My little brother's just finished applying for uni courses but struggled to decide on what to pick as he isn't sure of a set career, exactly like I was back then
I gave him the best advice I know and told him to "trust your instincts and use the force, Luke", even though his name isn't Luke


Anyway, what I was trying to tell him was that a lot of people study a particular subject for further/higher education but end up into completely different vocational field

So exonerate me Are you now working in the same field in relation to what you studied?

Hell no. I took recording engineering and music production then went on to work in auto insurance.

I am going back to school next fall, taking interior design. Maybe that will get me a job as a taxi driver or something like that.

I am at the end of my undergrad studies and have absolutely no f-ing clue what I want to do next

senik said:

Yes I am. I started taking graphic design classes in high school, got a BFA degree in college and have been working in magazine art departments for 14 years now. Your little brother is screwed.

Just kidding.

senik said:

Yes...I majored in Art Design in college and I'm currently a graphic designer. I consider myself lucky to be working in my chosen field. I paid my dues and worked at some sh!tholes since I graduated(there's no respect for artists - MFers always try to underpay us). But when I get up in the morning, I want to look forward to going to work.

So it's sort of 50/50 at the moment.

Obviously there's career specific degrees such as Dentistry, Medicine, etc. I remember when I was lost, in terms of a career direction, at school and my careers adviser said do something you enjoy and find a balanced course that will unlock doors for you, even if you choose a different path later in life.

VoicesCarry said:

That's not unusual As a great Welsh hip-shaker once said.

He's in the same situation as me.

For a long time I wanted to do Economic at university with an eye of working in the city. Then I did a 2-week work experience ditty in a bank in London and fucking hated it. So now I don't want to work in the city. Instead, I pursued what I came to realise I loved - French and Spanish. Granted, I had to make it sound useful in my personal statement (and yes, to an extent it is in real life), but I've no regrets and can't wait to start at either UCL this coming September, depending on my A-levels.

So basically, tell him to pursue what he loves; then you can never have regrets - I've been told for 3 years now that companies don't give a shit about what you did at university for degree; it really doesn't matter, since the likelihood is that you'll need training anyway.

In my field of study. I landed a job in my field before I graduated from college. But I was also a little older and didn't go to school right after high school. That helped me mature. I graduated from undergrad at 25 and started graduate at 29. Had enough of getting jobs that pay crap so I said screw this, I need a master's. So hopefully I'll have a great job with this MBA in marketing that I'm going after. I'm already in that field now anyway.

But like I said, the time that I spent being buckwild while having that thought of school in the back of my head was good. It's not for everyone, but it gave me time to figure out what I liked and what I wanted to do

Nope went to school for Journalism and now I'm a Payroll manager.

I was happy as a newborn pandabear making £2.60 an hour popping popcorn in the local picturehouse. I was 16. Just me and a noisy machine in a 4mx4m room for 12 hours a day. Fantastic. How I got to edit a newspaper from there (my previous rose-tinted employment status, not that actual room) is all thanks to a phone call my mum made to The Herald asking them if they had any jobs for her po' boy. The sheer nievity of that call is hilarious to me now, knowing how Everestly difficult it is to get into national journalism - especially if your arse first felt wind in a wee grey village in the hills and had no gumption to ever set a toe in a university.

Well, they actually did have a job, vacated from someone who just left. A job making teas and coffees for the journalists. Well, a bit of photocopying also. In reality, this meant rousing the alcoholic reporters from their under-the-newsdesk slumbers with a potent brew. This didn't seem to big a leap for me at the time, I was used to creating synthetic foodstuffs for mass consumption by morons and I guessed it wouldn't take a tick or two to work out how to use a photocopying machine. I was also sick of my hair stinking of butter and sugar when I was out on the pull at the weekend.

Anyway. I can't remember the point. Oh, aye. Education means next to fuck all. It's luck, balls and who you know. It's a cruel, cynical, cowardly and cretin-filled world we've been born into following two world wars and Fabio. One word of advice. Duck.

I'm in the same field as I (briefly, though, compared to most) studied in, but it's absolutely nowhere near what I've wanted to do since I was about 12...

good luck to him

Yes, although it was a bit circuitous:

--BA in Art History
--worked in Finanicial Aid at a private art school (hated it!)
--worked in the Accounting department of a museum, but volunteered on the weekends giving tours. (Hated acctng, loved the museum & giving tours.)
--moved to NY to study modern/contemporary art in grad school, and worked p/t in the development dept. at a major museum. (Job & museum from HELL.)
--after grad school got an entry level job in the Education Dept of a smaller museum.
--about a year later, finally landed a job as the manager of the guide program (train all the tour guides, give tours), which is what I've wanted to do since my first museum job. Now I just have to get that same position at my dream museum.

