I'm a grad student in engineering, finishing up probably sometime this summer with a masters. I have no fucking clue what to do after that, maybe take the fall off and do a bike tour of the west coast or something, but for the long run I'm looking into firms in the Washington area. Whatever, it'll all work out in the end.
They tell you to research a topic you find really really interesting, lest you drive yourself to an early senility. I was dumb enough not to heed that advice and I've been paying the price for about a year. But the reward is, I get to have a paper published alongside stuff from some kinda prestigious eggheads, with whom I get to rub elbows at a conference this spring.
I'm still not really sure whether it balances out or not.
I'm a part time office bitch at the continuing ed/MFA writing department at my university. I get paid 12 bucks an hour to basically surf the internet and do my homework, and occasionally make a photocopy or something. Life is good right now, but the future terrifies me and my liberal arts degree.
AutoCAD operator/ technical assistant in an Engineering department
i'm planning on either moving higher up in the engineering drawings crap or going into video game art. ...or becoming some sort of hr person.
I do .NET Web/Software development for an automotive advertisement company. Technically my title is MicroApplications Developer.
I enjoy it so far, been doing it for almost a year now. Am hoping to to move up to project management in the next year or so. I'm a pretty good developer, but I don't particularly enjoy it. The lack of human interaction drives me nuts. Thankfully I'm near the top of a short list for the job, as most of my coworkers rarely come out of their shells.
Besides being a full time student (pulling down twenty credit hours as of... tomorrow), I'm the assistant producer on a student game in development and a tutor at my university's writing center.
I'm really hoping that my diverse studies (minors in History and Japanese, major in digital media/game design) can help me land a job in the industry. I'm heading to GDC in a couple weeks to hand out my resume and farm contacts, and I'm looking forward to moving out of my mom's house this summer after I graduate.
The writing tutor job is pretty mindblowing. The pay's decent and the hours are agreeable (only 10/week) and I've got an eye for editing work so it's not too rough. Freshman level papers never fail to depress me, though, and the amount of people who make it into college without knowing what a thesis statement is boggles my mind. On the other hand, I've been pleasantly surprised by ESL students that come in to have their papers looked over. Whereas there's more grammatical problems, on average, than with a native speaker's work there's far less organizational problems than in other papers. I've done some reading about tutoring in this fashion and there's not been a study that's provided a good answer to that question.
In my game producing capacity, i guess it's more accurate to say I'm a man of many hats. I was the primary QA tester for the game's pre-alpha build over December and I'm working with another producer and our tech lead on formatting QA when we release the game to public testing. I'm working with another programmer and artist on getting the game's UI nailed down as we've not got much beyond concept sketches at this point (and by not much, I mean nothing). Finally, I'm also working on the game's schedule at this point in time and, due to craploads of missed deadlines, reformatting the whole thing which is, all in all, fairly depressing work. On the other hand, we'll probably have one level done in time for GDC and since half the team is making that trip we might be able to sell it around. Our eventual goal is an internet free for download release and perhaps a conversion to XNA for an XBLA release sometime late this year or next year.
Hey what do you know, I just got another rejection letter from a university in Ontario.
Maybe I should consider applying in the US as well. Given the way the USD is going, by the time I have a job there my meagre Canadian student savings will allow me to live like an American king! :P
I'm a first-year biology grad student at UCSD. Hopefully I'll get out in another 4.5 to 5 years with my PhD. I have no personal goals for my life or anything. I've known I wanted a PhD ever since I was a little kid. After I get that, I don't really know what I'll do. I might get a post-doctoral scholar position, which is kinda like grad student ++, and most people do it as a step towards a faculty position. I don't know if I really want to become a professor, though. It seems like a lot of responsibility :P
Yeah but on the plus side, you get tenure, which is awesome, and a title that carries a lot of respect, and a lot of job benefits. And you can get revenge for your years of grad slavery by taking it out on your own grad students! whahahahahahaha
ugh, let's see. I do tech support, pre-press, lan admin, and some product dev stuff, for a small part of a large printer company.
currently trying to find a way to sell not technically hip folks on rather expensive rfid solutions. Hard to get folks to see it as much more than an over priced shipping label. If they'd stop selling it as that, it could make things more interesting. It's something I'm being a little proactive about in my spare time(at work), though I'm not really sure what the response to "no, really we can't charge them for the software", will be. Money is in consumables anyway.
I am now a student teacher at a local high school. I have 3 sections of College Prep Biology and 2 of General Chemistry (although I'm not doing any of the teaching myself just yet; I just started and I'm supposed to observe my cooperating teachers and get settled in a bit first).
