ViewUpHere wrote:
Axion004 wrote:
The general process seems to be:
Go to school.
Take out loans, go to college.
I went to school, enrolled in college, took on two jobs, and did both jobs while going to college. The jobs seemed to rotate, but I don't think I ever worked more or less than two concurrently. No loans.
These jobs included shelving books in a library (no cubicle), being an editor at a newspaper (no cubicle, and I spent more time in a courthouse than I did in the office), and being a one-person IT shop at two different places. Oddly, this also involved more time away from my desk than at it. Again, no cubicles.
I never worked at a cubicle while I was a student in undergraduate study either. I worked in an IT internship, finance internship, undergraduate research, web design, and manual labor and none of these jobs required me to be inside a cube. I got lucky in the IT internship because I got to work in the office of a manager instead of in the cube like the grand majority of the other employees.
ViewUpHere wrote:
Axion004 wrote:
Apply to jobs, pass interview, and then make money by working in cubicle.
Make more money while working in an office.
Sort of... I spent a year in a cubicle as a software developer, then got a job as a chemistry lab rat, then got back into IT, got into management, got back out of management (whew!) THEN got an IT job in a cubicle.
That sounds interesting- you moved from software development to chem lab to IT to management. At least that sounds more interesting than working the same boring repetitive job for 10 years. I should try to do something like that.
ViewUpHere wrote:
Axion004 wrote:
Buy a house
Have kids
Ok, this part I did. Then I sold the house and moved to an island in the middle of the Pacific. The move involved a job change that got me back out of the cubicle, hopefully for good. I get to do machining, drive a fork lift (this is WAY more fun than it sounds) operate a crane (ditto), do photography, all manner of fun stuff.
What happened to the kids when you moved? That does sound interesting moving away and doing something different although a cold climate sounds much more interesting to me than a warm one.
ViewUpHere wrote:
Axion004 wrote:
Grow old
Still working on this part. Meanwhile I try not to let it slow me down too much. It takes longer to heal now, though.
I am still young and recover quickly.
ViewUpHere wrote:
Axion004 wrote:
Die.
Don't have to work at this part. It happens all on its own.
This is inevitable.
ViewUpHere wrote:
Axion004 wrote:
Pretty bland and depressing from my point of view. It seems that where you went to school and want your gpa is doesn't really matter very much after you get out of the academic world(All employers care about is that your skills match the specific position). I want to go to graduate school but I am somewhat scared($35,000 in loans currently), and I think that after I get my graduate degree the reality is that I will just be placed inside some office slaving away to some boring desk work. I wish I could do more than this in life.
Then do more than this in life. The choice is yours.
Rather than list a bunch of stuff you could do and have you shoot them down, why not share what you're interested in doing? This matters. A lot. No one places you inside some office. You place yourself by applying to and accepting jobs that do this. If you look hard enough and are willing to give up some stuff along the way, there are any number of jobs out there that need doing where cubicles and boring desk work just don't apply.
When I first started college I wanted to become a professor. Putting statistics and reality aside(
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/ ... 2276a.html) this may still be a reasonable goal for me. I didn't socialize in college at all so most of my free time was either spent studying and/or working. If the market had a little more demand for highly skilled labor then I would realistically consider going to graduate school and try to become one. However, most of the students who go onto graduate school never make it the full way to the Phd. I believe I read the statistic that only 8% of the students who go to graduate school actually make it all the way to the PhD and become a professor. When the baby boomers start to retire now the jobs are not being replaced. The demand for professors is very low(And it is currently decreasing as the internet is going to be used as the medium in which all the students can get free education). Many of the boomers will retire but the jobs will not be replaced. I can try but the statistics are against me and it is unlikely that I will succeed.
Outside of that I also wanted to become either a computer programmer or an astronomer. I am going back to school at night right now to take more math classes and I am reading more material on my own in my spare time. At least if I am extremely bored at work when I come home I can still open my book and read the next chapter in my astronomy textbook.
ViewUpHere wrote:
What do YOU like to do? What are you studying? Do you like it enough to go to graduate school? Will the graduate degree fill a need inside you that you can't otherwise fill? Once you're out would you want to continue in the same field of study, or are you already getting burned out on it? Are there any related interests that would be more in line with what you like to do? Which is more important, the work or the setting? What setting is ideal for you? What kinds of people do you like to work with? Do you like to work with your hands? Do you like jobs where you almost never get the chance to sit down? Help us out here.
Right now I am studying math and programming. Basically I would say that I study programming at work and very soon I will start my next math class. This will allow me to learn material that I didn't have the chance to learn in undergrad. I also liked learning about Astronomy, Physics, Electrical Engineering, Micro Economics, Psychology, and Running for exercise. I can study all these subjects on my own but I prefer to complete a MS at a university so I could hear the opinions of others and communicate directly with the professor when I didn't fully understand a problem. Since I like school and enjoy being a student I would most certainly want to return. The work is more important than the setting- but that shouldn't really matter since if you work in an office cube then the probability of the work being repetitive/slave labor seems to be fairly high. Who am I to say it wouldn't be any different in graduate school? I cannot make an unbiased argument since I don't have any experience with option b.
My ideal setting would be with people who like learning new information(Not the people who talk about football, partying, money, drinking, and fashion who sit next to me in the cubicle) and will actively seek to educate themselves. Perhaps I am just at the wrong office? I don't care if I was forced to sit down all day(In fact I am physically weak and would not like to be in a position which involved large amounts of manual labor) but I would like to do something that was actually interesting. Repeating the same process to design a spreadsheet while talking about the score of the basketball game last night is definitely not what I want to be stuck in. I definitely need to get out and work somewhere else.
25 Jun 2011, 10:47 pm
