[ale] OT: what other than IT do geeks do for a living?

[tfreeman at intel.digichem.net]

First off, if you are already enrolled, your school almost certainly has a 
consuling(sp?) department staffed and interested in just this question. 
Contact them.

Now for the other problem: Why on earth would you want to "grow up"? Since 
you will _never_ know what comes next in life (and there are bizzare 
twists and plot changes galore in life), do you really want to get past 
being a responsible child, with wide open eyes and the flexibility to do 
what comes next? </philosophy>

My opinion - take the mind bending courses like math and physics to your 
highest comfort level. Keep your hand in courses which _require_ writing 
as that is the one skill I have never seen fail a person. If possible, 
toss some shop (machinist type) and drawing skills into the pot. Simmer 
for a period. My guess would be that something will come along to fall in 
love with. You add the "geeky" factor at that point.

If you are _determined_ to grow up, throw in biology, chemistry, 
sociology, and about any other formal study of the world in an effort to 
become a citizen. The pay scale for citizens (the real kind who make a 
difference) is misserable, but on the basis of 50 years of watching, there 
is a real shortage of them (and this being a democracy of some sort, we 
need them).

Anyway - YMWV (Your Milage Will Vary), the above is IMAO, and there are 
absolutely no guarentees of value to any of the above.

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003, J.M. Taylor wrote:

> ALE has gotten me thru many a crisis before, and I have tremendous respect
> for the variety of backgrounds and knowledge on this list. So I'm
> enlisting your help with a crisis of another kind -- what on earth do I
> want to be when I grow up? :)
> 
> Short history: I've been a *nix admin since I was 19, and have programmed
> since 22 (I'm not quite 30 at the moment).  All my friends, acquaintances
> and people I bothered to keep up with from school are in IT. I know no
> other world.  I never got my undergrad degree, which was in English lit
> anyhow so I figured why bother.
> 
> Now I'm starting back in school, and I've spent the last 4 years trying to
> figure out what *other* than IT I could do (this isn't a bad-economy
> whim).  I've experienced a lot of the very-common-IT-jobs world, and I
> know that the things I enjoy aren't things I want to spend my life doing
> (network/sys admin, database admin, and security).  Seems like the ideal
> time to change careers and make my education fit a little better.
> 
> My problem is, tho I know in general the broad categories of careers that
> are more or less geeky, I have no idea what people doing those jobs
> actually *do* in real life and what the general environment is. So I've
> absolutely no clue if I would really enjoy doing electrical engineering,
> for example.  I have a pretty good feel for my strengths and weaknesses,
> and what environments I do better in jobwise, so I'd like to have a good
> realistic view of what it's like to do other stuff before I make the leap.
>  I've not really narrowed it down, I'm interested in just about
> everything.
> 
> So for anyone who isn't in IT, or is in a more specialized branch of IT,
> or who has changed careers, or has knowledge of the rest of the world --
> what do you DO?  Do you like it?  Where are the majority of jobs in your
> experience (big companies? little companies? independent consultancy
> stuff?)?  All advice is appreciated.
> 
> I'm happy to keep this off list unless others are interested. And I thank
> you, as usual, in advance.
> 
> Jenn
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> 

-- 
=============================================
If you think Education is expensive
Try Ignorance
                   Author Unknown
============================================

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale