h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some of you have patiently followed my maunderings about how I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Well, I still don't, but I'm closer than ever. So this is a sort of progress report. If you don't like navel-gazing journal postings, stop here.

I entered college three years ago and took a double major in English and psychology with a minor in computer science because they all interested me. I had a nice-sized scholarship, no idea where I was heading, and was in no rush to get there.

A few years and a few tuition hikes later...

I’m graduating at the end of this semester. Time to do some serious thinking.

I initially thought I'd like editing. But after an internship and some research into the field, I decided it was a lot less interesting than I'd thought. Additionally, the effort necessary to break into the field, the poor compensation provided, the low quality of life, the constant fear of becoming redundant... it just wasn't worth it.

I also realized that real jobs are just like all the 'fake' jobs I've held, only more so: there are moments when you just love what you’re doing, and long stretches between those moments when you wish you could shoot yourself. Or your boss. Or go postal and do both.

I concluded that a good job must have the following characteristics:
1. it should be something that interests you
2. there should be some variety in the work/skill needed
3. It has to pay well (to make up for the inevitable ennui)
4. It shouldn’t be too hard to break into
5. There should be some job security
6. there should be flexibility / life quality

Then I wrote up a list of all the careers I could follow up with my current degrees:
Programming, IT, law, journalism, editing, clinical psychology, social work, teaching, business, etc etc etc.

Some I crossed off immediately. I can never be a journalist: I'm not obnoxious or opinionated enough. Teaching holds no appeal.

Then I graded them according to
1. cost of further education
2. amount of time to complete degree
3. likeliness of doing well
4. and the above six job characteristics.

The only one that made the cut was "psychologist"; though it did poorly in 1 and 2, while 3 was (??), but it did well in the six job characteristics.

I was a little leery because, in my experience, there are two kinds of psychology professors: the ones who tell you dark stories about all the psychos sharing the neighborhood and the ones who grin and bounce and say, "When someone walks out of your office healthy and goes on to live a normal life—There's no price tag on this kind of work!"
Being inclined to cynicism, I'm afraid I might end up like the former type if I muck about in people's issues much. Additionally, I'm not sure I want the responsibility of people's mental well being on my hands.

And it's five more years of study.

With those 5 years weighing on my head, I was open to engineering when a staff member submitted an article about it to the college paper.
I then spend an inordinate amount of time bouncing between the United States Occupational Outlook Handbook, acinet.org, and salary.com

- Engineering is four more years for a mere bachelors degree, but the degree comes with earning power that, after 10-15 years, rivals the psy.D psychologist.
- Engineering is a very stable field. Even when there’s a depression in growth, employment remains higher than in other fields.
- Engineering is interesting, ever-evolving, and often leads to a tangible result.
- The only place engineering falls short is in flexibility.

Oh, and the minor detail that I’ve never taken math seriously before in my life.

So I decided to take a two-pronged approach.
I taught myself physics over the summer and will take the SAT II in physics in a month or two. I'm also taking Calculus I. Plus, I'm applying to scholarships again, since the most viable local engineering schools are more expensive than my current college, and I won’t be able to work part-time while attending. If I do well in all three, I'll go the engineering route.

I'll also look into psychology programs and maybe do some applying in that direction. If I can't pull off the engineering, I'll go the brain-game way, and heaven help me not mess up.

So finally, Leo's growing up and heading out into the big wide world.




Actually, I'm just deciding which pigeonhole to hide myself in for the next 4 years. Big, wide world? I've seen it, and it's overrated.

Engineering, exactely what? Or does the education give you a wide field from computer chips to bridges, say?

anyway.

What ever go for as much monet as you can with minimum of responsibility, thh result a happy life...

Being grown up is overrated. Stay young!

I will, GB. I just turned 21, and that's the age I'm supposed to stay for life.