Dirt-poor graduate student in applied mathematics, not sure of what to do with it (mainly because I'm just burnt out on school). I need to start applying for jobs.
I'm a Senior .NET developer, interesting to see there are others in a similar boat. .NET represent!
I work for an international corporation in a group of about 35, and I'm currently leading 4-5 developers depending on the project. I've also been positioning myself to attempt to move up to Architect soon, where I will help lead ALL architectural design of our software programs. I'm writing a web app right now that will be used at 15000+ locations around the country and receives 100k hits per minute. On the plus side, I'm writing it in .NET 3.5, so I'm learning all the cool new LINQ stuff at the same time.
Not bad for being 25 eh? I firmly believe going to college and majoring in CSE was the best thing I could've done for my career - I got this job with no experience and have already moved quickly past many other developers who don't have the formal training. I also work with some great developers who don't have a degree, but it definitely helped get me started.
I'm a Senior .NET developer, interesting to see there are others in a similar boat. .NET represent!
I work for an international corporation in a group of about 35, and I'm currently leading 4-5 developers depending on the project. I've also been positioning myself to attempt to move up to Architect soon, where I will help lead ALL architectural design of our software programs. I'm writing a web app right now that will be used at 15000+ locations around the country and receives 100k hits per minute. On the plus side, I'm writing it in .NET 3.5, so I'm learning all the cool new LINQ stuff at the same time.
Not bad for being 25 eh? I firmly believe going to college and majoring in CSE was the best thing I could've done for my career - I got this job with no experience and have already moved quickly past many other developers who don't have the formal training. I also work with some great developers who don't have a degree, but it definitely helped get me started.
Lucky bastard. We JUST "upgraded" to 2.0.
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clownfoodpacket pusherin the wallsRegistered Userregular
Having experienced Fort Bliss/Camp McGregor, I'm not surprised.
I say it every time, but Fort Bliss is a helluva lot better than Fort Riley. I hated that cursed place.
heh...I was born on Ft. Riley.
I am a Systems Administrator for a datacenter outside of Portland. I spend my nights monitoring various aspects of online banking systems, doing upgrades and patching, calling banks and telling them that their backend mainframes are not working properly and monitoring a Veritas system (oh god I have learned to hate it with a passion).
I love my job because unlike so many other Systems Admins, I don't have to deal with end users. Ideally I would like to keep it this way. My goals are to get my CCNA and become a network admin and further insulate myself from the end users of the world.
In the spring I am going back to school and taking a few credits here and there. Mostly that will be just for fun. I am quite content in my career field and it affords me to persue my hobbies.
Oh hey, and werehippy - what exactly is your job working with Epic? Are you a coordinator affiliated with the hospitals? (Mr. DG is an Epic implementor, although he's transferring over to Tech Services soon.)
Currently a fourth year medical student at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Already matched into a transitional internship then a radiology residency in the Northwest (where my wife and I are from).
I am excited to be returning to the northwest as I have not been back there in any permanent fashion for almost 9 years (College in St. Louis, MO).
In the future, I hope to sub-specialize in interventional radiology and finish my military commitment for a military retirement (ARMY ftw) and then get a job running an IR suite until I retire (a doctor in the US achieves his full earning potential in his late 40s early 50s).
Man, it has been a long road and I still have to complete my residency!
Rama on
Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta. However, not even one hundred clones of the celebrated civil rights leader could remove Georgia's reputation as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin.
Shit, your jobs all sound hard. Kindergarten teacher. I got my associates in Early Childhood Education and my Elementary Ed degree while I was working with a kindergarten class. At the end, they went to full day kindergarten and I lost my job, so I started subbing for a bunch of teachers I knew really well. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Except roller coaster reviewer. That would be a good job.
Shit, your jobs all sound hard. Kindergarten teacher. I got my associates in Early Childhood Education and my Elementary Ed degree while I was working with a kindergarten class. At the end, they went to full day kindergarten and I lost my job, so I started subbing for a bunch of teachers I knew really well. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Except roller coaster reviewer. That would be a good job.
Shit, your jobs all sound hard. Kindergarten teacher. I got my associates in Early Childhood Education and my Elementary Ed degree while I was working with a kindergarten class. At the end, they went to full day kindergarten and I lost my job, so I started subbing for a bunch of teachers I knew really well. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Except roller coaster reviewer. That would be a good job.
woo, teacher hi5!
WOO! Watch those high school kids, they'll get their damn peanut butter jelly fingers all over everything.
