Really need to vent right now, this eats away at me on a regular basis.

I just started my 4th year of local community college since graduating high school class of 05. I have never had a clear understanding of what I want to study or what I want to do with my life. I've changed my "major" a bunch of times, and I think want to change it again. My major right now is Environmental Policy Design and I'm due to start at UC Davis Fall 09 under that major.

For whatever reason, and this is how it always goes, I find myself wondering "Why the HELL did I choose that major? Why did I think I was into that kind of stuff?" I now think I want to go back to Civil Engineering which is what I wanted to do out of high school, but never perused it because I got scared off by what I now view as fairly basic math (calc I). It's always been my passion and people have been saying that's what I should do since I was 6 years old building the big Technic LEGO sets labeled "Ages 14+" or whatever.

Changing to civil engineering means another 3 years at my local college then I transfer. I feel like it's too long, that would be 7 years community college before transferring, but the more I hear about this job market and the high wages and lifetime job security the more it seems worth it.

What kind of similar dilemmas do you guys encounter?

Sounds like a lot more money, but yeah, EPD or whatever sounds pretty specialized...

I would graduate with your EDP degree and then continue taking classes parttime if Civil Engineering is what your really want to do.

It's been my experience that a Bachelors degree isnt much different than a highschool diploma, it just represents a certain level of intelligence and dedication. The Civil Engineering field might be different, but I would imagine you could get an entry level job with your EDP degree as long as you mention in interviews that you are working towards your engineering degree.

Welcome to modern education where the point isn't to learn and grow it is to decide where your cubicle is.

The head of my architecture department told us how often she reads in entrance letters of the person claiming he or she was inspired to go into the architectural/engineering field because of "fascinated with Legos in my youth." They are also of the worst letters she read.

The morale of my post is this: whatever field you go into, Dash, don't write down Lego sets as an inspiration.

What if you're one of those people that builds really huge things out of legos?

Get a job!


Seriously, if In doubt, take time of and go work an internship or two ( or something similar).

The thing is, you are trying to decide what kind of work you want to do for the rest of your life, yet in most college curriculum you don't start anything resembling real world work until your 300 or 400 level subject classes, and sometimes even those don't give you a fell for what things are really going to be like.

Taking some time to actually do and see the work on a daily basis can really help you narrow down what you want to do. Plus, most companies love hiring interns (cheap labor FTW!), and it always looks good on a resume.

For once I agree with rob.



Reguardless, I look at it this way, better to spend the extra few years pursuing what you WANT to do, then spend the next 40 years til retirement doing something you absolutely hate. In comparasion, the 3 years will be nothing. I wouldn't view the past four years as a waste, but rather just a time of self discovery so to speak.

If you can do it financially, I'd say go for it. You defenitely do NOT want to get stuck in a career you hate. I've watched that happen with my father even to this day, its not a happy road.

Go where the money is. If you're like the majority of people in the world, you're going to eventually hate your job anyways.

Yeah, that's my new philosophy.

If you're going to hate your job anyway, you might as well make a lot of money doing it.

In some ways I'm going through the same thing as you are, Dash. I'm in my fourth year of software engineering and since the middle of the third year, I'm quite unsure of if I'm going into the right field. Heck I'm not even sure if I can consider myself an "engineer." Unlike other my other colleagues, I don't get a hard-on from programming or learning about programming languages. I can say the same for building stuff in general for the most part (aside from Legos).




You can't be more right...

i'm going to be a Games Designer and Artist, and get paid 40k after a few promotions. Boo hoo you guys, i rule, you dont! lol!

Actually i'm going to remain a massive loser who gets nowhere in life and continuously donates sperm as his only way of creating offspring.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

I agree with the suggestion to try a lot of different jobs and internships until you find one you like. Maybe it's just me and my friends, but we have all found that working in emergency services or at other similar jobs seems like it would be very rewarding, despite the crap pay. Maybe look at something like that? Ignore the money and just see what you really enjoy doing.

That is so sad. Sorry dude :-P.

Yeah, I'm sorry too, but will probably be less sorry when I'm pulling in close to half a million a year. At that point, it's also much easier to move into something you like doing and support yourself doing it, like the wealthy fogeys who teach at my school.

The other thing is, I don't know what I want to do, but my education thus far points in certain directions, so the opportunity costs of just stopping and doing something else are quite high: e.g. if I dropped everything to pursue visual art, for instance, I would start out as a novice and have to start all over educationwise, devoting time and money that I just don't have and my parents won't offer.

For instance, I originally thought about being a philosophy major, but my parents wouldn't have supported it financially and in today's lovely economy, I probably would have ended up like my philosophy major friends: in debt, trying to get into grad school (more debt), and/or then working in a field quite unrelated to philosophy (e.g. publishing, teaching high school English, factory work, etc.).