Engineering anything, at this point, though there some things definitely out of the range of interest. Electrical engineering doesn't interest me terribly. I'm not sure about chemical. Bridges is always interesting, but I'm thinking something that has developing frontiers, maybe in mechanical. And I intent to look into nanotechnology, since everyone is making such a fuss over it.

I figure I can leave the details til I know more about them - once I have a year or so of real education under my belt.

...and a special thanks to Pailaway for answering a myriad of questions about engineering with much cheerfulness.

And no aspersions cast on journalists, Tartaronne. I admire people who can do it. I can't. Every article leaves me biting my nails over whether I've been objective, if I should have asked the other thing, and on and on.

...want to expand on that because it bugs me very much and this is my journal so there. So, alert: another self-indulgent post. Ignore please.

I never thought I wanted to be a journalist, but one semester of class and editing a newspaper pretty much convinced me that it wasn't for me.

Our journalism professor kept telling us that when an editor sends you on assignment you go, no matter what the topic and what it entails. She was sent to a high profile funeral once. The mourners are weeping and the media is stuffing microphones in their faces. She felt like a worm, but when the editor says "interview" you interview.

Yeah. And when Hitler says gas undesirables, do that too.

In our assigned reading, "Letters to a Young Journalist," the author gives a similar story where he shadowed an obese man for a month and then wrote an article about him. The guy confided in him because he listened so nicely, but when it came to writing the article, the reporter had no mercy. Gave every last detail right down to the toilet. The subject called him up after the story hit the press and said, in a hurt voice, "I thought you were my friend." Reporters response? "I never gave that impression. I told him right from the start I was there to work on an article."

My response? "You creep."

I know Tartaronne does freelance, which removes that pesky editor from the picture. But then there's the issue with opinion. I know reporters aren't supposed to have opinions, but they do. The very least that they're portraying things as they are. I can never be confident.

I once set out to profile a new adviser assigned to pre-med students. 90% of them told me he was a conceited jerk. I decided to interview him myself. I prepared a string of heavy-handed questions and was all ready to do a Wolcott Gibbs job on him. But he was a nice guy. I mean, he was overly sure of himself, yes, but he was trying his best to do his job and doing it pretty well too. (I know I know... I'm a pathetic cynic when it comes to not-liking people.)

Two problems: 1 - I couldn't ask him half the questions I prepared. I could barely manage, "Do you know most students think you're full of yourself?" and 2 - whose opinion would I print - the students or mine? Maybe he was putting on a show for me? Maybe he was putting on a show for them?

Then there was the advisers article: we wrote up the students complaints, we included the advisers comebacks, and I thought that ought to be enough. But then I started talking to friends in other colleges and they said their advisers stank too. So I wondered, should we also examine the complaints within the grand scheme of things? Maybe in the larger pictures our advisers aren't all that bad?

How far must one go to be objective?

And then there was that dumb co-op issue with two articles: a very detailed, scientific analysis of why ethanol is a bad idea, and a very un-detailed non-scientific non-analysis of why electric cars are the future. I couldn't believe anyone with a brain could run both articles in the same issue.

How does one know what good reporting is?

And then there's the fact that I couldn't do freelance because I don't have the self-discipline. That sounds stupid, but I've recently discovered that I don't like writing. That also sounds stupid - I love writing.

I liked writing in high school and on my own when there are wide parameters and you fill them in with whatever creativity you please. But in journalism and public relations and almost any other writing-related job, you're writing to someone else's preferences. And that drives me nuts.

At my current job I was given two assignments simultaneously: write PR letters for a shelter for runaway girls, and write press releases for an assisted living facility celebrating some award it won.

I finished the shelter letters on a napkin over dinner. I'm still dying over the nursing home place stuff. I just can't get up any interest in it.

I believe engineering, with firm parameters within which there is room for creativity, will be more my style.

I suspect that psychology, which has mostly vague lines and few parameters, is not my style at all.

