Ponderings on important future things
Oct. 6th, 2011 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luciazephyrSo I troll around ONTD_Political a lot and more and more I'm being drawn into the various terrifying articles about people who go through school and come out with no prospects and end up deeper in debt with nothing to show for it. And that kind of terrifies the shit out of me.
I know what my dream jobs are. I want to write stories with more representation for various minorities. I want to go into media studies to examine prejudice. I want to learn ASL and work against ableism.
All nice thoughts, but all pretty pipedreamy.
I need a bankable talent if I don't want to be poor forever. I'm likely going to talk to my friend who's successfully started up his own business being a roaming IT guy for whatever company needs help and ask him about how he got into that. I have a decent affinity for computers and could probably make something of that.
Career folks, what fields are you in? How's the job market for them?
God, living in this country is depressing as fuck.
I know what my dream jobs are. I want to write stories with more representation for various minorities. I want to go into media studies to examine prejudice. I want to learn ASL and work against ableism.
All nice thoughts, but all pretty pipedreamy.
I need a bankable talent if I don't want to be poor forever. I'm likely going to talk to my friend who's successfully started up his own business being a roaming IT guy for whatever company needs help and ask him about how he got into that. I have a decent affinity for computers and could probably make something of that.
Career folks, what fields are you in? How's the job market for them?
God, living in this country is depressing as fuck.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-06 02:47 pm (UTC)I really like my job and my office but if it weren't for my husband? I'd still be renting, probably out in the boonies and/or with four roommates. I like working for non-profits (I really don't like the attitudes in a lot of corporate places and I like working a 35 hr week), but it's the c-level folks who make the dough. *sigh* DC is expensive, even if it's the land of non-profits.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-06 04:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-06 04:19 pm (UTC)I think with IT it depends on what your specialty is and what sort of industry you get attached to. Like I said, I work for a non-profit. I'm not even officially IT. But, I think my salary is something like 45K. I could live quite well on that anywhere but here. (and really, I could probably do just fine with that salary on my own, I'm just really fucking spoiled by my hub's big gubment money and never ever want to do roommates again.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-06 04:24 pm (UTC)I don't know anything more specific than that, sadly. But I want to learn. That's why I'm in school, right? I mean, hopefully it's not just to sink my family deeper into depth and just reinforce the fact that class mobility in this country is fucked.
And having computer knowledge can expand to other things, I think. I'm deep into gaming, so I know little indie games made by five or fewer people are making crazy waves. In theory, I could have a main job and try other little things on the side. Thank god I'm an lonely introvert, jfc...
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-06 04:33 pm (UTC)Yeah, the reason I went through the whole career path thing was to show how weird things work out. It's about finding skills that apply around and, sadly, some serendipity. Getting laid off and temping for 18 months was good for me in a lot of ways because it forced me to really expand my skills, try new things and learn to roll with it.
Knowledge is never a bad thing. If nothing else, your incredibly frustrating profs and fellow students are teaching you how to deal with people like that. You're a way better creative writer than I'll ever be and that can be applied in a lot of ways.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-06 04:29 pm (UTC)I also work with a lot of fellow waitresses(ers) who have degrees. And some students. There's one or two who came in straight from A Level (High School Graduation?) And they've made team leaders younger etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-06 06:47 pm (UTC)I'm right with you. I can see where my life is going up until roughly next April, and after that...I am hoping that three years doing tax filing will get me an in as an accounting clerk or something, I'm thinking of taking a class in bookkeeping, and if I can't make a living moving numbers around in those respects I'll have to go get qualified in something IT, I guess.
My partner has never been to college and has been doing the working-up-from-shop-floor thing instead; he's been managing a lot of retail renovation projects in the last couple of years and is now at the point where he can apply for salaried jobs that pay $40k+ per year, and it's just a matter of seeing how he settles after we move. The complication is, he wants to go to college so is worrying about whether landing a serious job would even be a good idea right now. Much sighing. :/
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-06 06:59 pm (UTC)I have the trouble of being honestly and wholly terrible at maths. Like, completely. I'm hoping against hope IT doesn't require too many advanced maths. I'm going to be screwed if so.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-06 07:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-06 11:59 pm (UTC)What wasn't good:
You can see that all four of these are intertwined -- any one of them feasibly is either cause or effect for any of the others. Well, except the last, which is simply "effect".