I'm interested in pretty much everything, but seemingly passionate about nothing, or at least nothing productive. Professional lazy person has good job security, but the benefits just aren't there.

Alternatively, my friends and I are thinking of starting a business, which would be fun and exciting (apparently), but probability is against such ventures succeeding.

What do you do, ragna, that you're so happy you can condescend to sadly shake your head over my career mentality? Please, do tell us the secret to happiness.

If you're interested in pretty much everything (and get bored with narrow job duties), maybe you could get in with a firm that does a lot of different things and somehow negotiate a broad job description with minimal supervision.

Good luck with that.

Might be easier to found your own company and give yourself such a position than to negotiate one with an existing company. Might be worth a shot before whoring yourself to our corporate overlords.

While this is true, I think it is a result of modern society, not the fault of education itself. Learning and growing is good and fine, but at the end of the day you still need to feed yourself. If you want to "learn and grow," go to graduate school.

Which I have always felt should not be the point of education, but an unexpected byproduct.

Very few people want to learn one thing and do one thing for their entire life.

I'm on like life job 3, which I'm hoping is diverse enough that I can go do something else after I get tired of it.

(FYI, I have to take a foreign language for a bachelors, might as well be Italian. Lots of people that work for Ducati are from aviation. Might be a rad possibility that I doubt will ever happen)

Also at the end of the day you need government-subsidized daycare so you can work if you have children.

What is your plan for making half a million a year? I can't think of any major that just gets you into that carer path. While it is certainly possible, it requires something extraordinary beyond a mere degree.

I like my job (well, for the most part anyway). I could not imagine working in a field I hated; going to work every day would be just absolutely dreadful.

i'm going to go to Pacific Maritime Institute, get a 1600 ton near coastal Mates license and a 500 ton offshore license, and make $300~ a day. Work for two months with room/board (and no way to spend money), then come home with 15k and a few months of vacation. Awesome.

What is it?

As for me, I need something that Finns need, as the job market there is pretty tough right now. I have interesting in history, philosophy, physics, English, and nature (i.e. thinking about doing what DSettahr does, or go into botany or something). So it's still kind of hard to decide since I have no idea what the Finns need.

I think, if you can find a way to make that happen during a four year degree, you would be a very rich man.

The idea that you're forced to specialize so soon in a college career prevents any sort of real growth. From the get go you're already put on tracks you'd be hard pressed to break away from due to the cost or for other reasons.

The entire system needs to be re-worked.

i agree with rob.

which is also my name. crazy.

Most decent schools have exploration programs. You can spend years in one at a state school if you really wanted.


It's not perfect at all, but I can't help think your words are those of someone who flunked out and is blaming it all on the system.

I've only flunked out of a few high school classes that weren't interesting and that I didn't care about/need or want but was forced to take anyways.

But it has no bearing on the validity of my opinion even if I was a college drop out.

I know that it doesn't. Notice that I do agree with you to some extent. I just think that you may be more than a little bit biased.

Oh and, now that I remember, you aren't the dropout. That's Freelancer lol

Ex-mormon drop out with a beard and no credit

That is so epic I can't even scratch the surface of how epic it is.

Haha.

Now that I think of it, Mormons seriously are only second to jews when it comes to doing business and they also heavily frown on beards, so it really wouldn't surprise me if part of the reason for both is to distance myself from them.
And you'll notice I'm still a fairly intelligent person. Besides, ~40% of college attendees will drop out before getting a diploma, so it's nothing special.

Haha, no really, of course diploma does not mean "intelligent" I can tell you that from first hand experience.


Not that I don't believe you, but I think you just made that up on the spot. Citation? Or did you drop out before they taught you how to do that?

har har har

I didn't make it up; I did a bit of research a long time ago.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10053859/
http://www.youngmoney.com/blog/index.php?p=25
http://newsblaze.com/story/2007091202000800001.mwir/topstory.html

Seems that a more recent study by the Dept. of Education pegs it at 50%.

BS Business, JD, MBA, PhD might help + several years experience with a good firm -> Mergers and acquisitions.

You appear to have forgotten the years upon years of luck and good fortune necessary to thrive... hell even SURVIVE... in the type of high risk work you are describing.

I think he also forgot that he's probably going to commit suicide because the pressure is going to make his hair fall out.

All I hear is, "Blah blah blah, you can't do it." Get in line. Especially you, Rob. I don't pass judgment on your career choices, but now that you mention it, have fun with mediocrity.

Because an A/P mechanic with his Avionics Line Maintenance is such a pauper!

What you hear sir is the crushing weight of reality.

If everyone could make so much money. DING DING DING, we'd all be ****ing rich.

Actually, prices would adjust and we'd all be middle income.

Doesn't change anything else I said.

People that still believe that by simply working hard they will succeed are the ones that are crushed the most when they find out that this simply isn't true at all.