I've studied your maunderings with great attention and I'm pleased to announce that most, if not all, of the angst, indecision, cynicism and tedious worry about moral issues you describe can be blamed on 2legs. So that ought to be a relief.

Here's a bit of bad news though. Four years for an engineering degree assumes that you are starting out with no college credits at all. In fact, engineering programs include, say, 25% fluff classes, as engineers would characterize all non-engineering courses. Unfortunately, that means that you're already fluffed-out and have only about three years worth of real study to do.

I think I speak for everyone when I say, '2legs is to blame for the big, wide world!'

()

No, no - what I meant to say, on behalf of everyone, is 'You Can Do It!'

Yes, you can!

Just think, you could even choose to do the perpetual student thang, parsee-style (ever sat in Econ 101 with a 65 yr old political refugee?) and study for ever...

*thud*

Some very good thoughts on journalism, Leo.

It is a craft/trade filled with dilemmas and you have described many of them very well.

I used to like to write. I do like well written stuff - the wonder and magic of how to convey knowledge from some people to other people. Unfortunately the more experience I get, the harder I find it to stop researching and start writing. And I'm always in doubt whether I know enough about the subject (have I gotten all around a subject and all the consequences), and whether I answer all the readers' questions or whether my collected informations are passed on as un-misunderstandably as possible.

Most young journalists (in Denmark) start out with wanting to reform the world by revealing what is wrong in this society and how people in power (policians, directors, lobbyists, unions - anyone or any business backed by a lot of money or an important group of people) can make decisions that have bad consequences for the lives of people without power. Or they want to see themselves as a famous host written about in the weekly magazines.

For about a 100 years, journalists have seen themselves as gatekeepers (we know best what you need to know of all the information in the world) and public watchdogs (we keep an eye on the people in power).

For many years we haven't had a common base of knowledge, which we almost did in Denmark up til the 80es with only one public radio and tv channel - different (politically opinionated) papers and different types of magazines. But still, up till recently, journalists and editors have had the responsibillity AND power to decide and edit most peoples' view on the world. I.e. if the editor is worried about his health the paper writes a lot about health stuff. If the paper cannot afford to have a correspondent in Africa, we get very little news or knowledge from those parts of the world. (Or if the correspondent sets up his or her office in the five star hotel's bar and quote 'sources close to the government' (read: bartenders and taxi drivers) the knowledge you get is so-so).

Objectivity. There is no such concept in communication. Everyone sees informations - facts if you like - through their own life's experience, the sources - direct from the mouths, or the people behind the written material - the editor, the journalist, the photographer, the creative designer, the layouter, the 'spirit' in the ownership of the media - and the readers; the selection of one source instead of another, the selection of the informations the sources give and the choice of how to write about the informations, is all opposed to objectivitism.

Bertolt Brecht praised the radio because he expected that more (and ordinary people) could have their say in common matters and have it broadcasted to many people. Today everybody can publish and it is up to every one to be her or his own editor. To check the credibillity of the sources - which we in the media world imagined we did for the public.

We have professional ethics of course, worldwide and specific in each country.

In Denmark most media have a clause in the contract that a reporter cannot be sent on an assignment that is against his or her conscience and beliefs. But if one - like me - don't see the greater meaning of gossip, I'll probably not last long on a gossipy paper, refusing to go to galla-openings, weddings, funerals, stealing private photos when you interview the parent's of a dead child etc.

I've always chosen my employers with care. I write about subjects I find important, give informations I find worth sharing with other people, so they can decide for themselves, how they become citizens in the society they dream of, or how the can act to live the life they want. I also try to influence, especially decision makers, by publishing informations, I think they also need to make a good decision.

Many years ago I went to a general assembly for journalists in Copenhagen. I almost fell down the chair when several old school journalists put themselves between people and God (like Goethe did with poets). Really. Journalism, communication, is a craft which can be learned, but it is up to the single reporter to keep up the ethics that are beyond the Criminal Law and the official Press Codex.