Still, it's a nice first career in some ways, and the skills you learn in it will be useful the rest of your life.
Now I'm a librarian / archivist. The pay is shit, but the hours and lack of stress are amazing. Though I don't know if I'd feel that way if it weren't my second career. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-07 02:40 am (UTC)It's still tempting, though... I have no idea what else someone as terrible at maths as I can hope for.
Congrats on getting a job that suits you. It sounds like you really deserve something like that after what you've been through.
Typing on iPad/ home sick, pls forgive odd grammar
Date: 2011-10-07 01:44 am (UTC)I used to work for it recruitment so can I can tell you a little.
IT is badly effected by economy because a lot of IT is project based, which means that a lot of short term/ contract / compition with skilled people and no stability ( those roles pay very well though in the good times). However IT also in big companies is full of people who want to pay you less than you are worth and work you harder than you should.
However always need it support. Best bet is to fine your passion and specialize if you want money.
Re: Typing on iPad/ home sick, pls forgive odd grammar
Date: 2011-10-07 01:47 am (UTC)Re: Typing on iPad/ home sick, pls forgive odd grammar
Date: 2011-10-07 01:49 am (UTC)Be prepared to be aggressive with your contract. Most companies that specialize in it expect and appreciate.
Re: Typing on iPad/ home sick, pls forgive odd grammar
Date: 2011-10-07 01:53 am (UTC)Open source usually equal good since cheaper option usually even with licensing, and shows passion.
Problem in big big companies as they need to protect their market.
Re: Typing on iPad/ home sick, pls forgive odd grammar
Date: 2011-10-07 02:01 am (UTC)Most people I know work in it and have fairly stable jobs even if they don't make the big bucks. Government work and graduate positions are the best if you can get it. Very stable and great opportunities to move up. Hard work is expected but can pay off big time.
Private schools here are pretty awesome for IT too.
I work in support and do a variety of thing, which I enjoy although the current pressure sometimes to suddenly perfect a new task can be a big deal.
Documentation is so very important. Both to handover and pick up. Reading a manual and getting it is honestly one of my most important skills. More important to know how to find an answer Than to know it off by heart.
Re: Typing on iPad/ home sick, pls forgive odd grammar
Date: 2011-10-07 02:04 am (UTC)Re: Typing on iPad/ home sick, pls forgive odd grammar
Date: 2011-10-07 02:32 pm (UTC)I am trying to figure out if I want to work in this country or just bail the moment I have earned enough savings to do so. I need to weigh the pros and cons of each. I keep forgetting to consider Australia, maybe because the Attorney General dude is censorship-happy. 8|
Thank you so much for all this information, srsly I hope you feel better!
Re: Typing on iPad/ home sick, pls forgive odd grammar
Date: 2011-10-08 12:04 am (UTC)Migration and Australian economy is something I have lots of thoughts on, my it recruitment job involved dealing with visas a lot. My husband and a lot of my friends are immigrants who live here permanently /in the process of Pr /failed the process. :( I am not an expert and have never worked directly in migration, but I am more knowledgable than average Australian on migration.
Some generic information on Migration - have a really good idea of everything before you go to a migration agent. A lot of them are bad and will try to make you pay for things you don't need/ deliberately delay the process so you pay more /scam you. Never sign a document that say you did something you didn't. You lose The opportunity if they catch you and you wont be able to reapply. There's a lot of information provided and translated here. http://www.immi.gov.au and a lot of other countries have similar.
Our economy is  tourism / exporting economy but we are actually very stable and have extremely good regulations in place. What happened in the us/uk can never ever happen here. Most of our problems in Gfc where lack of new jobs rather than loss of current.  We are one of the best countries for new opportunities in my opinion and experience. (although I still know a lot of sad stories too)
Our cost of living is a little higher than the usa but everyone also gets paid better. We also have much better social medicine etc. Usa has on the very top level better doctors but overall we are good and even if you are not subsidies (such as a tourist) our medicine is much more affordable eg MRI 1/3 the cost here paying full amount and our Medicare(perm residents) makes it less than $200. Our public accessibility is overall much better than the us too. I can't think of the last time I saw a non wheelchair friendly bus. That's the other part of a greater good society.Â
The problem though is it is difficult to get permanent residency unless youÂ
1 Go to a regional area (ie pretty much anywhere other than the east coastal cities).
2 get sponsored by a business* or au perm resident life partner. (domestic partnerships including glbtq count)
3 pay lots of money. (not bribery)
*has to be for skilled work, must be a relatively competitive wage, no longer compulsory to work full four years for that business but some will try to contract you.