I am a producer/game designer for a large Korean online-game studio. We have a working partnership with EA and will bring several of their licenses to Asia. My most recent commercial project was a micro-transaction based online only version of FIFA for the Asian Market. We've been servicing the game in Korea since 2006 and have recently started the closed beta in China. My current project is adapting the NBA Street franchise into an online micro-transaction based game for China. We currently entered closed beta for this project in Taiwan with the distribution of beta accounts at the Taiwan Game Show last week.
I've been working as a game designer for the past 7 years and overall it's been a great experience. I've been working in the 'producer' capacity for the last 2 years and that's more of a mixed bag. However, the satisfaction from a completed project still outweighs the headaches and I'd say being a producer can have some great rewards. It is just that I'd rather work on a design tables and feature briefs than take ownership of conference calls and Powerpoint presentations.
My professional goal is to continue working on large commercial projects with the potential to impact millions of online gamers. However, my personal dream is to work on small competitive online puzzle games regardless of the size of their potential audience.
krapst78 on
Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father prepare to die!
Looking for a Hardcore Fantasy Extraction Shooter? - Dark and Darker
I'm a biotechnology major at an exception community college (yes there are some!) but I'm pondering a double major in biology as well, since I'm taking all the same gosh-darn classes. I spend my days in long lectures and even longer labs that sometimes don't work the way they should I.E. our first gel electrophoresis.
The opportunity to actually glean info from the professors is great and the biotech professor has ins with "federal biotech"*
"biodefense"*
biowarfare and puppy killing.
I would like to transfer to University of Maryland in a year, but no idea which campus, either College Park or Baltimore --D:--
I got a job working in a warehouse three months ago. I just got promoted. My promotion included a warehouse office, my own computer circa 1980---it beeps and has green/black lettering with no mouse O_o--- and my very own mailbox! The raise was30 cents. :x As a youngin' I look at it as valuable job experience, because what I do requires a modicum of trust. I process return shipments and do all kinds of other weird shipping oddjobs. Did you know bubble bath solution is considered a hazardous material?
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
edited January 2008
Secretary/field tech for the AV department at my university. Things are slow right now, but I'm guessing they'll pick up once the regular semester starts up.
Technically my job is supposed to be tech-support, but I end up doing a lot of net admin stuff as well since half our department up and quit.
waterlogged on
Democrat that will switch parties and turn red if Clinton is nominated.:P[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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[Paragon]I'm a real doctor, for pretend!North DakotaRegistered Userregular
edited January 2008
Product line manager for major online e-tailer of aftermarket SUV and truck parts, which is kind of ironic because I honestly don't know much about said truck parts.
Interesting job so far, lots of daty entry and playing with large amounts of data. What's nice though is I don't deal with customers so much, only vendors and manufacturers.
Previously though, I worked on the America's Army Game Project as a community manager, and before that I worked at an Ammo Dump (ASP #1, Vilseck Germany). There have been other jobs, but those were the most interesting.
I still don't know what I want to do, being from a military family (my family has been military on both sides every generation for as far back as family records go) I have a strong (massively strong) desire to go military still. It would be nice, but I don't know if it would be feasible with a wife and a young son.
Degree wise I started my Comp Sci Degree, but quit school after a year or so. Coding is no longer for me, I'm now trying to figure out what exactly I want to major in. *shrug*
Product Expert in IPG (read: Commission salesperson in Computers) at the moment.
It pays well, especially since I'm in college and only work weekends (the two most lucrative days of the week).
I am currently in the Visual arts program (for fun, mostly), and will move on to the Music and the preforming arts after I get my two year diploma. After I'm done in music, I will probably move on to the humanities and english, mabye get a BA if I feel like it. So, basically I will be a career student for 8-10 years if I don't get sick of it.
After that, depending on what happens, I will definitely want to start a family and have kids, so I'll need a stable job. I am happy with almost anything, so I was thinking that if I can't get a decent position somewhere as a writer, artist, or musician, I might go into police work or perhaps IT or if im brave, get a degree in education and become a teacher.
I'm in my last semester of law school and waiver daily between the thought of taking the bar and finding a lawyer job and trying to find something completely different that is less soul-sucking.
The problem is that I've been in school for about oh 19 years in a row and don't have a lot of what you'd call "skills."
Sometimes I just want to say fuck it and go work at Starbucks but the lifestyle I've become accustomed to (thanks Mom and Dad for being generous with the moneys) sort of demands more income than that.
Oh hey, and werehippy - what exactly is your job working with Epic? Are you a coordinator affiliated with the hospitals? (Mr. DG is an Epic implementor, although he's transferring over to Tech Services soon.)
