Career Choice Worries

[TriGGeR_HaPPy]

A topic I feel is very much worthy of being in the Off-Topic discussion section of these forums, but over my time here (even if I've been visiting a little less within the past year) I've come to agree with many viewpoints openly given here on The Escapist. This will mark only my second ever created thread, but it's one I really want some second opinion on, and you guys seem like a good group to get such an opinion from.

Over the past 3 years, I've completed a Bachelor of Computer Science course at university, and this year I'm in my 4th year for this course. That is, an honours year for the course. I'm a good programmer, logical problems are easy for me. I'm even quite good at Artificial Intelligence problems/programming (my thesis for my honours year is on an AI topic, but that's neither here nor there). Further than this, good programming/development jobs even right out of uni can get a really good salary. But over the past year, and particularly over the past couple of months, something hasn't been feeling... right.

My big hobby is Archery, it's always been a love of mine and particularly over the past few years I've been practicing it more and more. I've recently moved into making my own arrows starting from bare shafts, too. The only reason I never looked into jobs within Archery is because the pay for these jobs is generally quite small, as far as I can tell. Working in the archery section of a large sporting goods store, trying to sell your own handmade arrows, being a reviewer of whatever products you might be able to get your hands on... None of these are particularly lucrative options, with a few exceptions being if you happen to be one of the particularly skilled and/or lucky people within these fields.

Now, recently I've learned of a relatively cheap way of building your own house, and avoiding many everyday bills (won't go into detail here unless specifically asked about it in replies). Living in this way is entirely feasible, without having to give up on many modern comforts. Off-grid living, only using what I need, and with this comes most likely living out in the country - all of this being basically my dream of what I want my future home to be. And finally, with such a living arrangement where initial costs and ongoing bills are much lessened, my job being a lower-paying job suddenly isn't as much of an issue anymore... Which, really, is the problem, as it was after this discovery when these worries about my current career path began to surface.

Apologies if I sound smug or something, but I'm a good programmer. I've almost always found it easy since I started my course. But the jobs for programming, while well-paying (even more so if you end up with a good company)... I just don't think they fit in with how I want to live in future.

Has anyone else felt like this? How did you handle it? How did it turn out? My current plan is just to finish my final year and work for a year in dev jobs, and see how I feel after that, but I'd love to hear whatever stories/advice anyone else has to offer.
I also realise that many people on this forum are perhaps too young to really give much insight into this, but if you're one of these people you may have heard stories relevant to this, which would still be interesting to hear...

TL;DR:
Not sure if my currently studied career path is the one I truly want to follow. Please give any relevant advice or stories if this has happened to you, or someone you know.

EDIT: Oh and btw, I probably won't be able to respond to any comments for 18-24 hours. Have to finish writing some stuff for my thesis, then there's a long day ahead of me at uni.
Will respond to any comments as soon as I'm home again and have free time.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I have a fine arts degree and am most happily employed doing what I love. However, I'm kind of kicking myself that I didn't decide to go with a more high paying career option that I somewhat enjoy, and just keeping the art as a hobby. I enjoy my job and don't dread going to work, but it makes bills and rent a little tight.

 

[Esotera]

I'm pretty much in the same position, what is your cheap way of building a house? I've vaguely investigated options and haven't found anything beyond six figures...

I'd advise you to stick with it, software engineering is a really good career in terms of pay & satisfaction. With a bit of experience you could probably go freelance or go part-time and focus on your hobbies. At least that's my plan if I manage to become a full-time software tester. University can get massively frustrating and after a year or two of working in the real world you might enjoy it way more.

 

[staika]

I had a similar decision to make about a year and a half ago deciding my major. I was in a 4 year college taking Intelligence and while a very good paying job I just hated it. It didn't interest me at all and the only reason I went into it is that I had no decision in my major and I let my dad decide for me. I actually did make a thread about what I should do as well but at that time I wanted to be an author since I love to write.

The downside with being an author is that the pay is weak and depends on how well you sell and I have problems committing to writing a story the entire way through. I did remember that I took a course in high school that was networking and seeing as I liked computers I signed up to a two year technical school where I am now. While there I discovered my love of coding and so now that I am in my final term I plan to be a Database Admin or Programmer or maybe go into anything that revolves around code. I am happy with the decision I made though since I actually enjoy coding and I have a skill at it so it is much better than what I was in.

 

[Melon Hunter]

Spoiler: Relevant big-ass comic

So, what do I mean? I think your current career path is at least sustainable. If you don't hate it, you're just a little unsure of it, then I would stick to it for now. A good programmer can earn a lot of money, and from the sounds of it, you'd be living right on the edge if you took up archery as your living, not just your hobby. I think it would be worth using your software career as a financial safety net to let you branch out into the world of archery; connections, competitions, etcetera. I reckon, if it's what you really want, an opportunity will present itself that will allow you to do what you love, but not have to sacrifice so much to get there.

