try and improve my chances of getting a job, I have applied for a US greencard, and I plan to move there when it is approved (my father is a US citizen).<p>Is there anything else I should be doing to improve my chances of getting hired?
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mithras
If I were in your situation I'd live on the cheap in indonesia and scrape by
with online freelancing until your US visa is approved. It is easy enough to
make a few hundred dollars to live on even without much experience.

Maybe you should stick to a somewhat touristy area like Bali where people
speak english, the cost of living is still very affordable there.

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seekingcharlie
Where in Indonesia?

I know there is a pretty strong startup hub in Ubud. There is a coworking
space there (called Hubud) - you could ask around & see if anyone needs a jnr
dev.