Right in one
It was basically 6 months (should have been a year) of workflow analysis, build, and really terrifyingly poor testing for a patient safety critical system followed by alternating 3 weeks on site babysitting bitchy doctors and wildly understaffed nurses as they come live and 3 weeks build for the next wave of sites.
And my condolences to Mr DG. The only job more thankless than implementor is tech services. What area specifically does he work in? If it's scanning, notewriter, or order transmittal I might have to stable him and/or become his best friend.
I'm also working IT for a small-ish company (roughly 100 employees). Good pay, good work environemnt but its driving me crazy.Originally I thought working for a small company would be good as the variety of things to do would be interesting..it turns out the variety of things means you just never get to learn/work with the things you enjoy My current plan is to get a job with a larger company where I can specialize a bit more and eventually move onto consulting, which is where the big money in IT is.
I want to major in criminology, and it's a really really bad idea, should I do it?
Don't do it. Stick with IT, for the love of god. I left IT to get into crim with these delusions of grandeur and now I'm 25 and I don't even know if I could still get into law school and even if I could I can't afford it.
If you want law and order, get a degree in history or english lit and go to law school, unless your college has pre-law, and do that instead.
Otherwise stick with IT.
Wow. When you're talking about how criminology is a bad choice, is it because you haven't been able to find work for it, or that it's overall a shitty subject to enroll in? Is there a difference between criminology and criminal justice?
It's funny you bring up english lit, since I've been told several times that I should pursue it due to my writing skills and love of fiction. Problem is it doesn't look like a high paying job. And ultimately I want to make a lot of money whatever I do.
As for IT, I'm not sure exactly what I could qualify for. I use a PC extensively, I've messed around with my router, windows vista, etc. I installed all my PC parts into my tower recently too. When I was taking those previous classes I held out pretty well until I reached a point that involved calculations and....ugh.
But I finished over half of those classes, so I want to make use of those credits one way or the other. I'm just not sure what kind of IT program is up my alley.
I mean that a criminology (the same as criminal justice) degree is useless. It's a four year degree and nothing more. It's become the new jock "easy a" course, next to a generic business degree. Policework has gone to shit, and if you're anywhere near the realm of qualification I personally think it's actually harder to get the job because they don't want to pay to train you, just to loose you a year later.
Stick with IT, or some advanced business admin/foreign business degree. I got lucky because I can do a lot of hardware oriented IT stuff, and it gave me a fallback career thankfully, but if it weren't for that I'd still be a floor supervisor at officemax, with a four year degree about as good as toilet paper.
I'm an audio engineer. I work for my uncle out of his home studio. I just graduated a month and a half ago (I got a certificate), and I haven't been working on much yet, but we have a few projects lined up.
I plan to be an engineer for the rest of my life. Music is what I love to do.
Being that that's what I dabble in and I would love to get into that field, can you give me any tips?
Well, you should definitely go to school, but make sure the school has actual hands-on learning, not just reading from books. Ask any engineer and they'll tell you that using the gear is the only way to ever know it.
Also, unless you're lucky and can get a job immediately after school, prepare to spend a lot of time in unpaid internships.
To OP: I did credit card customer service for 5 1/2 years to pay for school. I pretty much felt like you did from the 6 month mark on. If they let you have flexible part time hours, it could be the best job you have while going to school but if you ever have a chance to get out, do it without looking back.
I left that job when I moved to work on my master's degree, spent a couple of years as a graduate assistant. Finished there and the only thing I could find was... phone support. Help desk, then I lost that job and had to move back home. Have spent the last year working tech support for an ISP and am back to feeling sick of my job and wanting to just walk out the door most days.
Getting ready to start a new job search... had a /very/ good line on a job (family connections plus hiring guy liked me... but ended up loosing out to someone with experience). Now waiting to see if my dad gets a promotion that would require him to move to the D/FW area. I think it'll be a much better environment for an IT job than what I have here. I think security is the specialization area I want to get into but want more experience before heading that way, so looking for a Systems or Network Administrator position. Or... anything else. Anything not phone support. Please? *goes off to cry self to sleep*
I wish I could have gotten into the military, but I've got three metal screws in one of my ankles.
I just gotta say, if it's something you really want to try don't give up just yet. I actually just got out of the Army in december, I did the infantry thing for a little over three years and I have a steel rod in my tibia and four screws. It's not impossible to get in with hardware, and dare I say I was a pretty badass cyborg automatic riflemen.
Anyways, since I got out I've done alot of dabbling trying to find a job that I like. I joined the army when I was 18 so I have no work experience other than the military and not very many people are looking to hire grunts. I did a short stint as a private investigator, following people around prying into their private lives. It was mostly husbands hiring us to follow their wives to see if their cheating and such. Pretty interesting and it's not too hard living on 20+ an hour when you're camped outside someones house all night.
