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Creative Careers
6_Vitium_6_Concubine_6
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So I am 2 semesters into college and having trouble deciding what to major in. I work for a Civil Engineering firm and was planning on going to school for that. But I realized I don't want to spend my life doing the job I already have, even if I am making a lot more money. Then I thought about architecture, which is cool and I've done before, but it's still very similar to my current job.
I want career ideas for jobs that are creative and pay well. I like to draw and paint, I play guitar heavily, I like video games but hate coding and the like. I'm good with computers. I'm really into music. I'd prefer stuff that wasn't necessarily a desk job, but I am open to desk jobs if they are interesting.
I want career ideas for jobs that are creative and pay well. I like to draw and paint, I play guitar heavily, I like video games but hate coding and the like. I'm good with computers. I'm really into music. I'd prefer stuff that wasn't necessarily a desk job, but I am open to desk jobs if they are interesting.
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Don't do it unless you can only see yourself doing it. I am working in music while going part-time to school from 8AM to 11PM every day of the week. If I didn't love every second of it, there is no way I could keep up my schedule, and there's certainly no way I could keep up my schedule without bitching out the actors I have to deal with by the last rehearsal, and if I were to do that, well there goes my schedule, and with it my money.
Art in general is something that you don't just say "Yeah, well I have this well-paying job but maybe I'll try being an artist!" because 99 times out of 100 you'll end up hating it. There's this big romanticism of the idea of being a musician or artist and it's totally off-base. You can't just say "Yeah I really want to do this" and do it.
Now, I'm a composer, and here's an example of my schedule:
8:00-9:30 AM Class
9:30-11:00 AM Class
11:00 AM-5:00 PM Work as a copyist/meet with lyricist/Accompany 3-4 voice lessons/maybe work on original work
5:00-7:00 PM: Accompanist for a show choir
7:00-11:00PM: Musical Director/Vocal Director for a show
11:00PM-whenever I am done: Typing up and preparing notes for the next day, meet with lyricist if we didn't earlier, and sometimes if we did, quick cleaning up of original work.
Since I started working as a musician I have lost 30 pounds because I only have time for 1 meal each day, and even that I normally have to rush.
I do this schedule, and I deal with going through a rehearsal hungry and not getting sleep and doing jobs that aren't my specialty and dealing with people at the end of a day that's already been too long for 4 hours because I love it to death, and I would give anything to work in the field, and I have never considered doing anything else because I'm just so happy when I'm doing music.
But you have to have that commitment. And just as a note, I'm a lucky musician. I'm a damn good sightreader on piano, incredible as an accompanist, and none too shabby on the instrument for performances either, which is in really, really, really high demand at the skill level we're talking about, and a musical director who has classical music training, not theater training, who will not be a pain to work with. Most musicians are not as lucky, and have to teach lessons to stupid 10-year-old pricks who don't want to practice but want to be able to play guitar wicked cool, and play for birthday parties and play for kids and all sorts of stupid shit like that. If you're a guitarist, you're either going to have to be incredible, beyond lucky, or ok with doing shit to have the career.
Now I say all this not to dissuade you, but it sounds like you're really looking for a magic bullet job that's really just getting paid for a hobby. Creative jobs aren't like that. And they don't pay well unless you're amazing or lucky in some way. And if you haven't been preparing to be a professional musician(or for that matter, artist of any sort) already for years, you're going to be behind everyone else.
Honestly, I know the idea of being a professional artist of some sort is really nice, but the actual implementation of artistic careers isn't sitting in a room with a guitar waiting for inspiration to strike and getting paid a lot for it. It's slaving over the instrument until the pads of your fingers are bruised and then playing for another three hours, and going to shitty performances and art shows so you can talk to the MD or Instrumentalist, or artist, or whoever about getting more work, and going to parties with people you don't know so that they'll hire you and never, ever having time off. If you love what you're doing enough to put up with that, then it's incredibly rewarding. I enjoy slaving over the piano for 7-8 hours at a time, and sucking up to everyone so that they'll hire me and not having a social life because I need to play for some vocalist who can't sing.
It's a fucking tough life, but if it's what you love doing, it's worth it.