I know this is somewhat contrary to Alan Watts' own position, but I personally think it would be too great a risk to jump to archery alone straight out of university. Don't make money your sole motivator, but don't also lean so heavily on your hobby for a living that you grow to despise it.

 

[Frezzato]

snip

That comic was inspired. I'm a fan of sarcasm myself, so I go back and read this Onion article [http://www.theonion.com/articles/find-the-thing-youre-most-passionate-about-then-do,31742/?ref=auto] every once in a while to refresh my memory.

 

[IndomitableSam]

I'm kind of at this point in my life, too. Been working for a few years at a good job that pays decentley, but I'm incredibly bored. For reference, I'm a library technician at a legislative library. It pays well, it's government, so I have great benefits and such, but it's boring. Walk in and check-out boring. I'm supposed to be working right now.

I used to work in schools and really enjoyed it when I was with the kids, but most of the work is shelving and checking books in an out. I did teach, one year, but that was at a private school and technically I wasn't supposed to teach since I don't have a teaching degree. But I did it and I loved it, aside from the politics and parents.

I did a practicum at a small town public library and fell in love with the life. It was amazing. I keep looking for work in small towns, but it's non-existant. It also pays pretty poorly. However, all I've wanted for most of my adult life is to live in a small town and have a little shop/run a small library. So I keep looking.

I'm stuck throwing my brain into the jar as in the comic, but I have hope. It's bearable because I get a lot of vacation (15 days paid, 20 days unpaid a year, will increase the longer I'm here) and the house I live in is good, but it's not what I want to do.

Now that I"m almost 30, I want to go back in time and slap my early-20's self and say "WRITE! Just keep writing! Travel! DO SOMETHING!", but I can't. So... there's a large chance in the next year or two that I may leave my job and just go do what I've always wanted to, leaving meagerly on my savings and other income I can find.

Do what you love, but finish school first, so you'll always have a backup. Keep the skills fresh, but, christ, you're young... do what you love first.

 

[mbarker]

I am a scientist graduating university with a double major in Organic Chemistry and Biological Sciences. I worked as a fairly well paid researcher in oil sands development, reclamation, and later worked a less well paying job as a tech. doing DNA analysis for my university. I spent close to $40,000.00 for my education, but like you this wasn't the life I wanted. I ended up biting the bullet and continued to work as a well paid scientist. I started to hate every job I did. I slacked, didn't care about my results, and I did everything a scientist shouldn't do.

I started waking up just hating my life in science, I quit and went back to school to take accounting and I plan on getting a simple and quiet office job.

To this day I regret ever getting anything to do with a BSc. I missed gaining the skills I needed to do anything other than science and I don?t think I?ll ever be good at anything other than Organic Chemistry and Bio Sci. now.

Ironically I work in an animal care facility for my universities lab while I do my studies, and I seem to enjoy doing that. Perhaps I'm more of a hands on laborer.

The point of the story is if your job doesn't fit what your life goals are. Don't get into it no matter how good you are at it. You will be miserable always thinking what you "could" be doing, and it will become harder to leave that job and do something new.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I used to worry about that a lot too, when I was younger. One of my biggest fears for some reason was that I'd end up going to Kutzown University to study fine art, and then I'd have no idea what to do with my life. I was always really half into art and half into piano, and couldn't foresee an actual career with either one of them, so I ended up joining the army out of high school to be a linguist for a while v:

After that, I changed my major a few times, tried music briefly and hated it, and eventually ended up studying fine art at Kutztown University. I did a lot of digital art on the side while studying the more traditional stuff and art history, and it was when I graduated that I decided I wanted to get into games. Games is one of those industries that can seem impossible to get into, especially if you live somewhere where that's not really a possibility, so the thought of having to relocate and compete with so many other people can be pretty off-putting.

I guess my best advice is to try everything a bit, cause you might end up either loving it or hating it and you'll never know until you experience that firsthand. If you decide to go with any game industry stuff, try to come up with a good path that will allow you to focus on what it is you like to do, and tailored to the kinds of games you'd like to work on and where you'd like to end up working ideally. And of course, you can always do the other things you like in your life as a hobby, or even a side job if you're lucky.

 

[Zombie Sodomy]

I was getting a BA in Computer Science too when I realized how much I hated all the career possibilities it offered. I finally had to admit to myself that if I had to live my life working my ass off and being stressed all the time, like most people seem to do, I would be committing suicide within a few years. So I dropped out of college and as soon as a few things are taken care of I'm going to travel and farm for food and board. It's not for everyone, but it's relatively quiet and that's what I need right now.