I'm really trying to move back into a federal position, I've applied for some investigator work with the USDA (crazy I know) and I also have a dream of being a Federal Air Marshall for some crazy reason so I'm following that path right now.
Oh, and radiology technician. It does require a degree at most places but I've heard of some hospitals that will do on the job training. I think it would be pretty cool to take xrays and just fuck around with patients.
I'm one of the head sales guys for an upper market computer retailer in Australia. On a day to day basis i deal with the larger buyers and more important customers, as well as helping out the regular sales staff and part timers. Often i have to yell at people too.
We operate on sales target based commission. Hit the target? awesome you start making some pretty serious money pretty quickly. Miss the target? Well at my level you are looking at getting demoted, and your take home pay for that month is min wage.
How did i get the job? Well i'd just flunked out of the final year of a programming course, and needed money fast. I walked into the head office, with no sales skills, and was hired on the spot after a ~2 hour interview. That was over a year ago now, and since then I've climbed the ranks from casual -> part time -> full time -> my current position "Closer".
What's next? I want to move up into more prestigious sales. But for a 20yo male with no higher education to his name, I'm doing very well for myself where i am rite now.
I'm in my last year of applied math and economics. I'm also working on my CFA and have finished a financial adviser designation while in school. I wrote a pretty good LSAT and applied to Law schools, but I am not really keen on the profession. I've worked the last two summers at a hedge fund as a junior analyst. I might do an MBA, but will probably end up doing an MSF since its complementary to a CFA. umm that's it
Oh and I used to be a ski coach before the library made me frail.
The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
edited January 2008
I work checkouts in the major Aussie supermarket Woolworths
I got here by needing a job and being too lazy to look around
I can only go up, but I'm looking at either a coffee shop or the nearby theatre
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South hostI obey without questionRegistered Userregular
edited January 2008
I'm a dishwasher 2 nights a week at a school-owned restaurant 2 nights a week and a Sunday brunch server at the same place on, well, Sundays. I got the dishwashing job because just about anyone can be a dishwasher, and since I'm the only one who doesn't skip work constantly or get high during work, I've been there for over a year. I got the serving job because it was basically the same job that I did over the summer, I didn't have to do any additional paperwork to get it, and the tips were good, at least when I started. The dishwashing job is incredibly easy, but sucks because I always go home smelling like old food and garbage. I'm going to work in the kitchen as some kind of cook pretty soon, though.
I'm majoring in history at Appalachian State, with no idea what I want to do with that.
South host on
Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
I will hand in my master thesis in Computer Science probably by the end of this week, or the beginning of the next. Currently I hope to get an IAESTE contract (intership) in the US, Mongolia or China for around half a year to a year - I will know that by thursday. Otherwise I will have to start looking for jobs...
I'm a first year grad student at UCLA, doing Information Studies, which is the new fancy name for what they used to call Library Studies. Contrary to what that statement seems to imply, I don't think I want to be a librarian.
Right now, however, I'm working in a library on the reference desk around 6 hours a week. Reference work is pretty...well, reference desks hardly get used anymore, so most questions I field are things like "How do I print?" which I hardly need a 2 year graduate degree to answer. Even the more difficult research questions I can usually help with, but I have been working in this particular library field for about three years now.
I also work in the IS department's computer/tech lab, which is basically just a place where the students come to do their homework. Questions here include "The printer's jammed." Okay, that's not a question, you got me. :P I'm also helping with the redesign on the department's website, basically sorting through the HTML code and fixing errors. Apparently building a crappy Pokemon site in middle school is actually good training for working.
Where am I gonna be when I graduate? Well, I'm taking an information architecture class right now, and that seems somewhat interesting. Basically, "information architects" are those guys who make up the wireframes of how they want the site to look after doing a bunch of user research. I guess. That's what the prof says anyway. Not having any experience out in that big scary real world, I don't really have any idea how these sorts of things play out. But anyway, yeah, almost certain I don't want to be a librarian. They keep telling me that there's a bajillion things I can do with this degree, but really, aren't people just gonna look at my resume and think "Hey, you worked in a library a lot, and you've got a library degree. Go shush people or something"?
Currently studying Informatics and Economics at the University of Washington.
Right before Christmas I got a job offer from a software company down in LA, and I took it. It's a document imaging/management company; they write software to convert paper documents into digital format. I'll be working as a technical consultant. More detailed job description is that I'll be working with clients to figure out what they exactly need, and talking to our software engineers to help them customize the features.
