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Oh man, trades make an absolute killing, that's a good suggestion. If you don't mind getting your hands dirty doing something like Plumbing will easily net you something like 6 figures, or high 5 figures no sweat.
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Oct 12, 2015 16:40
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Parrotine posted:You can learn all of that in the $300 a month course, that quote covers none of the enhanced material. Also good luck getting stack overflow to answer even half of your questions, you are playing the long, slow game with that route. I'm sorry man, but there are MANY alternatives that cost 1/10th of what you paid. Lynda.com, TeamTreehouse.com, etc. I've been with TeamTreehouse.com for the last year, paid less in total than what you did for a month, and I charge $50/hour to freelance and have 0 shortage of work. Anything charging more than $50/month is a complete scam, because all of the common web stack is so widely used that there are resources everywhere.
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Oct 21, 2015 00:13
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89 posted:How about film? I haven't done it in a while, but that's what I was originally gonna go to school for when I was coming out of high school. I always had a knack for it and loved doing it. Everything from the editing, the equipment, the shooting, and I've always liked to imagine I'd be a great actor. I also love a form of telling stories. My only college education so far is a 2-year film degree. Now I'm reading this thread because I'm in the same boat as you. To play devil's advocate, though, if you're really passionate about filmmaking/acting a decent film school (and not even an expensive one) can be a great way to meet fellow artists, jump start a network, and get some invaluable hands-on experience. I've spent the better part of a decade in acting and dabbling in different arenas of filmmaking. I've had some good runs of semi-professional side work, and even lucked out with a few years of meagerly-paid full-time work. I've drawn tremendously on the experience/contacts I gained in those couple years of school. However, maybe 10% of the people I met there (and that estimate may be generous) ended up really working in the industry full time. Many people (myself included), regardless of talent or drive, still have boring day jobs well into their thirties or forties to supplement their acting/filmmaking "careers." Many of them are currently in food/liquor service. So in short, film/acting school can be great for learning film/acting, but you would have to highly temper your expectations of it changing your bread-and-butter career path.
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Nov 4, 2015 07:28
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district 12 posted:if you don't know what you want to study yet I would figure that out before you go back. Of the choices listed I think nursing is the way to go, it's an industry that isn't going away and is always in demand and it pays great at the higher levels. Like really great. It is hard though. The mention of trade school is good. all my opinion.
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Nov 4, 2015 19:11
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Do not sign up for classes until you know what you want to do AND have verified that college is the best way to become qualified. Example: an exercise science degree might help you get a job as a trainer but it's not required at all. The debt and the cost of your time isn't worth it. Lots of college programs are like this but the school is always going to tell you that more tuition can solve your problem no matter what the problem is. I'd really recommend a trade or a two year (part time?) program in something like welding, radiology tech, etc at a community college. It gets you out of the bar and gets you a job that can pay any school debt you incur. If you do something like this and then decide to get a BS to build on it after you work a bit, great. Real talk, studying film/art/psych is going to be a disaster, sorry.
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Nov 5, 2015 04:55
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avoid for profit schools.
