Absolutely look for an internship. What would a job offer you, other than money (which you say you need) and experience (which you absolutely will need if you ever want to get hired)?<p>In the business world, you are judged on one thing: WHAT DO YOU COST? How much money do I have to spend to get you?<p>Some people (whom you mostly do not want to work for) will only want people who cost very little. These people love interns because they are slaves.<p>Most others assume that really good people always know they are good and act like it. These people consider anyone who can be had cheaply as marginally competent.<p>You can see the attitude in some of the advice you're getting. If you're any good, why don't you open your own startup and produce something that suckers Marissa Mayer into giving you $14 million?<p>If you haven't done that-- and you're willing to work for free-- how good can you be? Not very, obviously, ESPECIALLY if you live in NYC, where people in power still like to refer to themselves as "Masters of the Universe" or "Big Swinging Dicks."<p>There is only one exception to the rule, and that is the Roger Corman rule. Roger Corman was a low-budget filmmaker who hired a ridiculously high number of good directors early in his career. The list starts alphabetically with Peter Bogdanovich and includes James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, Curtis Hanson, Ron Howard, Jonathan Kaplan, Nicolas Roeg, John Sayles, Martin Scorsese and Robert Towne. Corman's pitch was very simple; "I won't pay you squat, but I will let you make a movie, so you learn how to do it."<p>There are companies (JSeymourATL mentions the type) who do the same thing for technology. They'll can't get people who are destined to work for Booz, Allen-- unless they get them for the first or second job. They'll hire you, give you tons to do and work your butt off until you outgrow them.<p>But even then, DO NOT VOLUNTEER OR INTERN. And only go with them if you can see that you will work a lot and learn a lot. Don't take a job that drops you on password resets at a bank call center.<p>Remember, everything you do from now on will be judged. DO NOT, unless you work on open source, WORK FOR FREE.