Well, started as an intern 10 years ago at a local web design firm while I was in grad school. Sort of a sink or swim thing, but I did ok - they had me coding those wondering table-based layouts that we've all (mostly) left behind. From there they had me start doing what I consider actual web development (database-driven, dynamic sites) pretty quickly, especially after i'd taken my database class. They're gone, but I'm still building sites