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How does one deal with the fact that the job he wants is nigh impossible to get?


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Title. How would you process that information and deal with it ? I've been kinda figuring out what I might like to do for a living during the past year or so, and more often than not I find myself thinking it's a saturated market where I will most likely receive little to no pay and be a burden to my family. Using my college degree (graduating next year), I should get a job that is enough to pay bills and put food on the table, but I keep wondering if I'll spend most of my time there lost in thoughts along the line of "This is not what I wanted, but it's what pays the bills..." 

And as I'm a young college student, go ahead and bombard me with all the "life isn't all sunshine and rainbows kid" things you want. It's what I already get at home, in a way (not that harsh, but it's what my mother keeps saying) and they suggest doing it as a hobby, which I don't know if it'll bring me same satisfaction. 

If you've read this far, I appreciate it and have a nice day.

 

P.S: Exams, stress and panic suck.

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Depends on the job.  Usually places are over-dependent on degrees of some form, making it so colleges can over-charge on the expenses, but stuff like a writer or an actor are dependent on capabilities rather than a diploma which supposedly states that capability.

 

It depends on whether or not what you want to do is the same as what you're working towards.  School stress is a complicated subject in and of itself, and personally it feels like schools and the related industries (school books, etc) are more related to grades or profit than actual learning.

 

What is it you want to do?  Figure that out, first of all, then look at the possibilities.  Want to be a game dev?  Just start making something.  Actor?  Find someone with equipment or something and see what you can do.  It depends on the job for sure, but if it's something you have a genuine dream and desire for there are more opportunities than immediately available if you spend time looking.

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i know how you feel, in fact your story is almost like my story (with a little twist).

 

my story is that i know little about C++ and Python but making games is not something most companies accept. i wanted to prove them so school is my only place to go but has you know, they dont accept anyone (even with money  :makina: ) its all about those lousy test results. however even with a degree of programing and 3d design, the change to even get a job (even at EA) is low. there is no way i'm going to waste 7 years and half a million dollars to just get a piece of paper that says "you know programing and 3d design". thats where i am in my life, i quit trying to get that piece of paper and join a private school that offers real life experience with everyday tools that developers used.

 

my advice is to gain experience to get that dream job, its hard but no one said is was easy.

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Usually imo, it's quite hard to LOVE your job~ I'm always doubtful whenever people say, ohh my job is my passion etc. Jobs can kill your passion too. Or at least people who enter thinking it will just be like their hobbies x100. Jobs stretches the limits of fun, and can make it so monotone (doing the same things over and over and over).

 

I advice that you move your career path based on your passion and money, but focus more on the money aspect. Not having enough money to meet your basic needs is quite depressing to me, and it wouldn't matter if I was working at my passion. You will have to compromise.

 

On the other hand, if you make enough money, you can afford to have more free-time (and not have to overtime or get a 2nd job to make ends meet); which you can then spend on your passion/hobbies. Your mind won't be stressed out with making it through the end of the month or paying rent.

 

I don't know about your field, but for my field (sciences) academics felt like it didn't matter. I know it would matter if I was applying to research but industries/pharmaceuticals value experience a ton more. At my interview they never asked anything about my GPA or what classes I took. All it mattered to them is that I have the diploma <_< .

 

 

The hardest part in entering the job market is the very very first (real) job. It's super hard to get in without a connection. You often find ridiculous "entry-level" jobs that requires 1-3 years of experience, yeah like you're somehow supposed to come up with industry-experience while studying full-time college. Internships are just as crazy in competition.

 

1. You're biggest competitors are people applying for the same job from inside the company. They have the biggest advantages since they are already known.

2. Next competitor are people applying from the outside but have referrals from inside the company. Now it depends on who the referral is, but personally this is how I got my part-time laboratory job at college. All I had to do in the interview is to show them that I'm normal, and I didn't even have to impress. My referral was that strong.

3. You have to compete with 100+ other people who don't have a referral, but might have more experience or better degrees than you. At this point, if you don't have industry experience from college, you'll have to luck out and somehow stand-out against the masses. Your interview won't be about experiences either assuming you don't have much; you'll have to do well on the behavioral questions instead. Flexibility also helps a.k.a, I would do whatever you want master:michiru:

I personally got my 1st real job with #3. In my interview I had to showcase that I'm a teamplayer and a good person to have on the team overall (the interviewer asked like FOUR team-player questions). Since she knew I don't have much experience.

 

 

OK I noticed you're from Portugal, so I just want to let you know all of what I said is based off of the U.S. job market. Idk how it is over there.

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Yo bro wut job u wanted?

