Bleh. It's really not that bad for developing MVC web apps, console apps, windows services on (I consider this real work). I've been running it as my main development machine for a while now... it's really not the worst. Windows 8 was the worst. Obviously I wish it was all 'lighter' feeling with less garbage though... :zzz:

B4DG3R, As others have said.. Get an internship or a gig that will let you solve some real problems. Hopefully that will be along side of a few people who are experienced so you can get a good feel for the structure and suck up as much knowledge as you can (that is really key.. read other peoples code, pick their brains, listen, try things, fail, repeat). Aside from that try to get good at one or two useful things.. don't worry about mastering every aspect of everything and having a bunch of different tools you are proficient at right away. Once you're good at something small or niche you can get paid for that while advancing your skills at home, school, or through other gigs. For me I started with fixing peoples WordPress sites/websties (hardly programming). The beauty of that particular niche is that very non-technical people can create a site and mess it up easily or not have the ability to make fairly simple alterations. In which case they're ready to work with someone who may only know a little more than them but is more technically apt. This didn't directly allow me to learn from other people.. that came later after it became apparent I was good enough at this stuff to look for full time employment. Then on the side learn something a little deeper and begin looking for more knowledge or ways to obtain gigs in the new area. Starting with websites wasn't the most fun but it allowed me to get into this world, get experience, and learn practical skills. After six years of trying to pick up as much stuff as I can, listening to people, accepting entry level pay, I'm now a senior MVC C# .NET developer at my work. We're doing mobile sites, console apps, windows services, web services, web sites, and all sorts of automation. The ability to transition into that really came from my entry level web experience and learning about interacting with databases and writing code that makes decisions, decisions that solved real problems for real people, troubleshooting http requests, structuring content, etc. Hope this helps. I think this is my first post on here, good luck! :-D

-mwwallace8