Still possible other ways just more difficult.
If your interested in coming here, I recommend working holiday visa if you can (I believe they have changed the rules and usa is now eligible.) it means you can work up to six months for the one company (then you have to switch jobs or get sponsored or an exemption) and a year (up to two) to work things out. Its a visa designed for young people who would like to really see Australia, not really for immigration but I know of many British people who used it to get a good start here. (they wanted to get out while they could afford it and go back when economy picked up. Economy there never picked up yet, getting worse.)
I would also recommend maybe having a look at the evocities here. They are regional hubs that are right now having a lot of things happen to encourage people to move there to keep them thriving. It is a lot easier to by a house /extend visas / get Pr compared to places like Sydney/Melbourne (although majority of immigrants live there, so not impossible there either.)
http://www.evocities.com.au
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-07 11:40 am (UTC)So, *bro fist* of solidarity.
there's always teaching abroad
Date: 2011-10-07 11:50 am (UTC)Re: there's always teaching abroad
Date: 2011-10-07 02:17 pm (UTC)Also, I refuse to get a teaching degree in this country, as we've spent the last decade destroying our schools with a singleminded determination.
Re: there's always teaching abroad
Date: 2011-10-07 09:43 pm (UTC)But if you have language skills at all, there are other markets in tech translation or other company positions too. I think a lot of countries are having job market issues...
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-08 02:42 am (UTC)And look, here's the thing. And I'm saying this as someone who is a serious planner. So when I looked up in my junior year of college and was like wait, shit, WTF am I going to do with a literature degree? Absolutely nothing! Aaaaah! it was very traumatic.
But the point is, your dream jobs? Those aren't jobs.
"Working against ablism" isn't a job. Being a journalist is a job. Being a social worker is a job. So is being a lawyer, or a therapist, or a city planner, or or or. "Working against ablism" is a goal, not a profession. It's something that arises out of the thing you actually do.
Which is important because you don't apply for goals, you apply for jobs. You write your resume for jobs and take particular degrees for jobs. It's not about giving up your ideals or whatever, because the truth is when you stumble into the right thing -- and it usually is stumbling, God knows I did, for all the planning -- the goal stuff will fall into place automatically. That'll be part of what makes it the right fit.
But you will get absolutely nowhere if you think of something abstract like "working against ablism" as a job. I think that was the most important difference between people who did well in grad school and people who fell apart. The people who did well might not have had this perfect plan, but by God they got all the jobs. While the people who were all, "I want to work for my pet social justice movement!" never managed to even get out the door because that was never the title of any of the jobs on offer, and they never realized they weren't thinking of a job, they were thinking of a side-effect. I am really glad I got over that sometime between my starving civil rights nonprofit days and finishing law school because . . . yeah.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-08 02:51 am (UTC)My problem is I have no idea. That's what I'm working on. It just seems right now like all hope is lost, there are no jobs to be had, and we might as well not try. Which is an equally poisonous way of looking at it, I realize.
I know I'm being an idiot. This whole 'figuring out what the fuck to do' is a work in progress right now.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-08 12:10 pm (UTC)You can probably find a copy of What Color Is Your Parachute on some sharecom somewhere. I didn't use it, but I know a lot of people who swore by it in college because it's pretty good at getting you from abstract things -- what am I good at? what do I want to be good at? -- to an actual list of jobs. And when you have an actual list of jobs in your hand, it's so much easier to figure out which ones you actually want, and which ones you can get, with some planning.
Which is not to say you won't need terrible holdover stuff. Ask me sometime about the awful and borderline illegal student admission essay "editing" mill I worked at as a second job once. But it was only a year, and I knew that going in, so I could just grit my teeth and scrape every penny into savings that I could.