The other catch is that I'd argue creative "jobs" don't really exist, as in a job being defined as work you do for a company. Companies need specific things -- logos, illustrations, and so on. You can use a skill or talent, but if you're an illustrator hired by a zoo to do animal mugs and other drawings for zoo memorabilia, you're going to be spending a lot of time drawing the same set of animals.
To take a video game example, the guys at Bungie have a pretty sweet room set up for audio work, and the guy working in there probably really likes his job. But he has to create music for a predetermined mood, is probably given a timeline for how long his tracks/pieces must be, and can't branch out into new styles or moods because he's working on Halo, which set a thematic sound in the first game and has to stick relatively close to those thematics.
Both people probably like their jobs, because they're doing something interesting using a skill. But I seriously doubt they consider their jobs to be all about creativity -- I wouldn't be surprised if both types of people go home and do something entirely different with their free time. Why? Because jobs are stressful, and if you spend 40-60 hours a week doing one thing, you're not going to want to spend your free time doing that same thing.
Now, I've known a system's admin or two who spend all day monitoring network traffic and then go home and sit in front of a computer all night, but they don't express any interest in being creative.
I guess the short of it is that you should look at a job that complements your hobbies well, rather than one that IS your hobby. You can make it work the other way around, but many who do find that making your hobby your job turns your hobby into... a job. And you typically must then learn standard business things and often spend more time on administration (finding work, billing, being a secretary, etc.) than actually doing creative work.
I have thought about going to school for music, and I'm pretty good at guitar ( I can play Cannon Rock and some other extremely technical metal and classical pieces), but I just don't know what kinds of avenues there are for employment. Or what kind of degrees there are related to that.
I also don't have any fantasies about being an "artist". I just want something that is more creative than engineering, which is doing math all day.
As an example of the info im looking for a helpful response would be like this:
"You could major in "X" and you would be qualified to do "X job" when you get out of college." or "If you major in "Y" there are few different avenues for employment with that degree such as..."
My goal is to just find something that I will enjoy, rather than having a clock in clock out job.
I just remembered, I have yet another friend who went to school for illustration. She finished school and answered phones at a children's hospital. She creates some very attractive christmas cards each year, though. She's looking to go back to more school, to get a master's in Architecture.
There's really no set path from a creative major, even one that seems somewhat practical, to a job that's creative. And even then, there's plenty of nerds who graduate college and make some money, and then decide they want to rock out and make a band.
I am going to go with a take on Eggy's. Get a job that you can stand, even if it is boring. Then use your free time to do hobbies.
But if you really don't want to do a job like that, then get a music or art degree and see where those take you. But really?...Really? Eggy is on point.
First off, these types of jobs either require a fantastic amount of natural talent or a passion so great that you do the enormous amounts of work required to make up for any lack of natural talent. If you do have the natural talent or do the work and go into a performance degree, you'll have a few career possibilities. You can find yourself in a band (extremely unlikely that it'll go anywhere, though) or as a session musician (dull as hell and mediocre pay unless you're the best musician in LA). You will be a freelancer and have to budget very carefully, as your revenue stream will be very irregular. What is far more likely to happen, unfortunately, is that you'll have to find a day job as you'll have no work and your primary career will turn into a hobby as you jockey a grill or work a low end office job.
A lightly more possibility is going into both education and music at the same time, so that when you graduate you can work as a band teacher. This is a very hard job that requires a great deal of dedication and love for the job as you'll receive little pay and the students may be difficult. For perspective: when I went through high school I had an amazing band teacher, but he was at school by 6AM every day and left most days at 7-8PM, with maybe a free hour for lunch somewhere in there. He made around 60k a year and had 25+ years of seniority, but this is up in Canada where I believe we pay our teachers slightly better.
What would be best is for you to realize that the fantasy of having a job you love is in reality a very rare experience. Most everyone works a dull job that they either hate or don't mind and instead live for the time when they aren't at work. If you do happen on a job you love, that's great, but very very unlikely. Instead you may want to settle for a job that pays well and that you don't mind, and use the material wealth it brings you to pursue whatever desires you feel will actually make you happy in your spare time.