 

[barbzilla]

Honestly this thread describes my life for the most part. I have done a little bit of everything, and I didn't like any of it. One of my major breaking points is poor management, as well as close ended systems. Those two things alone have caused me to quit more jobs than most people work in a lifetime. I'm currently thinking about teaching and continuing my education until I settle on something, but I have fears that I will never find my spot in life sometimes.

 

[Jux]

What about something along the lines of developing programs related to archery? Not really sure what the scope of your study is, but I would assume that companies that develop bows run them through simulations before building them.

 

[TriGGeR_HaPPy]

Quite a few responses here, thanks guys! It's really good to get some perspective from other people once in a while... I generally just try and deal with problems on my own, but this particular problem felt like it needed a bit of clarity from the outside haha.

In response to the majority of the posts: I think my original plan in the OP seems about right for the short-term... Finish honours, do a year or two of work in the industry from next year. See if I can get a good job which somehow allows me good time for Archery too (as a hobby or as a side-job), or even see if I end up enjoying working in the programming industry after all. It's certainly possible, and something I think I need to try at least.
I'm still only 21, so getting into the archery business at ~23 or later is still pretty early in my life. And if I really decide to go this route then savings from my year or two in programming/development jobs will come in handy while I try to get set up with everything else, let alone giving me a couple more years to think about specifically what other jobs I might like to look at...

As for some specific posts:

I'm pretty much in the same position, what is your cheap way of building a house? I've vaguely investigated options and haven't found anything beyond six figures...

*snip*

Cob Houses. From cob, you can build a decently sized house for around $7k to $10k. Add in a bit more for the electrical wiring and such, and the main cost after this being probably some kind of solar system or other power system depending on what it's like where you live...
Despite what a lot of people think about earth houses, cob houses (cob being a mix of sand, clay and straw) are structurally very strong, and not actually, well... Dirty.
The only downside to Cob that I can find so far is that it takes a really long time to build a house, especially if you build a full size one, since you can only lay about a foot of cob per day to allow the previously layed cob to set first.
But yeah, the main cost is the power source you choose, but luckily (talking about solar here), they've gotten relatively cheap and last for 20-25 years, or longer. During that time, very little to no electricity bill depending on the size of the system you get. Woot.

*snip*

The point of the story is if your job doesn't fit what your life goals are. Don't get into it no matter how good you are at it. You will be miserable always thinking what you "could" be doing, and it will become harder to leave that job and do something new.

I suppose this is another problem I have with jobs coming from computer science... As I briefly mentioned in the OP, part of what I want from my future is not just my job, but how I want to be able to live. Preferably out in the country (if there's one thing I've learned from living in a major city during my studies, it's that I really, really hate living in the city ;>_> ), and as much "off the grid" as possible. Having to travel into the city each day for my job kinda defeats the purpose of this.
From this for dev jobs, you can work from home, but unless you're really lucky with your arrangements with a company this will often be work which does not come with good job security. And while the programming industry is doing quite well with offering more and more jobs with less "regular" hours, aiming for such jobs is very hit and miss.
As for jobs out in more rural towns... Well, they exist for sure, but usually pay less and/or are generally harder to get into anyway.
So... Yeah, this basically falls back to me thinking I'll try working in the industry for a year or two, try to get a sense of future opportunities for locations of jobs, and just a general sense of if I even enjoy these jobs. If I end up enjoying the work a lot, much of this may fall into being a moot point for myself. I just think that betting on that based on my current mindset is not a smart bet haha...

*snip*

I guess my best advice is to try everything a bit, cause you might end up either loving it or hating it and you'll never know until you experience that firsthand. If you decide to go with any game industry stuff, try to come up with a good path that will allow you to focus on what it is you like to do, and tailored to the kinds of games you'd like to work on and where you'd like to end up working ideally. And of course, you can always do the other things you like in your life as a hobby, or even a side job if you're lucky.

In terms of the game dev idea, my older brother is even better than me at programming, and as a side-project he's started up an indie company with a friend of his who is the designer/digital artist. They were at PAX, and are soon releasing their first game for Android/Apple phones/tablets, with their next game already well underway. Next year I might be joining them in my own spare time to see what it's like to program games, since I've only done a little game programming, but what I did I enjoyed... Could be a good path to follow. I guess I might be finding out for sure soon if I do join them. ^_^

What about something along the lines of developing programs related to archery? Not really sure what the scope of your study is, but I would assume that companies that develop bows run them through simulations before building them.

Hmmm... That's a rather interesting suggestion, one I hadn't previously thought of...
I'm not sure about it, but I've got time to look into it haha. Thanks!

 

[Esotera]

I'm pretty much in the same position, what is your cheap way of building a house? I've vaguely investigated options and haven't found anything beyond six figures...