 

Sigh... it's hard to say since 99% of people I talk to about it burn me on the stake, but I'd like to be a gaming journalist.  This has led me to reflect long and hard upon my choice, if I am ready or not and how it would affect my life.

Damn, that's hard to get off my chest...

 

 

 

 

 

OK I noticed you're from Portugal, so I just want to let you know all of what I said is based off of the U.S. job market. Idk how it is over there.

 

Given what I'd like to do for a living can be called a "global" job, my competition isn't Portugal itself, but the whole world (technically).

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The important is not restraining yourself for doing just 1 thing. I mean, certainly that's not the only thing you want. So if 1 is impossible other things somewhat related or related to something else you like might be easier to achieve. Also hobbies is not something static. During your life your tastes might change, I mean what you like now may not be what you like in a few years, you may like new things and you might start to not like so much of other things.

 

Basically what I mean is take into account what you really like to do and your capabilities, try to improve them and try to look for something that's relatively possible to achieve. Remember that experience is the most important part on getting a job, so even if you really like it but have no experience then it's really hard, so you should start by looking for something that would be easy to gain access without experience and then gain experience over time and finally reach the job you wanted. Just open your mind to different paths and you shall find the right one.

 

(I'm someone who had no "dream job", I basically went to university without a job in mind, though I have one job I really would like to do I think it's pretty difficult to reach it, but as long as it's related to it I'm fine with anything)

 

So sorry for the long post. All of this is my opinion and it can be considered shit. I wish you good luck with that issue.

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Sigh... it's hard to say since 99% of people I talk to about it burn me on the stake, but I'd like to be a gaming journalist.  This has led me to reflect long and hard upon my choice, if I am ready or not and how it would affect my life.

Damn, that's hard to get off my chest...

 

 

 

 

Given what I'd like to do for a living can be called a "global" job, my competition isn't Portugal itself, but the whole world (technically).

 

Well, then we have questions.  What kind of a games journalist do you want to be?  Does your taste and style come closer to Totalbiscuit, maybe Jim Sterling, or someone like Errant Signal?  Super Bunnyhop?  There's a lot of different possibilities out there for a description of a game journalist.  Personally I feel like the basic reviewer type is somewhat time-consuming (standard reviewing places emphasis on it being finished near-release so people know to buy on release day) but there are certainly other avenues to take that can avoid such strenuous routes and give deeper insight into the game as a whole.

 

There are a lot of ideas of what a game journalist could mean, but in terms of getting started it's actually quite simple.  Get a youtube channel or a blog, and start writing/making videos.  What types of things do you want to discuss?  Keep in mind though that sometimes games journalism is just as much about entertainment as it is about news these days, so find something that can grab people's attention if at all possible.

 

It's not something that gives you massive payout at first, but as you work at it the level of viewers will increase, and thus earn more and more as time goes on and content is released.

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I dealt with the issue of not knowing what to do with my life by becoming a professional student (someone who studies for a living).  I figured it was the simplest way to put off the decision of finding a job.

 

By "professional student" do you mean graduate student? Or were you referring to something more obscure?

 

I don't know much about the game journalism industry, so I can't give any advice to InvictusCobra. But Zodai seems to to know what he is talking about, and I agree with his suggesting to start your own blog or YouTube channel. 

 

Personally I am leaning towards becoming an academic, specifically a Cultural Anthropologist with a specific focus on modern Japanese culture. Academia is already a saturated market, and considering a tenure-track position in anything within the Humanities/Social Sciences is just (>.>). But my father is an academic (History and German Lit), and so was his father (German Lit); it's sort of the family trade. On top of that I'm confident in my ideas and ability to express them on paper.  

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I've been kinda figuring out what I might like to do for a living during the past year or so, and more often than not I find myself thinking it's a saturated market where I will most likely receive little to no pay and be a burden to my family. Using my college degree (graduating next year), I should get a job that is enough to pay bills and put food on the table, but I keep wondering if I'll spend most of my time there lost in thoughts along the line of "This is not what I wanted, but it's what pays the bills..." 

 

Everybody goes through this. Let me copy and paste the most useful piece of advice I've read... albeit targeted at a different profession:

 

A friend of mine is going through a crisis of faith right now. Not a religious crisis. A writing one—though from where he’s standing, it probably feels much the same. He’s written several books and a slough of short stories, and he has prepared them professionally, and he has diligently and tirelessly sent them around in the correct manner. He’s done everything right, and he has a growing collection of rejection slips to show for it, and an upcoming publication in what he calls “the smallest paying market in existence.”

 

And he’s starting to wonder why he’s doing all this; as he points out, he has a great job that he’s lucky enough to like, he’s happily married, he makes good money and has what he needs in life. He’s putting a lot of time into something that is feeling more and more like smacking himself in the forehead with a ballpeen hammer. Repeatedly.