With grad school debt & the cost of living in NYC, it is a struggle for me financially b/c museums don't pay well unless you are the director or head curator (and even then it's low) so something your brother might want to keep in mind is how much of a trade off he is willing to make to do something he loves if it is in a field that traditionally doesn't pay well.






luckily I don't have to spell well for my job edit
[Edited 12/28/06 9:10am]

Ummm, not quite. I'm in a liberal arts program for adults but I'm in the financial services field.

Number23 said:

And this makes me laugh - a good friend of mine wants to be a journalist and realised how hard it was, so he thought he'd study English at university to illustrate that he can work hard and manipulate a language until he found out English as a degree has a 96% unemployment rate (isn't that just so illustrative of my stupid fucking education that I know these needless facts...really pisses me off but now is not the time for such a rant). Anyways, now he's going for theology and philosophy because he finds it interesting, but also because he thinks that a really good understanding of Islam (which he now has) will help him get a job in journalism.

He would hate you if he read this.

Number23 said:

This is so true. My dad never went to university and has 2 a-levels; one in woodwork, t'other maths. He built boats until (true story) a man approached him and asked him if he wanted a job in videogames (purely because of his maths a-level and their desperate need for an accountant in an outcast and unwanted industry - this is the early 70s when videogames were the work of heretic geeks that harvested the souls of children for money), he said yes because it had a better pathetic salary, and it went up from there. But it was purely luck.

I studied multimedia design and philosophy, and now I'm pre-med.

If I hadn't studied art, I would have always wondered if I should have done it for a living. From getting through the design program, I know that I'm good at it but I lose my interest if I have to please a critic. Good. Got that out of the way.

Studying philosophy, aside from just improving my experience of living in the world, gave me solid critical thinking skills and inspired a fascination with the human brain. If not for those things, I wouldn't have developed the passion that I have for medicine.

Probably I'll get my MD and then decide I want to teach history or some damn thing. Unfortunately, I'll have student loans to pay off, so I'm pretty sure I'll be settling into medicine for a few decades at least.

I was a double major English and Sociology. My initial majors were business and Linguistics (which I changed after my second quarter of college) I always thought I would work at some big Think Tank somewhere or write books, however I ended up becoming a Middle School Language Arts/Reading Recover (Special Ed) teacher! I have a masters in Comparative Literature that I hope to someday use in my 30's at the community college level and am currently pursuing a second masters in Sports Management to eventually become an athletic director cause I'm a football coach right now.
[Edited 12/28/06 10:29am]

Spookymuffin said:

British journalism (ie. truth by proxy and populist perception) is ruled by fascist hierarchy, just like any centuries-old occupational clique. A Muslim will never get a reporting job on their own merit, a gay man will never get a reporting job on his own merit and like Queen Victora I don't believe lesbianism even exists so no sweeping generalisation there.

karmatornado said:

wow!...I had no idea you were so cerebral. here I thought you were a muscle head
because of the coaching.

purplerein said:

It's just a piece of paper saying you have a decent memory. That's all it is.

JustErin said:

I bet your taxi will have the best-looking seats ever though.

Number23 said:

I agree, but it'd be very hard to get that past him.

Spookymuffin said:

If he really wants to be a journalist then he already is one. It's less an occupation, more a mindset. He would get his stuff published if it was decent, no problems. The number of media outlets these days is outrageous and a bit silly. Unless, of course, he's only in it for thr glory and money. And if so, fuck him. Money and ego. I find both ludicrous and unnesessary.

I don't have a job at all at the moment so I guess that doesn't rhyme too well with my education. Or maybe it does. The work market isn't exactly packed with opportunities for storytellers.

Number23 said:

the/unnecessary

Number23 said:

unneccesary?

Number23 said:

I think he's into it because he has no idea what he wants to be and doesn't want to be a lawyer like his Dad which he set himself up for until he realised that.



I want to be a pirate.

Number23 said:

necessary.

retina said:

Tell me why you're a storyteller.

Spookymuffin said:

I'm a journalist and a pirate.


A pirate first, though.