After I accepted the job I asked the manager why they wanted me there, and he said that TC is a new position at their company and they needed someone who understood the software process and at the same time had people skills. Turns out that's a pretty rare combination, which explains why they wanted me so badly.
I'm pretty excited because working with a variety of clients will allow me to establish a wide range of contacts, which I'm planning to take advantage of when I start my own technology consulting company in the future. Also, if I do a good job they might hire additional TCs and that would mean I'd have seniority among them. :P
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They tell you to research a topic you find really really interesting, lest you drive yourself to an early senility. I was dumb enough not to heed that advice and I've been paying the price for about a year. But the reward is, I get to have a paper published alongside stuff from some kinda prestigious eggheads, with whom I get to rub elbows at a conference this spring.
I'm still not really sure whether it balances out or not.
i'm planning on either moving higher up in the engineering drawings crap or going into video game art. ...or becoming some sort of hr person.
i am indecisive.
I enjoy it so far, been doing it for almost a year now. Am hoping to to move up to project management in the next year or so. I'm a pretty good developer, but I don't particularly enjoy it. The lack of human interaction drives me nuts. Thankfully I'm near the top of a short list for the job, as most of my coworkers rarely come out of their shells.
I'm really hoping that my diverse studies (minors in History and Japanese, major in digital media/game design) can help me land a job in the industry. I'm heading to GDC in a couple weeks to hand out my resume and farm contacts, and I'm looking forward to moving out of my mom's house this summer after I graduate.
The writing tutor job is pretty mindblowing. The pay's decent and the hours are agreeable (only 10/week) and I've got an eye for editing work so it's not too rough. Freshman level papers never fail to depress me, though, and the amount of people who make it into college without knowing what a thesis statement is boggles my mind. On the other hand, I've been pleasantly surprised by ESL students that come in to have their papers looked over. Whereas there's more grammatical problems, on average, than with a native speaker's work there's far less organizational problems than in other papers. I've done some reading about tutoring in this fashion and there's not been a study that's provided a good answer to that question.
In my game producing capacity, i guess it's more accurate to say I'm a man of many hats. I was the primary QA tester for the game's pre-alpha build over December and I'm working with another producer and our tech lead on formatting QA when we release the game to public testing. I'm working with another programmer and artist on getting the game's UI nailed down as we've not got much beyond concept sketches at this point (and by not much, I mean nothing). Finally, I'm also working on the game's schedule at this point in time and, due to craploads of missed deadlines, reformatting the whole thing which is, all in all, fairly depressing work. On the other hand, we'll probably have one level done in time for GDC and since half the team is making that trip we might be able to sell it around. Our eventual goal is an internet free for download release and perhaps a conversion to XNA for an XBLA release sometime late this year or next year.
Maybe I should consider applying in the US as well. Given the way the USD is going, by the time I have a job there my meagre Canadian student savings will allow me to live like an American king! :P
currently trying to find a way to sell not technically hip folks on rather expensive rfid solutions. Hard to get folks to see it as much more than an over priced shipping label. If they'd stop selling it as that, it could make things more interesting. It's something I'm being a little proactive about in my spare time(at work), though I'm not really sure what the response to "no, really we can't charge them for the software", will be. Money is in consumables anyway.
meh, I'd be making more money if I had a degree,
I work for an international corporation in a group of about 35, and I'm currently leading 4-5 developers depending on the project. I've also been positioning myself to attempt to move up to Architect soon, where I will help lead ALL architectural design of our software programs. I'm writing a web app right now that will be used at 15000+ locations around the country and receives 100k hits per minute. On the plus side, I'm writing it in .NET 3.5, so I'm learning all the cool new LINQ stuff at the same time.
Not bad for being 25 eh? I firmly believe going to college and majoring in CSE was the best thing I could've done for my career - I got this job with no experience and have already moved quickly past many other developers who don't have the formal training. I also work with some great developers who don't have a degree, but it definitely helped get me started.
Lucky bastard. We JUST "upgraded" to 2.0.
heh...I was born on Ft. Riley.
I am a Systems Administrator for a datacenter outside of Portland. I spend my nights monitoring various aspects of online banking systems, doing upgrades and patching, calling banks and telling them that their backend mainframes are not working properly and monitoring a Veritas system (oh god I have learned to hate it with a passion).
I love my job because unlike so many other Systems Admins, I don't have to deal with end users. Ideally I would like to keep it this way. My goals are to get my CCNA and become a network admin and further insulate myself from the end users of the world.
In the spring I am going back to school and taking a few credits here and there. Mostly that will be just for fun. I am quite content in my career field and it affords me to persue my hobbies.
although the pay is good, it's still a "customer service" job and we're still treated like dogs.
if youre tired of assholes, then law is definitely not the right industry for you.
