Over the next 6 years, I met my future wife, worked in and out of Philadelphia and its suburbs in the web design industry doing all sorts of work, and in Web/UI/UX roles you could find on my LinkedIn profile. Some good and not-so-great experiences, but all were valuable. My wife was accepted into a school in Canada, so I moved up there with her, and found it impossible to find a job as a spouse of a visiting student. I was desperate for work. Once more, you guessed it; my brother pulled through for me and suggested I apply for a User Interface Artist job at a different studio he started working for a few years back. I felt confident enough in my abilities and background to apply. It was my Flash skills that landed me the job--I had prepared a demo of an interactive UI prototype that conveyed some user-centered designs for a hypothetical third-person shooter.

So far, all of my self-taught skills, talent, and experience in UI/UX design had proven that skipping college to focus on my career was the right choice. I worked at two studios in the game industry for almost 6 years and shipped a few AAA titles, and contributed to a fourth. My family's living situation wasn't so great, however, with us having jobs 3 hours away from each other, living in between, with commuting 1.5 hours each way twice a day. It became untenable, so I left the game industry to work in the city where she held a job she would have for the foreseeable future, and went back to my roots.