My advice would be the following: stay at your current position and go for a business degree. Based on the OP, I'm fairly certain that you'll find business courses very boring and uninspiring, but if you go this route and stick with it, you'll be building a good foundation and safety net for yourself. I'd also kick around taking some economic courses, or maybe doing a double-major in biz/marketing... any of those combinations for a major/minor or double-major.
Next, stay at your current job: it sounds like you can make a good living and you have security there. Don't take this lightly--I know from personal experience that you can end up dealing with years of unemployment, underemployment, and a massive ego check as well as horrible debt or credit rating nightmares if you brush off a great first job because you may feel you're worthy of something more important or more fulfilling. Quitting a job to play in a band full time would be a blast, but it's probably not going to help you get the bills paid.
Once you get a business degree: Keep sticking with that current day job, and now that you're done with your studies, devote your free time to your hobbies, and start focusing on a way to turn those hobbies into products that people will pay for. You're biz degree will allow you the skillset to figure out a way to turn your fun hobbies into a paycheck. Remember, especially in this day and age, people will pay money for just about anything if it's marketed right, and you can turn your artistic talents into design skills. What you want to do is figure out a way to get a business plan together and market your talents so that people will pay you to do what you enjoy, but you'll also have your ass covered because you've done your homework on how to start and run a business and market yourself and your talents.
Options: You start finding clients and/or doing freelance work--you'll have to get super-busy with networking. Don't ever feel that any project is beneath you. You could design corporate brochures, brands and logos with your painting and drawing. You could do commercial music work--radio or local TV jingles. You'll have to start out at the bottom with stuff like this, but then you eventually build that client list, get more exposure locally and possibly nationally, find more clients, charge higher fees, work on bigger and better projects for more money. While you're doing this, that good day job you've kept is still keeping you safe and secure and allowing you to add new equipment and capabilities to your small but growing home business, with the ultimate goal of having your dream business being your prime income so you can finally leave that day job.
Please remember: there are no guarantees with any of this. It all depends how hard you want to work at it and how dedicated you are to creating your own career, rather than trying to find someone else to hire you to do stuff that you'll enjoy. Forge your own career that you'll love; don't look for someone else to hand you one that probably doesn't exist.
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Working on games, even as a programmer, requires a ton of creativity. There's no one right answer to anything in games. With AI, you need to make it "believable." With networking, you need to use smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that what you're seeing is a fifth of a second behind what the server is seeing. EggyToast is way off the money, there. The artistic side of the business requires even more creativity than programming. Yes, you are given direction, but do you think concept artists, modelers, animators, musicians, and foley artists don't put their own creative input into their work?
I get paid good money. I've worked here for a year, and realistically, I could buy a house within the next year. I'm not bragging. I'm explaining that I work a job that I love, that requires creativity, and I get paid well.
I am starting a path towards an artistic career myself. Some things I can tell you;
Get involved in classes in whatever aspect you decide to do. In fact taking some general classes to help find your voice(so to speak) is very good as well.
You mention Music, but aren't sure how to go about finding what kind of career/job/degrees are involved. School is an excellent place to find this stuff out. A lot of people in the respective faculty will be glad to help you, and point you in the right direction for whatever information you're looking for. Some may even be invoved in the respective field/community themselves, and can present you with opportunities. This doesn't have to be School(University/college), it can be volunteer or non Institution related classes too. There's just more at schools.
Networking is very important. You're going to have to meet and talk to a lot of different people in the creative/artistic community.
Look for events, seminars, whatever to get involved with, even if it isn't exactly focusing on the specific thing you're interested in. You gain valuable knowledge/info, and meet cool people too. Immersion in the various communities is very important.
Use the newspaper, internet, whatever resources are available to you, to find these things(events, opportunites, etc).
I now work in a large automotive corporation, part-timing as the mail clerk while editing and translating flyers for Marketing.
I'm basically with what Eggy says. Keep in mind creativity doesn't mean you get money from it. A very small amount of people can have a job in which they love and/or enjoy the ability to be creative by their own means. And this isn't simply art and music.