I am excited to be returning to the northwest as I have not been back there in any permanent fashion for almost 9 years (College in St. Louis, MO).
In the future, I hope to sub-specialize in interventional radiology and finish my military commitment for a military retirement (ARMY ftw) and then get a job running an IR suite until I retire (a doctor in the US achieves his full earning potential in his late 40s early 50s).
Man, it has been a long road and I still have to complete my residency!
Except roller coaster reviewer. That would be a good job.
woo, teacher hi5!
WOO! Watch those high school kids, they'll get their damn peanut butter jelly fingers all over everything.
I've been working as a game designer for the past 7 years and overall it's been a great experience. I've been working in the 'producer' capacity for the last 2 years and that's more of a mixed bag. However, the satisfaction from a completed project still outweighs the headaches and I'd say being a producer can have some great rewards. It is just that I'd rather work on a design tables and feature briefs than take ownership of conference calls and Powerpoint presentations.
My professional goal is to continue working on large commercial projects with the potential to impact millions of online gamers. However, my personal dream is to work on small competitive online puzzle games regardless of the size of their potential audience.
Looking for a Hardcore Fantasy Extraction Shooter? - Dark and Darker
The opportunity to actually glean info from the professors is great and the biotech professor has ins with "federal biotech"*
I got a job working in a warehouse three months ago. I just got promoted. My promotion included a warehouse office, my own computer circa 1980---it beeps and has green/black lettering with no mouse O_o--- and my very own mailbox! The raise was30 cents. :x As a youngin' I look at it as valuable job experience, because what I do requires a modicum of trust. I process return shipments and do all kinds of other weird shipping oddjobs. Did you know bubble bath solution is considered a hazardous material?
Technically my job is supposed to be tech-support, but I end up doing a lot of net admin stuff as well since half our department up and quit.
Interesting job so far, lots of daty entry and playing with large amounts of data. What's nice though is I don't deal with customers so much, only vendors and manufacturers.
Previously though, I worked on the America's Army Game Project as a community manager, and before that I worked at an Ammo Dump (ASP #1, Vilseck Germany). There have been other jobs, but those were the most interesting.
I still don't know what I want to do, being from a military family (my family has been military on both sides every generation for as far back as family records go) I have a strong (massively strong) desire to go military still. It would be nice, but I don't know if it would be feasible with a wife and a young son.
Degree wise I started my Comp Sci Degree, but quit school after a year or so. Coding is no longer for me, I'm now trying to figure out what exactly I want to major in. *shrug*
It pays well, especially since I'm in college and only work weekends (the two most lucrative days of the week).
I am currently in the Visual arts program (for fun, mostly), and will move on to the Music and the preforming arts after I get my two year diploma. After I'm done in music, I will probably move on to the humanities and english, mabye get a BA if I feel like it. So, basically I will be a career student for 8-10 years if I don't get sick of it.
After that, depending on what happens, I will definitely want to start a family and have kids, so I'll need a stable job. I am happy with almost anything, so I was thinking that if I can't get a decent position somewhere as a writer, artist, or musician, I might go into police work or perhaps IT or if im brave, get a degree in education and become a teacher.
The problem is that I've been in school for about oh 19 years in a row and don't have a lot of what you'd call "skills."
Sometimes I just want to say fuck it and go work at Starbucks but the lifestyle I've become accustomed to (thanks Mom and Dad for being generous with the moneys) sort of demands more income than that.
Bah.
Right in one
It was basically 6 months (should have been a year) of workflow analysis, build, and really terrifyingly poor testing for a patient safety critical system followed by alternating 3 weeks on site babysitting bitchy doctors and wildly understaffed nurses as they come live and 3 weeks build for the next wave of sites.
And my condolences to Mr DG. The only job more thankless than implementor is tech services. What area specifically does he work in? If it's scanning, notewriter, or order transmittal I might have to stable him and/or become his best friend.
I mean that a criminology (the same as criminal justice) degree is useless. It's a four year degree and nothing more. It's become the new jock "easy a" course, next to a generic business degree. Policework has gone to shit, and if you're anywhere near the realm of qualification I personally think it's actually harder to get the job because they don't want to pay to train you, just to loose you a year later.
Stick with IT, or some advanced business admin/foreign business degree. I got lucky because I can do a lot of hardware oriented IT stuff, and it gave me a fallback career thankfully, but if it weren't for that I'd still be a floor supervisor at officemax, with a four year degree about as good as toilet paper.