*snip*

Cob Houses. From cob, you can build a decently sized house for around $7k to $10k. Add in a bit more for the electrical wiring and such, and the main cost after this being probably some kind of solar system or other power system depending on what it's like where you live...
Despite what a lot of people think about earth houses, cob houses (cob being a mix of sand, clay and straw) are structurally very strong, and not actually, well... Dirty.
The only downside to Cob that I can find so far is that it takes a really long time to build a house, especially if you build a full size one, since you can only lay about a foot of cob per day to allow the previously layed cob to set first.
But yeah, the main cost is the power source you choose, but luckily (talking about solar here), they've gotten relatively cheap and last for 20-25 years, or longer. During that time, very little to no electricity bill depending on the size of the system you get. Woot.

That doesn't cover planning permission, which seems to be the biggest obstacle in the UK. And also would be really labour intensive, but I suppose if you did manage to get past those two problems, it would be relatively cheap.

I suppose it depends a lot on what sort of lifestyle you want to take or whether you're willing to rough it out for a couple of years.

 

[TriGGeR_HaPPy]

*snip*

That doesn't cover planning permission, which seems to be the biggest obstacle in the UK. And also would be really labour intensive, but I suppose if you did manage to get past those two problems, it would be relatively cheap.

I suppose it depends a lot on what sort of lifestyle you want to take or whether you're willing to rough it out for a couple of years.

Ah, yes. As far as I can tell, over here in Aus getting permission for something more unusual like this is still a challenge, but not as hard as for other countries like the UK. To the best of my knowledge, if you've gotten an inspector to give your plans the go-ahead then the councils are rather open to building ideas like cob houses...

As for it being really quite labour intensive, and possibly having to rough it out for a while, I'm prepared to tackle both of these obstacles as they come. And besides, building my own house (possibly with the help of my partner, if I'm still with her or someone like her in future) is something I'm only planning on doing once. So I've got lots of time to prepare and plan for much of the where and how.

 

[AndrewC]

My experience basically goes: entered high school, wanted to be a forensic scientist.

Which resulted in me studying drama, which led me to studying computer games development.

Now I'm in the 3rd year of getting my Animation degree.

I'm still not sure that's what I even want to do with my life, but there's times I definitely enjoy it, so I'll just take it one day at a time!

 

[Gennadios]

Yeah, I have a few people around me in the same boat. My best mate and I both took computer science and graduated right as the economy tanked in 2008. I'd say I'm a decent programmer, I was in the top 5 of most of my classes, but I *really* wanted to graduate without debt so instead of doing internships I just kept full time to my totally unrelated job in my healthcare industry to get from tuition fee to tuition fee.

Well, fast forward to graduation, economy is shit, my city (San Francisco) has so many dot com booms and busts going at any given time that there are too many programmers with far more real life programming experience than I could hope to have, so applying for anything just started feeling like a wasted effort after a while.

I'm still working at the same company that got me through Uni, although I switched to the corporate security angle and am loving it. It pays about the same as the super entry level positions I'm qualified for, but the pay is hourly and tons of overtime, so I'm making more by default. And I'm not one to give my time away to some punkass internship with no guarantee...

TLR

I agree with OP, but I'd caution to be *absolutely* sure you have alternative long-term survival and/or earnings potential goals to give up on CS. If you go more than 6 months without landing a job in the industry, the degree will end up the equivalent of a philosophy or liberal arts diploma, the industry half-life of programmers is about 5 years after graduation.

 

[KelDG]

Snip

If you are close to finishing your degree, finish it, the qualification will never go to waste. But whatever you do for a career, MAKE SURE IT IS SOMETHING YOU ENJOY.

I mean you can always work contract or part time in programming to subsidise your passion of working in archery, if you are passionate enough about it there will probably be a tipping point where it can take the main role in your life. In essence, don't work to earn, it will kill your soul and piss on your face.

 

[Dr.A]

I've sort of felt this way. I'm going to school for physics and have wanted to be a scientist for a long time. My problem is that there are so many different jobs you can get in science and I have no idea which one is the one I would most enjoy having. Maybe I find I like learning about science but hate having to work with it for a job? Maybe I like one aspect of it but hate another?

I've also been feeling lately that I might just want to keep my life simple. I don't need or really want a huge house or a nice car or anything like that. What I really want to do is travel. But as a scientist, will I really get the chance to do that? I mean, travel and experience different places, not just travel to go somewhere and say, "Yeah, I went there once."

Sometimes I worry that I won't be able to do both; make a contribution to science and live a mostly relaxed and simple life. When I really get upset, though, I think about how long life really is. I hear adults say, "Oh I worked THIS job for fifteen years and then I went on to do THAT for another fifteen, then I became an astronaut for a while." There is a lot of time to do everything I want to do.

I don't have to live my entire life either simply or with a job in science. I can do both. And that makes things seem alright in the end. So though I'm in absolutely no position to be giving advice, my stance right now is, there will be time to do everything you want to do.