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Nov 5, 2015 16:22
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there is a lot of good advice so far but ill throw some pennies in the ring.... If you find a subject you truly love and are willing to put the hours in of self study then go for it. Especially in the creative side of things its all well and good knowing a a lot but if you cant bring ideas to the table and then in to reality whats the point... if you are just doing it to get a qualification for the sake of it its a waste of time, for young people to get a degree in anything it makes sense, it proves you are reasonable intelligent / hard working. but racking up debt for an education that may get you nowhere is just stupid and a waste of time. find what you are good at a nail it. that's the secret to a rewarding and fulfilling career / life, you just have to have the balls to make it happen.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:05
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antiga posted:Do not sign up for classes until you know what you want to do AND have verified that college is the best way to become qualified. Example: an exercise science degree might help you get a job as a trainer but it's not required at all. The debt and the cost of your time isn't worth it. Lots of college programs are like this but the school is always going to tell you that more tuition can solve your problem no matter what the problem is. I big time, big time appreciate every single person in this thread. I've come to a conclusion that I don't need to jump into this so blind and be so brash. Honestly, how this all came to be....got my heart broken by my ex girlfriend about a couple of months ago. The scapegoat she tried using on me was that her family didn't approve of me (without meeting me). Because I was a 28 year old loser who's a bartender with no ambition. If I was gonna make anything of myself, I already would have made the necessary steps to do it a long time ago. And that I bartend because I'm a huge alcoholic (I'm probably the most sober bartender in a 500 mile radius) which was a "concern" because her ex-husband was a hardcore alcoholic that beat her. I later found out this was just a cover up and really, at the end of the day, she's just crazy and I bought in too quickly and blind and need to keep my penis out of crazy. BUT, I DO need to start making steps in a more secure direction. I know too many friends that have talked to me a lot lately about this all and have gone through a ton of school and now sit with no job and $40k+ in debt. After I've mentioned that I don't really know what I want to do with school, they've all basically hit me over the head with a hammer saying "Don't do it if you don't know what you want" because of all of that debt. The three things I'd actually want to do there and know I would excel at would be Film, Photography, or Graphic Design. All of which are bullshit degrees that I can accomplish the same result without a degree. Trade school sounds great, though. Radiology sounds interesting. I was thinking their annual wage was close to $25k, which would be a step back for me (I'm doing about $35k). But some stuff is saying they do closer to $55k? A trade program sounds a lot safer for a "backup" career anyways than dumping a ton of money into a regular university.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:49
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Definitely seconding going to community college. This will help you get used to working in a classroom while also giving you room to explore what you want while not losing a ton of money. The goal with education is to open doors, spiritually and career-wise. The big difference between a lot of people who go back to school and finish and those who don't is how much they care about what they do. I work professionally in film, about 70% as an editor/VFX artist and 30% as a producer/director. If you're good at what you do and are in a good market (IE New York, LA, Chicago, or Atlanta), you can work your way up and make a decent living, but it takes a lot of work. I got an unrelated undergrad degree, but came out of college with enough technical skills (editing) that I could get a lovely job out of school. That led to a less lovely job, and another less lovely job. Now I make a decent living and am getting to make some cool things I'm proud of, but it took a while. My best advice, regardless of what industry you chose, is to look at your education as a holistic experience but also plan to learn a good trade skill (CS, bookmaking, editing, plumbing, whatever) while you're doing it. Have a game plan for when you get out.
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Nov 6, 2015 01:12
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SA is going to be a good resource for you because lots of threads exist about various professions. Do not take the school's word for it when they talk about expected salaries or what the work is like. My sister called me a few years back and said the national academy of sports medicine said she'd earn $75k after graduation as a personal trainer and was ready to write a check. I'll refrain from saying much because I live in a high cost of living state but if you have an associate's degree in a medical field and can fog a mirror, $50k should be a reasonable goal. Most trades will easily get you to $50k in most places but you'll have to work as an apprentice to get there, do your due diligence.