Anyway. I have somewhat contradictory feelings about college degrees. My B.A. was not quite functionally useless -- I did manage to eat, pretty much -- but it sure felt tenuous. And that's enraging and absurd, if I think about it too hard. But I'm the only person in my immediate family who ever finished. Everyone else dropped out. And that's a door that's really, really hard to open again once you've closed it, and they've all regreted it later.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-11 01:31 pm (UTC)Ugh, I know. ):
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-23 06:29 pm (UTC)The job market sucks as much as the economy does. On the other hand, things have been sucky for about 25 years now. My entry into the job market was over twice that so... I started out throwing over a life in academia (sigh; all those lost post grad credits) for a life of sexdrugsrocknroll (this *was* the 60's after all) =Q
I have a distinct dislike for academia & the idea that having a degree means anything more than a way for HR to winnow out the applications. ::coughs:: that said, university is great fun & an opportunity to have ones horizons expanded if done right. The military is another horizon expander available... growing up in the backwoods Ozarks I considered it... for about 15 seconds.
So as a musician? my job market sucked even way back then. I did know how to type & make coffee (which was about all that was available back in those awful days) oh, & the ability to think quick & move quicker when your skeevy boss was getting too friendly. >=/
I eventually ended up in a job with government. (after working a lot of strange jobs, from the circus to a sugar mill to waiting tables & bar tending & more) Working for government (local/county/state/fed) is a secure deal usually. Unions make it so, so if the tea party isn't successful in gutting the working class they should still be around making life better.
That said, one of my favorite altered sayings is: those that can, do; those that can't work for the government. (meaning you just about have to kill a co-worker to get fired) And I could have made LOTS more money in private industry but I needed the security & reliable health care as a single mom. I ended up my career in gov't as evil management. When I retired my replacement had to have an MA (seriously, SO stupidly unnecessary)
Now, you've got IT skilz & like to play games? I can only tell you about west coast ops. Both of my sons are in the Silicon Valley Biz. One was 'boy genius' (no degrees) & is doing very very well. Other son (no degrees) in a product manager for a game design company (Perfect World) making as much money as my DIL (who has a masters) & who works at PW too.
Starting out in QA seems to be the usual route (for the game industry) usually part time at first, until you build a name (CV) for yourself. California is full of uptight laws (YAY!) dealing with sexual harassment so you'll get miss a lot of that bull shit.
Hope that was more assistance (than just crazy talk)
Best to you my dear.
anti v
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-06 06:46 am (UTC)I was an English major with a lot of debt when I graduated a couple years ago. I'm a writer (one story published! Working on some novels!), but that doesn't pay the bills, so I figured I'd check out publishing. Trade publishing (what most people think of when they think of publishing; basically what's on the shelves at B&N) is terrifyingly competitive, the starting wages are low, and you have to live in New York. All of that was a BIG NO for me.
However, I looked into other kinds of publishing (while job hunting for a million local jobs and getting none of them) and found out about higher ed textbook publishing. After a lot of work and job hunting and rewriting my resume and cover letter a bunch of times to reflect THAT kind of publishing, I got a job as an editorial assistant. I had to move across the country, but it wasn't New York and the starting pay wasn't great but WAS livable, plus the job has great benefits. Higher ed publishing is almost always hiring at least some--it's somewhat recession-proof, because people tend to go back to school during recessions.
Since then I've been promoted and am looking to stay with the company and move up. Also, because I effectively work in education, I can have a big effect on the world this way. One of my personal goals for this job is to increase accessibility in higher ed, both economically and for the disabled. Technology is where higher ed is going, and with all the adaptive tech out there, there's got to be a way to make learning available to everyone.
It's not something I can effect now--not much, anyway--but it's great for me to have that as a goal for my career while I also work on getting my writing career off the ground. (Also, common writing goal to increase representation for minorities! Especially in SF/F and YA.)
lightgetsin is right--the best thing to do is find a job you love (or can live with) and then figure out where the opportunities to do good work with that job are. When I first starting working, I had no idea I'd be able to say "I want to increase accessibility in higher education" as a career goal. And now I can.
Also, I am way jealous of your IT skills, because I don't have ANY and want to go into media. If you're interested in that kind of thing at all, maybe look into companies like Inkling, who are doing new and interesting things with the e-book?