Today I had a letter from Cardiff University. In short it tells me I can now apply for a room in the Halls of Residence. Now my preferred Hal is fairly small, so I need to apply A.S.A.P. There's just one problem.

I can't accept Cardiff's offer because I haven't had an offer from all of my choices. It's my college, not only do I have nothing in the way of an offer from them (but everyone else has) I haven't even had a letter of acknowledgement for my application. I basically have two choices.

Choice 1

I wait until Monday when my personal tutor can speak to the woman at college who deals with all UCAS elements to find out what's going on so I can accept Cardiff's offer and get a room in my hall of choice; and still keep college in mind just in case everything goes tits up.

Choice 2

I simply cancel my application to my college so I can accept Cardiff's offer and get in the hall of my choice. I'm not planning to go to college anyway so why the hell am I worrying if I ditch it or not?

So now here comes some complications. Cardiff University might not be processing applications right now, but it might still operate on a first-come-first-served basis. I'm edging towards my second option right now, fob my college off for being useless and just do what i have to do to get the best hall at Cardiff. What do you think?

P.S. This post seems kind of useless since I've pretty much made up my mind already, but I needed to write this to make my decision. Plus it's always nice to see what you guys this anyway.

I have been working on the web for a good few years now; and so far it has been awesome. I have a fairly successful development blog, released an awesome Authentication Library and I even have a book coming out fairly soon. Pretty sweet for a 17 year old in college, readying himself to move country and city to a University, don't you think?

But I don't want to be a Web Developer

Web Development is awesome, but it's a hobby. It will always be a hobby. One of the reasons why I haven't done any freelancing work for some time is that I find it difficult to work for others because it's my hobby. If it becomes work then I won't have a hobby. Without a hobby I will probably burn out really quickly.

Web Development has served me well but it isn't a viable job prospect. Since school I have wanted to be a Software Engineer; and I don't consider creating websites anywhere near being a Software Engineer.

You don't get to work at Google with HTML and PHP skills do you? In fact, to work at Google you need a BSc, MSc or PhD in Computer Science or a similar subject; proficiency in C/C++/Python/Java and a whole host of other qualities. In fact Google doesn't even use HTML directly, they use the Google Web Toolkit to build most of their applications. I'm droning on about my hopeful future now but it echos my point nicely. Web Development is awesome, but it isn't going to pay the (eventual) bills.

Another reason why I don't want to be a Web Developer forever is that I've been making websites since I was 11; sure the sites I built 6 years ago were useless, looked dreadful and did nothing in particular, but the skills were there. If I'm 40 and still creating websites, it won't feel like I've moved on. Sure I might know more languages than just PHP when I'm 40, but it will still feel almost juvenile.

I'm not knocking web developers as a whole. Most of the developers I know are awesome guys (I know no female web developers personally) and some are really successful (although that is subjective). What I'm doing is simply exclaiming how I wish to move on and create bigger projects.

University

Some people are probably getting annoyed that most of my blog posts include a reference to University, but this time there's a very good reason for it.

To become a Software Engineer I planned out my GCSE's, College and University in Year 9; when I was about 14. I picked GCSE subjects that would get me into College and I picked my College course based on the content of the course and how it would take me on to University. I've wanted to go to Uni since then, purely to realise my dream of becoming a Software Engineer.

I need a Degree to work on decent Software projects. See I have big dreams, I aim high. Maybe even too high. If a goal is easy to achieve is it even worth setting it in the first place?

Truth is, you can only get so far in the Web Industry and you can go much further as a Software Engineer. I feel creating enterprise desktop software is going to be much more fun than writing HTML and PHP.

This is not goodbye. This, well, this is just the beginning.

This week I completed and sent off my student loans application nice and early mainly because of this quote.

Early is on time, on time is late, late is unacceptable.

That and I'm told the earlier you send in the application the more likely you are to get your loan on time. Also since my college always leaves things to the last minute I took my own prerogative and did it myself already.

I was quite surprised at how easy the form was to complete; considering I'm basically asking for £8,500 when you take in the loans and grants in to account. The hardest part of the form is sending off my birth certificate and and Declaration of Identity form; and that's only hard because I have to use a pen, paper and snail mail.

I am quite pleased with the governments approach to student loans. Making it all web based puts students in a place they are familiar with and makes it all so much easier to process. The online form also makes it impossible to lose the form. Although it does open up possibility of forgetting your password or secret question.

Talking of passwords and secret questions, their login form is really odd. Like, really really weird. To login you need to enter your ID number, your password and the answer to your secret question. I guess they did it like this because we're asking to borrow thousands of pounds. In hindsight it's probably a better idea that just leaving it down to a password.

Overall the form didn't take that long to fill in. It wasn't as painful as I had expected it to be and now I can focus on college work while I wait to hear back from the Student Loans Company.