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Nov 6, 2015 20:34
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chunkles fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Nov 18, 2015 |
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Nov 8, 2015 08:18
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Community college is a good idea. I have serious reservations about recommending self-teaching programming. Some people do it, sure, but it's hard to learn real programming even in the context of a degree, self-taught programmers tend to either have large gaps in their knowledge, or they've got a tremendous knack for it (in which case they probably started coding seriously before college) or they've got a tremendous drive, or they 'self-taught' by falling into more and more programming tasks at their office job until the transformation was complete. Even if you don't want to do the full degree, taking even a handful of CS courses at a CC would make it so you're much likelier to succeed. If you decide to go down the CS route, check out this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3376083 Cicero fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 02:38
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Just to make sure as I really think this can't be said enough  AVOID FOR PROFIT SCHOOLS
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Nov 11, 2015 03:35
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I went back to school at 27, finished my bachelor's degree in civil engineering just as I turned 30. It has been very worth it for me to go back. The caveats are: I didn't take out loans because I had saved up money for awhile beforehand, I lived with my folks while I got my degree, and I worked while I got my degree. For a lot of people, college the first go-round is as much as about figuring out what you want to do with your life. That's not a good use of college, since for a lot of people it means bad grades and useless/unwanted degrees and debt by the time they finally figure something out. I knew I wanted to do civil engineering ( I had a passion for water resource engineering), and thus waking up at 6:30am to go to work, heading to school by 4, and staying till classes ended after 10 was worth it. It sounds like, and I could easily be wrong, that this is more of a "I don't like where I'm at in life" rather than "this is what I want to do with my life" change. I would strongly suggest that you try to find away to make this change because of the latter, rather than the former. I would try to get some feedback from people within some of the fields you're thinking about pursuing, i.e if you were looking to become a civil engineer, go to an ASCE meeting and introduce yourself and talk to people. They'll be happy to give feedback. Being a baby civil engineer at 30 hasn't been easy, even after graduation and working in a rewarding job. I can't imagine your struggles are going to be any easier.
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Nov 15, 2015 21:41
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Odddzy posted:Just to make sure as I really think this can't be said enough Just in case this hasn't been said enough. OP, I'm the same age and have wrestled with the same problem ever since I dropped out of college for health reasons. I snagged a lovely government job and climbed the ranks into a position that pays... okay but I do not have any semblance of passion for it. Complacency is very loving dangerous. My GF has a degree in Theater but works for a hip and successful local CS/database tech company and makes 50% more than me even though I have been working 7 years longer than her. You're American, right? The whole system is rigged for a good amount if the population that had the idea of "a college degree guarantees a good job" pounded in since 1st grade. It sounds like you don't know what you want to do and that's okay  How do you define success? It sounds like you're an affable guy and, if not making huge sums is okay, working for charities can be very enriching. It's all about managing expectations. No path will fulfill all your ideal criteria but maybe a lower paying job is low stress enough so that you can spend your free time perusing a hobby that is fun and maybe makes you some cash on the side. Few people can actually handle a cubicle job without wanting to get out all the time unless their work helps drive something important to them personally. Edit: Oh right, trades are severely underappreciated so most young people don't go for them. Had I known at 18 that electricians make an average of 90k/year in my area, you'd better loving believe I would have signed up for an apprenticeship. Inzombiac fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Nov 16, 2015 |
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Nov 16, 2015 06:05
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OP I spent my young adulthood as a listless, lazy piece of dump and didn't go back to school until I was in my mid 20s. I was overjoyed I didn't go when I was 18 because I was way more mature and approached college seriously. If I had gone young, I know I would have failed out because of personal bullshit and wasted my folks' money. Instead I graduated with great grades and got accepted to a top grad school for my program. It's doable, but you have to commit.
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Nov 16, 2015 15:11
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Echoing the avoid for profit schools advice, the community college is great advice, and the consider trade schools advice. But seriously, consider trade schools. I mean, seriously consider trade schools. Plumbers make almost as much as a CS major will, and in less training time. Also: Never take out private loans
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Nov 23, 2015 06:29
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Vino posted:Echoing the avoid for profit schools advice, the community college is great advice, and the consider trade schools advice. This is really not the case. People uphold trades as this really awesome career, but this advice seems to come from people who've never worked a trade. I've done pipe fitting and even prevailing wage can't touch what an SE earns normally. Being a tradesman sucks, it's largely feast or famine, there are times where you can get as much OT as you can possibly work, but then they'll be month-long dry spells where you're not making anything. They are also the first to be hit by any recessions. Plumbers have a median salary of just under $50,000/yr. The best in the field manage almost $90k. The median salary of a software engineer is over $90k In other words, the best paid tradesman make about as much as a typical software engineer.
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Nov 24, 2015 04:49
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Also trades tend to work about double the hours of a typical white collar job (although it'd be about the same as a programmer from the nightmare stories I've heard) .