 

Is he wasting his time? I have no doubt at all that if he sticks with his writing long enough, he’ll start selling his work. He’s smart and talented and funny, and I think it would be impossible for him to keep writing without those qualities showing in an irresistible combination on the page eventually. Sooner or later, an editor is going to fall in love, and he is going to find a publishing home.

 

If he is willing to pay the price.

 

The price?

 

Every dream has a price. You need to know this now, because the price can be enormous, and if you don’t know about in advance, you can wake up one day to find that you have paid with everything you ever loved, and what you have to show for all of that isn’t enough.

 

How much will you have to pay to be a writer? There’s no way you can know in advance. How much might you have to pay?

 

You might have to live in poverty. You might lose your job, your friends or family, your children or your spouse. Your dream might cost you your health. Your happiness. Your life. Perhaps you think I exaggerate, but writers suffer from depression and die of suicide far out of proportion to our numbers. We have high divorce rates, far too many substance abusers, and as a group we are pathetically poor. I’m not saying that if you want to be a writer, you need to run out and get a divorce and take up heavy drinking. Far from it. A strong, stable relationship can get you through some desperate times. And only fools look for inspiration in the bottom of a bottle. What I am saying is that if you pursue your dream, some other parts of your life will fall by the wayside. You can’t know what those parts will be yet. But if you persist, you will find out.

 

How much is your dream worth to you?

 

Could you be a writer? Yes.

 

Should you be?

 

That is a question that only you can answer … and you’ll have to answer it again every time you pay.

 

But before you walk away, consider this: If writing is your hunger and your thirst, and if you choose not to follow your dream because you’re afraid, you’ll pay a price for that, too—you’ll pay with the progressive deadening of your soul, as time and your own disillusionment with yourself eat away at who you are. One day you’ll wake up and discover that the part of yourself that knew how to dream—and how to fly—has died, and that you are forever after bound to the ground, with only the memory that you once had wings.

 

Every dreamer pays a price. But so does everyone who fears to dream.

 

http://hollylisle.com/could-vs-should-and-the-price-of-your-dreams/

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Well, then we have questions.  What kind of a games journalist do you want to be?  Does your taste and style come closer to Totalbiscuit, maybe Jim Sterling, or someone like Errant Signal?  Super Bunnyhop?  There's a lot of different possibilities out there for a description of a game journalist.  Personally I feel like the basic reviewer type is somewhat time-consuming (standard reviewing places emphasis on it being finished near-release so people know to buy on release day) but there are certainly other avenues to take that can avoid such strenuous routes and give deeper insight into the game as a whole.

 

Yeah, TB, Jim Sterling, Super Bunnyhop and Yahtzee are all inspirations for me. I feel like I could try to do something like them, but never quite as good. Whenever I think of what to write besides reviews, all that comes to mind is "What do I have to say? I could never reach the likes of them..."

As for a style I'd like to develop, I was thinking of being a serious reviewer with perhaps some Yahtzee style humour on the side. But I have no defined style yet, so who knows.

 

 

 

Everybody goes through this. Let me copy and paste the most useful piece of advice I've read... albeit targeted at a different profession:

Thank you for the great quote, Rooke. It reminds me of the music I want to have playing in my funeral, hoping that it will be the truth regarding my life. I've listened to it countless times this past weekend as it resonates with my uncertainties and what I want to feel in my deathbed (how melodramatic):

 

In case you were wondering...

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It might be beneficial to alter your way of viewing the situation. 

 

You say you want to get a "job" in gaming journalism. I personally think this way of viewing things is flawed. 

 

Gaming Journalism isn't something you get a "job" in. Gaming Journalism is "work" you do because you enjoy doing it for whatever reason, such as enjoying the game you are writing about/interactions with the fan base related to the community. However, while it is work, it is not work that is available for just anyone to do just because they feel like it. Much like how you aren't going to be allowed to touch the scripts of fan translation projects unless you've proven yourself able to contribute, you need to establish yourself and prove you are worthy of even doing the "work" you want to do. 

 

If you can get through the door there then you might be able to turn it in to a job, but it's not a profession having a college degree will help you much. It's also not a job you can just randomly decide to pick up/apply for. A lot of conscious and aggressive effort is required. The intelligent decision would be to work on two fronts with the "work" related to journalism as a side thing until you actually get yourself somewhere. Gaming Journalism isn't a thing you can dedicate full time to until you actually have connections anyway, and if you can't handle it part time, then you will at least know you tried.  

 

Please let me know if I'm not being harsh enough. Gaming is not a world you should get into without understanding clearly the realities of the industry. 

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