Also, unless you're lucky and can get a job immediately after school, prepare to spend a lot of time in unpaid internships.
I left that job when I moved to work on my master's degree, spent a couple of years as a graduate assistant. Finished there and the only thing I could find was... phone support. Help desk, then I lost that job and had to move back home. Have spent the last year working tech support for an ISP and am back to feeling sick of my job and wanting to just walk out the door most days.
Getting ready to start a new job search... had a /very/ good line on a job (family connections plus hiring guy liked me... but ended up loosing out to someone with experience). Now waiting to see if my dad gets a promotion that would require him to move to the D/FW area. I think it'll be a much better environment for an IT job than what I have here. I think security is the specialization area I want to get into but want more experience before heading that way, so looking for a Systems or Network Administrator position. Or... anything else. Anything not phone support. Please? *goes off to cry self to sleep*
I just gotta say, if it's something you really want to try don't give up just yet. I actually just got out of the Army in december, I did the infantry thing for a little over three years and I have a steel rod in my tibia and four screws. It's not impossible to get in with hardware, and dare I say I was a pretty badass cyborg automatic riflemen.
Anyways, since I got out I've done alot of dabbling trying to find a job that I like. I joined the army when I was 18 so I have no work experience other than the military and not very many people are looking to hire grunts. I did a short stint as a private investigator, following people around prying into their private lives. It was mostly husbands hiring us to follow their wives to see if their cheating and such. Pretty interesting and it's not too hard living on 20+ an hour when you're camped outside someones house all night.
I'm really trying to move back into a federal position, I've applied for some investigator work with the USDA (crazy I know) and I also have a dream of being a Federal Air Marshall for some crazy reason so I'm following that path right now.
Oh, and radiology technician. It does require a degree at most places but I've heard of some hospitals that will do on the job training. I think it would be pretty cool to take xrays and just fuck around with patients.
We operate on sales target based commission. Hit the target? awesome you start making some pretty serious money pretty quickly. Miss the target? Well at my level you are looking at getting demoted, and your take home pay for that month is min wage.
How did i get the job? Well i'd just flunked out of the final year of a programming course, and needed money fast. I walked into the head office, with no sales skills, and was hired on the spot after a ~2 hour interview. That was over a year ago now, and since then I've climbed the ranks from casual -> part time -> full time -> my current position "Closer".
What's next? I want to move up into more prestigious sales. But for a 20yo male with no higher education to his name, I'm doing very well for myself where i am rite now.
Oh and I used to be a ski coach before the library made me frail.
I got here by needing a job and being too lazy to look around
I can only go up, but I'm looking at either a coffee shop or the nearby theatre
I'm majoring in history at Appalachian State, with no idea what I want to do with that.
Right now, however, I'm working in a library on the reference desk around 6 hours a week. Reference work is pretty...well, reference desks hardly get used anymore, so most questions I field are things like "How do I print?" which I hardly need a 2 year graduate degree to answer. Even the more difficult research questions I can usually help with, but I have been working in this particular library field for about three years now.
I also work in the IS department's computer/tech lab, which is basically just a place where the students come to do their homework. Questions here include "The printer's jammed." Okay, that's not a question, you got me. :P I'm also helping with the redesign on the department's website, basically sorting through the HTML code and fixing errors. Apparently building a crappy Pokemon site in middle school is actually good training for working.
Where am I gonna be when I graduate? Well, I'm taking an information architecture class right now, and that seems somewhat interesting. Basically, "information architects" are those guys who make up the wireframes of how they want the site to look after doing a bunch of user research. I guess. That's what the prof says anyway. Not having any experience out in that big scary real world, I don't really have any idea how these sorts of things play out. But anyway, yeah, almost certain I don't want to be a librarian. They keep telling me that there's a bajillion things I can do with this degree, but really, aren't people just gonna look at my resume and think "Hey, you worked in a library a lot, and you've got a library degree. Go shush people or something"?
Whee. :P
Right before Christmas I got a job offer from a software company down in LA, and I took it. It's a document imaging/management company; they write software to convert paper documents into digital format. I'll be working as a technical consultant. More detailed job description is that I'll be working with clients to figure out what they exactly need, and talking to our software engineers to help them customize the features.
After I accepted the job I asked the manager why they wanted me there, and he said that TC is a new position at their company and they needed someone who understood the software process and at the same time had people skills. Turns out that's a pretty rare combination, which explains why they wanted me so badly.
I'm pretty excited because working with a variety of clients will allow me to establish a wide range of contacts, which I'm planning to take advantage of when I start my own technology consulting company in the future. Also, if I do a good job they might hire additional TCs and that would mean I'd have seniority among them. :P