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Nov 24, 2015 15:28
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computer parts posted:Also trades tend to work about double the hours of a typical white collar job (although it'd be about the same as a programmer from the nightmare stories I've heard) .
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Nov 24, 2015 17:59
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Cicero posted:Working 80 hour weeks as a coder would be extremely uncommon except maybe for certain finance companies. Even most game devs and startups won't work that much on average. Do people in finance actually work that much, or are they counting hobnobbing & going out for drinks as work hours? The type of people attracted to careers in finance also seem to me to be the type of people who would inflate how much they work.
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Nov 24, 2015 20:48
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silence_kit posted:Do people in finance actually work that much, or are they counting hobnobbing & going out for drinks as work hours? The type of people attracted to careers in finance also seem to me to be the type of people who would inflate how much they work. I have a friend who works in finance and he really works that much.
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Nov 24, 2015 22:34
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silence_kit posted:Do people in finance actually work that much, or are they counting hobnobbing & going out for drinks as work hours? The type of people attracted to careers in finance also seem to me to be the type of people who would inflate how much they work.
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Nov 24, 2015 23:21
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Ithaqua posted:I have a friend who works in finance and he really works that much. They make bank though and work on some really cool projects. The SE mentioned in the book Flash Boys, was making a salary in the mid 300s and a sizable yearly bonus. Double the work for quadruple the salary seems like a reasonable tradeoff. Not sure if that salary is typical of the industry though.
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Nov 25, 2015 03:57
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Cicero posted:Working 80 hour weeks as a coder would be extremely uncommon except maybe for certain finance companies. Even most game devs and startups won't work that much on average. Silicon Valley has been working at disrupting labor laws and the limits of human endurance for over a decade now. A lot of tech industry and startup types treat constant rushes and never seeing your family as a dickwaving boasting point, and the nerds eat it up. They're often the same companies that offer beer nights in lieu of a grownup benefits package. You don't have to work for those guys, but there's a lot of them and they're often the ones hiring (because of their massive turnover and/or starting and going out of business every two years); last few times I was interviewing here in DC I had to go through at least a couple places like that for every serious one that actually wanted to treat employees like skilled labor. really explains a lot about why every 50+ programmer and IT guy I meet is fat, diabetic, and crazy A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Nov 25, 2015 |
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Nov 25, 2015 07:29
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Oh hi, I went back to school to get a CS degree after 30 to get a decent job / not feel like a loser. It was a great decision, even with loans I took out, but a lot of that had to do with my particular financial/experience/not-having-kids situation. The math probably is what breaks most failed students. There is an excellent thread about CS and going into programming, but assuming you learn to do some basic code and are still interested, I would check out chapter 0 of this book: http://www.cin.ufpe.br/~jjss/Introcuction%20to%20Theory%20of%20computation%20by%20Micheal%20Sipser%20Ist%20Ed..pdf It gives you a nice miniature tour of some of the math/logic skills you'll need for CS: truth tables, sets, functions, graphs, proof types. I think it serves as a good litmus test for a prospective student. Don't freak out if you can't solve all the problems in it, but you should be able to make some sense of it. IMO, if it looks like hieroglyphs, you probably don't want to invest in a 4 year CS degree. Also it won't take too long to work through either way.
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Nov 25, 2015 16:49
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If you're interested in nursing, a pre-req (at least in my state) is to become a certified nursing assistant. It'll take you roughly a month or two to get the cert, and if you don't hate it, then think about nursing school. You can make decent money ($15/hr) as a CNA and lots of places are in dire need of 'em. Two local nursing homes are offering $3,000 sign on bonuses and will basically let you write your own schedule. My wife went back to school at 29 after she loved working as a volunteer EMT. Community college is cheap and the pay is decent. An RN (two year degree) can easily make $50k/yr, and "travel nurses" are a very real thing. We plan on bouncing around a bit once she finishes her bachelor's degree. There's no way in the world I'd want to be a nurse, though. If I had to do it over again, I'd go into the trades in some capacity, though. As a (print) journalist, you don't want to do this. Pay sucks, hours suck, and you'll hate 90 percent of the poo poo you have to cover. I can't imagine it's much better on the broadcast side. And I say this as someone who largely likes my job. Maybe I should go back to school and be an electrician or some poo poo.
