"I never thought I could get this much..."
Hey everyone! My name is Sergey, I’m 22 years old and I’ve lived in Saint Petersburg for as long as I can remember. I’d describe myself as “one of many.”
My life was pretty ordinary. After high school, I went to the local university to study philology.
I can’t say I didn’t like linguistics, but I also couldn’t say it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
After graduation, I realized I had no idea where to go or what to do. My parents couldn’t help me find a job. So, five months after university, I started to feel a mild depression creeping in.
It felt like something was off...
Looking back, I can honestly say I was probably “on the wrong path.” For the last five years.
Let me explain. One day, I saw a friend post something on VK about his progress in the WAYUP online school.
After talking to him, I found out Dima was studying web design and website creation. Online.
I still can’t explain why, but that same day I signed up on the website and started exploring the course.
Maybe it happened because I just didn’t know what else to do. Over those five months, I had tried to find a decent job, but it was all pointless. Either the pay was terrible or the work was miserable.
A breakthrough
Days went by, and before I realized it, I had completed 70% of the course in just one week. Four days later, I finished the whole thing. Later, Andrey told me I was a record-holder in terms of speed—he said he couldn’t keep up with grading my homework and was praying I’d at least slow down and take a class every other day ;)
During that time, I understood what had really been missing in my life: inspiration and joy. And I found both of them in working with Photoshop and writing HTML and CSS code.
I never imagined I’d be doing this. I had never been drawn to this kind of work, but now I can’t imagine a single day without it... Crazy, right?
My first $580
As I mentioned, I completed the course in 11 days. The final lesson clearly showed me how to land real clients and start earning money.
I didn’t waste any time and immediately started looking for my first clients. I won’t describe the whole process—it wasn’t anything special. But the result completely exceeded my expectations. Actually, I didn’t even have any expectations, because this was my first time trying something like this.
On the third day of active searching, I landed three projects that, by the end of one month of work, earned me almost $600 ($580, to be exact).
The first project was a full website design. The second was a small layout task. And the third was a complete website layout from scratch.
I don’t even need to describe what I felt when I withdrew my first money “from nowhere.” Why “from nowhere”? Because I used to think it was impossible to make a living just sitting at a computer.
A few words of advice
Andrey asked me to write a few words for anyone considering starting a course on website creation.
What can I say? If you’re in the same situation I was in after university, then you have no reason not to try.
If you’ve always felt drawn to this kind of work but were afraid to start—try it today, or you’ll forget about your dreams again tomorrow...
Good luck, future colleagues!