University/ Career

[noodlefolk]

Hello all,

I am relatively new to tamatalk, and I am curious about what you all do. I am a university student majoring in psychology, and I am currently applying to psychology Ph.D. programs. I am also working in research (I am currently completing an undergraduate thesis) and as a mental health skills worker. I know a lot of us are 90s babies, and I would love to hear what everyone is doing in young adulthood.

 

[Nazotchi25]

I didn't go for university, but directly out of high school I went into the military as an Aerospace Telecommunications & Information Systems Technician, or ATIS tech. Its a trade in the Air Force that has a broad span of jobs. I could be working on Radars, Radios, IT and used to do telephony but isn't so much anymore. I'm three years into my military career and will probably stay in for quite a long time, maybe until retirement.

 

[Jhud]

I'm an english philology major, specializing in translation, nothing exciting. I'm in an undergrad school. Will probably be doing my bachelor's degree in like a year or so.

I only have classes every two weeks on weekends and I still live with mom so I don't really feel that whole "college life" thing lol. And I don't work currently.

 

[x.Optimistic]

I'm currently studying in an early childhood education course! I'm enrolled in an institution that lets me study from home, so that I can still attend work each week and just study at my own pace!! I work part-time at an early childhood centre, since I'm not actually qualified yet, so the course I'm studying in is for a Certificate in Early Childhood Practice, so that I'll at least have some sort of qualification!

 

[anigotchi]

I've been working as a graphic/multimedia/motion designer for 3 years now. I started to work full time right after I majored in multimedia college. Right now I'm also taking a fitness trainer training course beside my job which I hope to finish this year.

 

[Jhud]

I also took a "gap year", in a way. After I finally passed my matura exam (polish high school finals) I decided to take a break from school and not apply to college immediately, but start it from a later semester. So I pretty much had a whole year free. And when it was time for that semester... it turned out that there weren't enough students who wanted to apply to the later semester, so I pretty much had another half a year free. It feels kind of weird to be older than some of my groupmates (though my group would also consist of people literally more than twice as old as me, so there's that). I'm lazy so it was actually pretty cool lol, but it also turned out to be a necessity because I injured my dominant hand quite badly, attending school with a bandaged immobile hand would be a pain. Especially since it wasn't broken or anything, it was a wound that needed a skin graft. Ouch.

 

[x.Optimistic]

I didn't necessarily take a gap year (intentionally at least), but it did take some time to get to where I am today - I attended university in 2014, with the intention of going into science, but I failed that year so I couldn't continue, and then I didn't really get anywhere from there until late 2015 when it was suggested I go into early childhood instead since I've always liked kids and been good with them - I got a volunteer placement at an early childhood centre, which would later lead to a paid part-time position - I didn't get enrolled into my course until this year, and only got accepted and started on it last month!

 

[TamaMum]

Ack, everyone's so cool....

I took a gap year and worked, so I didn't go back to school right away!

I wanted to be sure of my career choice, but in the end, I'm still kind of undecided. I did go back to school and I'm majoring in psychology, but I'm not entirely sure where to go with it or if this is really what I'd like to do with my life.

It's very complicated! @w@

I feel so out of the loop!

Don't worry about feeling undecided. It might seem like everyone knows what they want to do but don't be disheartened.

Based on my work & study experiences, nothing in life is set in stone and even though there's a lot of pressure to make a decision on which direction/career/studies to take as early as possible, my advice would be "don't panic".

If you're majoring in psychology because you find the subject interesting or compelling, then see where it takes you - it doesn't have to be into a field directly related to psychology after all.

And if you decide later in life it's not for you then look for something that grabs your attention.

During my career I've changed direction into unrelated areas three times - enjoyed the challenges, struggled with steep learning curves and yes, stopped when I realised something just wasn't right for me... still here, still standing, still a cranky nut job at times

 

[N4LLLC]

I went to uni and received an electronic engineering degree, and used it for 22 years at Motorola. However, that ended when Motorola went offshore, and everyone lost their jobs (10,000 employees in Arizona (where I live alone)). I drove a school bus for 14 years, now I work as a machinist for a firearms company.

 

[Hohotchi-HO7]

I initially worked as a furniture removalist for my first few years after school (only job I could get), but I eventually found it boring and thus decided to study history at university, which has been very intriguing. I hope to work in a museum once I'm done (I'd rather that over a professor personally - so much academic bickering). Perhaps I can start a Tamagotchi museum!

 

[Rorys_Tamas]

I am currently working on my PhD in biomolecular sciences - which is a very broad area of study I started in Biochemistry and molecular biology for my undergrad then I went to biochemistry for my masters and now I am working in a lab where we do some evolution-y things, some biochemistry-y things and some molecular biology-y things and I think its a good mix

 

[Hoky]

I finished school, uh... like... 11 years ago. Best advice I can give is have goals but go where life takes you.

I went to college for English and then bounced around a few places for the next few years. After that, I worked at a Verizon call center for about 5 1/2 years and moved a little up the chain there. It was actually a pretty good job and calls never really got to me that much because I wanted to help people even if they were being jerks (and jerks give you GREAT stories to tell people), but eventually I wanted to move out of the town I was living in and find something else as Verizon itself was good, but the people I worked for were not.

I ended up at a place one of my other former VZW-buddies knew about, which was a small security software company, and now I run their QA department for their customer service/tech support branch! It's been a ton of fun because I got to put the department together from the ground up, and when time came for someone to run it, I ended up getting the spot (Which, granted, created a fair amount of drama between me and the other co-founder, which was a bummer). I love my job. My team is a group of people who wants to help their coworkers help our end users, and they're all funny, nerdy, interesting people. We have entirely too much fun at work.

Part of me still wishes I wrote full time, but I love my life and my job--while not insanely lucrative or anything--affords me with the level of comfort that I like and keeps me in new robots and tamas pretty consistently. Besides that, I still write plenty, with 3 books under my belt and a bunch of short stories floating around the internet. It'd be cool to make money off of it, but I really have no regrets; I love what I do both at and outside of work, and nothing is ever really dull anymore.

And that's what I meant at the start; I didn't set out to do what I do now, I was never someone who really led or was good at talking to other people, but I took the opportunities that appeared along the way and really found what I loved about everything I did to make something that I really, really adore. I tell my team all the time that one line from Mary Poppins: "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and snap! The job's a game." It's so true, and if you can pull that off, every day is just moving from one game to another.

 

[Famous Last Words.x]

I took a gap year after my last year of high school (2016) due to a couple of awful years mental health wise. I completed a certificate in culinary in the second half of 2017 but realised that I hated the whole industry and couldn't cope with the stressful environment, so I essentially took another gap year this year while I tried to deal with a myriad of mental health issues. A lot of my former friends used to be incredibly negative on me because I didn't have a job or the mental capacity to do much and would constantly belittle me behind my back for going nowhere in life and it was really disheartening.

Now I'm working full time at a job I really enjoy (I work for Student Job Search, a charity organization that focuses on finding tertiary students employment! It's so incredibly rewarding to be able to help out other students find work) up until I finally start university. There I'll be doing my Bachelor of Communications, majoring in Marketing Communication, still undecided on a minor between Media Studies and Journalism.

 

[Soenattchi]

I graduated from the university of fine arts two years ago! Right now I am an art teacher and also an invigilator for online exams!