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Nov 25, 2015 17:39
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Drink-Mix Man posted:My only college education so far is a 2-year film degree. Now I'm reading this thread because I'm in the same boat as you. Sorry to quote an old post. I've been thinking about taking some video production courses at a local community college. I'm not interested in doing it to be a director, actor or anything like that. I'm actually interested in becoming a camera operator for local media as I've heard that can be a well paying job. However I've been out of school for sometime and I don't know if taking video production/film courses would be a bad idea if I'm interested in getting into that kind of work. I plan on talking to a school adviser/course professors. Any goon advice? Wasting my money?
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Dec 31, 2015 23:51
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Highly recommend nursing. As in, registered nurse, not any of that 2-year bullshit. The options are huge, and to be honest once you get over the initial "ew, I need to wipe asses and stuff?" factor it can become a lot of fun. Plus, the money is great, and there are insane options available. You can move up the nursing ladder and run a clinic, you can work in the community, work in surprisingly upbeat floors at a hospital, work in intense areas like ICU or emerg, you can travel abroad, you can get into management and make crazy money being a corporate schmoe essentially, or all sorts of other things. If you are even considering nursing, I say go for it. You'll probably end up liking it a lot, and if you don't, you can always switch into a different area of nursing. And if you're straight and single, well, you'll be working alongside a ton of at least semi-intelligent women all day. Lot of male nurses end up marrying other nurses or female physicians.
Lassitude fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Jan 1, 2016 |
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Jan 1, 2016 03:39
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Mukulu posted:Sorry to quote an old post. I've been thinking about taking some video production courses at a local community college. I'm not interested in doing it to be a director, actor or anything like that. I'm actually interested in becoming a camera operator for local media as I've heard that can be a well paying job. However I've been out of school for sometime and I don't know if taking video production/film courses would be a bad idea if I'm interested in getting into that kind of work. I plan on talking to a school adviser/course professors. Any goon advice? Wasting my money? What city are you in? Do you have any video knowledge at all? Learn to edit video. Call the chief editor (or whoever hires editors) at all the local TV stations. Ask them what it would take to get hired as part time weekend editor. Then do that, and get hired as P/T weekend editor. Befriend the chief photographer. Ask what it would take to get hired as part time weekend videographer. Then do that. Unless you're talking about running a studio camera, in which case, have a pulse, wear clothes, and go fill out an application.
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Jan 1, 2016 09:06
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photomikey posted:What city are you in? I live in the Twin Cities, which I can assume would be a good thing with all the media companies around. I have very little video knowledge, and that's being nice to myself. I have an interest in video/photography and honestly I just think it would be cool to study something I'm actually interested in for a change. As for the studio camera operation I did not know it was that simple. I was using the word cameraman very loosely; it'd be cool to go film a reporter in the field, or be a cameraman for commercials and such - something up that alley. I'm mostly interested (for right now and that's why I'd be interested in formal training) in the cameraman thing because I've heard you get paid around $20 an hour, which I wouldn't complain about.
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Jan 2, 2016 19:17
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Usually people get a job in a small market (Mankato, Duluth, Fargo, etc), then get better, and get a job in a larger market. Minneapolis is the 15th largest market in the country (out of 200 or so), and your chances of breaking in there are not great. As a side note, some TV markets are known as great videography markets, which are particularly had to get a job in unless you're really good, and Minneapolis is one of them. Look outside of big TV stations - look at cable access, local gov't TV, PBS, places you can volunteer, etc. Community College will usually have a TV station and you can work there if you're a student - might be worth it to take the Studio 101 class and then work/volunteer at the TV station. Running a studio camera will be grouped under other jobs, generally called "Operations". These used to be "have a pulse" jobs, but now instead of having 4 camera operators, you have one guy running 4 cameras plus also the teleprompter and updating the weather computer - it's much more challenging. Still, this would be the easy way to break in. Bookmark the "jobs" page of all your local TV stations and anytime something part time comes up, apply.