My father is a carpenter. A jack of all trades, he is also an experienced electrician, plumber, bricklayer, etc. He built our house. He repairs houses for family friends. He gets paid 5k+ to plan and put up long lasting walls and other projects ever since his "retirement." This is my dad's creativity and he enjoys it regardless of all the hardships he's withstood.
I was able to find a job doing the same thing, but before I even looked i signed up for college. The hope that at the end of my 6 years of hard work I will have a job that doesn't bring me to the point of nihilism is the only thing that is keeping me working.
So tell me, what can I go to college for that is more interesting than civil engineering. I believe everyone has a calling in life and I'm just want to know whats out there because right now the only viable jobs that exist in my world is civil, and architecture.
I'm not DOING usability stuff; I'm in publishing. But my job works with disseminating scholarly works and I am still able to do what I like doing through my coworkers and my publishing contacts, whom I work with on a daily basis.
I was into sciences, food science to be exact, under the pretense that people need to eat and there's always going to be stuff going on. But it was still science, and I didn't like the idea of doing math all day, whether via actual math or via chemistry. Too nebulous.
I can't say my path is right for you. I realized that in most jobs, your job title is only a portion of your actual work, and that it often comes down to the more superficial elements of a job that makes or breaks it. For instance, I'm passively social -- I like company, I won't turn people away, but I don't seek out people to talk to. I'm happy when I can sit with headphones on for 2-3 hours, listening to music and doing my job. But if someone calls me, or comes up to me, I'm also happy to talk to them, even if it's not work related. That's not anything you'll find in a job description, but rather a function of workplace and the type of job it is.
The problem is that a lot of this ends up being sort of nebulous. You can't go to school to find out what sort of work environment you prefer. Some people LOVE the craziness of being a barista and then find they cannot function in a quiet, slow paced job. There's no major for what reads as a personal ad: "Extrovert seeking thrills and interaction in a challenging job I enjoy," or "Quiet person looking for position I can do math and not be bothered."
If you're not totally broke, spend a year just "doing stuff" at college -- taking classes in different fields. You've already got some background in math, so skip that stuff. Don't take Art History classes, or painting, but dip into some of the different majors. Talk to the counselors in different colleges.
For instance, if you're good at math but sick of the relatively cold approach of engineering, perhaps something more real-world oriented like Economics (macro or price theory) would interest you. If you're good at math, it makes sense to go into a field that uses those skills -- after all, even if it's not that interesting, being able to perform a job well helps greatly with avoiding stress later in life. Just remember, college isn't about finding the Perfect Job, it's about Developing Skills, and it's up to you to see what you think you're good at and test it out. If you're good at it, and you like it, ta da! You can often discover a lot about different vocations simply by taking a single class in that field.
I never thought I would like rhetoric, public speaking, document layout, or any of that shit, until I took a class in the major and was like "wow, since the teacher wants me to write/speak about something I actually care about, I'm really enjoying this!" I knew my major was for me when, like, the first class I took was a public speaking class and I actually enjoyed it, because I had to pick my subjects (instead of them being assigned).
It's not up to us to decide what your calling is. Go with your heart. Find something you love to do and try to make a living off of it. I knew at 12 that I loved making games. From there, I put all my effort towards learning to do it "for real." Find something that you've loved doing for a long time, and that you don't see yourself ever not loving, and do it. If you can go to school for something related to it, or if not, just learn. Learn a lot about many different things. It never hurt anyone to know a lot of stuff, even if it's completely unrelated to their career.
That said, as others have pointed out, no one here can tell you what you like. Maybe you really like weaving baskets, and you should follow that path? But realistically, I'm sure there are people on this very forum that got a liberal arts degree in something they really enjoyed and would kill for the kind of job you let fly out the window because you thought it too dull.
Unless you're absolutely a genius, it's difficult to make money in a "creative" career. Sad, but so it goes. Figure out what you want to do, then figure out if that can pay the bills, THEN pick a job.
The disclaimer, these people hate thier jobs. They just pay well and have job security. But its a hell of a lot of work. A painful amount of work.
Often non fantasy "creative" jobs and working to the point of exhaustion go hand in hand.