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Not sure what to do
GirlPants
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm looking for some advice from an outside source about my current position in life. The position: I'm a full time student at my local community college, I graduate/transfer at the end of April next semester. That is eight months away. After living on my own basically since I was eighteen, I was laid off from my job and am now pretty much squatting at mom's very small house with my brother and her boyfriend. They don't want me here as it is already crowded and we don't get along. What was originally a 3 month stay has turned in 9 months and they have stated they want me out by the 30th. I don't have a job or any money saved. They town I live in doesn't have much going for it and as a result, jobs are few are far between. The hand full of interviews I've had have been to no avail. I don't have a car, I have a motorcycle which I pay payments on. I grew up in this town but all my friends have moved away since high school, I don't really have anyone to hang out with. This isn't such a huge deal but it adds to the general negative feelings I have about what I'm doing with my life at the moment. I have some close friends in other states that want me to move there, but I really want to at least finish out my AA degree before I leave. I feel like I'm wasting my time here in a big way and I don't know what my next step should be besides sticking out school. What would you do in my position?
TLDR: No job, money, car, friends and soon to have no place to sleep. Should I stick out the 9 months here to finish school or look for opportunity elsewhere?
TLDR: No job, money, car, friends and soon to have no place to sleep. Should I stick out the 9 months here to finish school or look for opportunity elsewhere?
GirlPants on
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When you say you graduate/transfer do you mean you know where you want to transfer to, or do you just get your AA this spring and don't have any plans after that?
Well, right now I'm just focusing are art electives and fulfilling general education requirements. I would like to move onto the path of digital animator or something similar. There are only two state schools that offer a program for that in Florida, so I will have to move at the end of April regardless. If I have my way, at that time I would like to move to California where I have some friends and there are a lot more school that offer a fitting program.
When you get on your feet (in Cali?), start looking at junior colleges and applying for financial aid.
Digital Animation is a predominantly graduate level study I believe.
Ya, like I said, I'm sorta figuring this thing out as I go.
I know quite a few people who taught themselves everything and got jobs right out of high school or after some community college to kill time. They'd spend every spare minute drawing or making goofy little animations or whatever they were interested in. I'm talking about 4 hours a day minimum on top of their school work.
You are in a situation where you have an abundance of time that you are wasting. Use it.
So get on it and nurture your talent until people pay you for it.
Like I said though, there are plenty of online reasources that will help you roomate shopingp in you're area, coffee shops and student life centers usually have some adds for roomates. Don't worry if you end up moving with strangers, they will be just as difficult to live with as your friends/family.
2- Digital animation? Well I graduated with an art degree and although I have no regrets about my college years, I can tell you that degree did fuck all for me. While I have a few friends who made something of themselves in the art world, the vast majority of us moved on to bigger and better paying gigs post college. You better be damn good if you want to get hired on as a junior animator for a major production company, and expect to get paid squat. And no state college art program in Florida is going to be much help landing you a job, again, unless you are damn good. Not that I'm trying to talk you out of studying art mind you, but just as many illustrators get hired by Disney, ILM, Dreamworks and all the rest as CA majors. Like someone else said in this thread, if you want to make it in the commercial art field, whatever the medium, your life needs to be pretty much consist of waking up, painting, painting, going to class, painting, painting, looking for freelance work, painting, painting, a laughably small amount of sleep, rinse, repeat.
Good Luck.
They are interlinked. you need money to move and get your own place. You need a job to get money. You need skills to get a job.
You should get student loans, transfer to a four year school (now, not eight months from now), get a job, live in the dorms, and become an adult.
How can I transfer without completing the requirements? Also this is easier said than done. Especially since I'm 1/4th into a semester right now. To my understanding, the way it works is you complete 60 credit hours and the degree prerequisites and then you transfer. I guess I could talk to my school to see if it's possible to go sooner, like maybe next semester. I need to talk to them anyway about graduation. And the job thing is my problem, if I could get a job I wouldn't be worrying about anything right now. I also already have student loans, it's how I'm going to school in the first place.
You typically take 15 credit hours/semester. Schools have different requirements on how many semesters of school you need to have completed to transfer in (usually starts at 12) and a maximum you can transfer in (most schools require you're entire senior year or last 30 credit hours be done at their school). Talk o admissions at the school you want to transfer to. Sometimes that AA does not make a difference.
I've never even heard of a school that required community college in order to be admitted. Why didn't you just direct admit into the school you wanted to go to?
Much, much better.
Although, this may only be in my case.
1. See a counselor to learn about transfers in your state, and in particular what kind of transfer programs and deals the state has for two year schools. It's a little different in every state, but the agreement is typically that a 2 year from a community college in a general learning field will completely wipe your prereqs at the university. However, if you don't complete the degree and qualify for the transfer deal, you may be held on the line for University prerequisites that didn't even apply in the Community College, such as a Race or Gender issues course.
2. Realize that most of these transfer deals don't work out of state, and that if you transfer out of state you may end up forfeiting a great deal of the credits and classes you have already completed.
I just did the CC -> University transfer process myself, so I'm freshly aware of all the complications.
Unfortunately, I have no real advice to offer on the living situation.
Also, have you gone to your local employment office in your community or at the college? They can usaully help you find something, even if its not exactly the best.