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Jan 2, 2016 21:26
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Ithaqua posted:You can get a job as a developer without a college education. If you want to be paid to write software for a living, start doing it. Learn to do it well and create a portfolio of stuff, then start applying for jobs. I'm a 23-year-old UT Austin dropout and I make as much as my friends who graduated and worked in this city (also my school isn't on my resume which is maybe kind of dumb but I don't know how to really communicate that I went for a couple months without making it look like I'm being sneaky and trying to say I graduated). I actually think it's a pretty good move to go to a good school for 2 semesters, take the first couple classes (which teach you enough to pass most entry-level programming interviews), network a ton, and then leave once you're confident you don't need more help from the school. Most of the time, a degree is overkill.
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Jan 15, 2016 22:19
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I'm pretty much in the same boat, but 3 years younger and I absolutely hate my well-paying service job. To be fair, mine is more soul-crushing than being a bartender. My job has this air of dishonesty, and I face a lot of hostility on a regular basis. I don't know if I could have stumbled into a worse gig as an oversensitive social retard with crippling anxiety. On the bright side, my social ineptitude at my very social job could probably spawn an entertaining reality show if I toted a shirt button camera. I'm planning on going to school to make less money for a long time, maybe forever. I just would be very unhappy and unfulfilled working my job for the long haul. Definitely be careful with the student loans, man. What's worse than working a lovely job you hate, is working a lovely job you hate where all your money is going towards debt. I'm definitely going to community college and paying cash, I refuse to take out a student loan again. The way they are immune to bankruptcy filings with their less than gracious payback terms is inhumane. The interest usually isn't that bad, but the simple fact that there's no safety net, no eject button unlike consumer debt can be very trying. I only had like 6 grand of student debt that I accumulated on a desperate lark years back, and I was working minimum wage at a grocery store immediately after I stopped going to school. The job itself really wasn't THAT bad ( my current job is much worse), but the feeling that you're working to not even make ends meet, to not even get back to zero, to be financially behind homeless vagrants is just a miserable feeling that I wish on nobody. jarjarbinksfan621 fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 19:42
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N-thing anyone who suggested community college and trades. Unless you are dedicated to getting into a particular field, not just looking to make a solid living, there is no need to rack up 50 - 100k or more in debt. Nursing is sometimes grueling (at least from what I hear) but once you finish school, it's quite rewarding. I went to a trade school for commercial refrigeration for a total of $3k. Full disclosure, I didn't end up working in that field (finished an accounting degree) but people I know from it are doing quite well for themselves. There should be electrician training, oil/gas heat (probably avoid that) and wastewater treatment certifications as well. All can provide a good living.
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Jan 19, 2016 07:36
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Anybody here sell life insurance before? Been talking to a friend and it sounds enticing.
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Jan 28, 2016 01:30
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It might be the worst job on the planet. If you are good at it, you can make a boat load of money, but it takes a while. It's network marketing. You can't do it full-time in the first year. You might make one or two sales while annoying all your friends and family. But the next year you'll get four, and ten years down the road you can just sit at home and wait for the phone to ring, because anyone who buys life insurance (or any kind of insurance for that matter) just asks their buddy "hey, who do you get your insurance through?".
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Jan 28, 2016 02:59
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It's one step better than multi level marketing, and MLM is unbelievably awful. There are a few archived SA threads about MLM that you can probably find. Or listen to a podcasts about it, skeptoid and listen money matters both address MLM. Don't do it.
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Jan 28, 2016 15:08
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what about it sounds enticing
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Jan 28, 2016 17:05
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I am 27 and I recently went back to school...I quit my over 80,000 income job to do so, so yeah you can do it
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Jan 28, 2016 21:49
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