Sorry I cannot keep it sweet and short, I've written a book for students 16-20 years on journalism, and I've been debating this with myself for 30 years.

Most of the time I'd rather sort nails in short, middle-long and long. Then I could go home and enjoy writing. There is always a responsibillity to the readers, the sources, the editor/employers and oneself (professional pride) - and there is always deadlines.

Leo, the only advise I want to give you is not to be afraid to change your mind. Don't stay with anything just because you've started it and feel committed to it. It's okay to bail out and head in a different direction, and much better than spending years and years feeling unfilled and miserable.

Good luck deciding.

This is a little off-topic, but it has slightly to do with writing and with careers.

I'm in the middle of writing a letter and MS Word just suggested a different phrase than the one I used and it was actually better

I'm going to go apply to the foreign legion now.

Reforming the world is definitely not for me, Tartaronne. Another problem I have is that I dislike bothering people. I knew journalism wasn't for me - I was more disappointed to find that the same problems pervade the entire writing-related industry. Freelancing can work for some, but when I look at a potential career I've got to assume I'm going to be an average hack doing the the average thing. And I don't know about Denmark, but journalism/editing/writing in the USA is a dog-eat-dog field. You have my heartiest admiration for being able to drag yourself to the computer and tap out articles day after day.

The nice thing about engineering is that you don't have to be confident immediately. That's what computer models are for. Besides, the idea intrigues me. I've always enjoyed coming up with better or more efficient ways of doing things. My dear mum calls it "laziness". Clearly she doesn't appreciate how much effort can go into effort-saving gadgets/arrangements. It will be nice to be able to be scientific about it for once. Instead of estimating and hoping it works.

Perpetual student - ha. I wouldn't mind, except around term paper time, but it does cost some, unfortunately.

Recently in the news was a guy who managed to stay in college for 12 years. If you can, why not?

If I wasn't afraid to change my mind I would be in an editorial office right now, Hyp. This is an incredibly stupid move to make, but if it works it might be brilliant.

Did you Dilbert is an engineer? I never realized it until he said "we're the engineers, we should know" to the Pointy-Haired Boss recently. (Is that engineering management, Pailaway? ) It's funny to know that after picking at careers for four years, I've chosen to become a Dilbert.

Makes you wonder if there isn't really a little alien in the box, no? When MS Word starts correcting writing style, you realize the writing industry is in jeopardy. The only people who need to know grammar are the ones who work for Microsoft.

Regarding Dilbert, I'll just say that it's patently obvious that it's drawn from real-life, if that's not a contradiction in terms for this case.

I think people are continuously looking for their niche in society...perhaps some even have found it and think that the grass is greener on the other side.

If you wish to be an editor you could always get some experience on here.

I have done a similar exercise and am cultural minded. Have you come across the book 'What Colour is Your Parachute?'

Finally, I don't think job security happens these days.

Hi Opti,

I did find that book, skimmed a few chapters, and passed it along to my father, who recently lost his job. He found a new one before he could crack the spine, though.

There seem to be two major theories in job searching: (1) find what you like and the low pay won't matter and (2) find something that pays and the awfulness of it won't matter.

What Color is Your Parachute is definitely a theory (1) proponent. For specific reasons, I have to have some faith in theory (2), and try to find something between: So I don't get a 1 million dollar bonus ever year, but I'm not expecting to be most excited for the daily 9-5.
(Though if I was getting a 1 million dollar bonus, I think it would more like the daily 7-7. But that's just Wall Street culture.)

It's too true about the grass always being greener. But things are always more fun when you don't have to do them. Thus, employment is inherently un-fun. Which is another reason to consider theory (2).

No job security is guaranteed, but some professions are more essential to society than others. The general practitioner of medicine is going to get more business in a crunch than, say, a book illustrator.

Scott Adams must have quit long ago... and nobody would employ him now anyway. So was his career that traumatic, or does he feed off reader ideas? One wonders.