I got hired midway senior year in college by a startup that had just filed for an ipo. They were 100% a java shop and at the time I only knew c, c++, php, mysql

I got hired midway senior year in college by a startup that had just filed for an ipo. They were 100% a java shop and at the time I only knew c, c++, php, mysql and absolutely no java. Throughout college, I did programming jobs for small businesses and my university, making hardly any money. I studied my ass off on java, ended up being able to handle any of the simple java questions they asked and sold them on all of my experience that I put into working fulltime programming meanwhile pulling in great grades in college. They knew I was under qualified from a java dev aspect, but was hired because of the dedication I showed from working throughout college. At the start I was definitely under qualified and I'd say truly knew nothing of how tech businesses run. However, with lot of dedication (and late nights) I learned a ton and quickly was tech lead of a major part of their business. That was 5 years ago and have since left for more exciting opportunities. FWIW, Now I can't stand doing java dev, nor the people associated with it, but that experience opened up tons of doors and am grateful for the opportunity.