what route did you take to get to your career?

I started and dropped out of college, made a lot of money for 4 years and then was busted in the balls by Enron. If you're close to finishing your degree of any type (2/4/6 any) don't give up. I'm back in school now and should finish up in the next year or two and opened my own business so it has all worked out for me, but it was a bumpy road for a year or so.

If you have a "trade" and someone with a degree of any kind has the same type of "trade" they'll go for the college graduate 99% of the time. The bottom line is, in tough economic times a Degree in ANYTHING is a saving grace when trying to find a job.

If you were getting into computers then an option "might" be to get certifications instead of a degree, but even more so now people want both certifications and degrees because the market is so saturated with unemployed talent and "import" talent.

The richest man in the world (Bill Gates) is a college dropout, but he wasn't rich for the first 10 years... it's all how you want to live I guess. The harder you work, the more you'll make generally.

 

If you want to learn to be a sound man for movies, I would recommend not going to college and coming up to Dallas because I need a sound man.

I went to college and ended up with two degrees so far, but I've not done anything with either one of them. What I know about filmmaking, I learned on my own (though I did take a film theory class once), whether through reading or just doing.

But it sure seems like if you want to break into a lot of industries, a college degree is the minimum standard, even in many fields that supposedly covet creativity, etc. over education.

 

My husband claims that you don't need a college degree - rather, a skill (and that's the reason, supposedly, that his bachelor's and master's degrees haven't done him any good). Though here I seem to be hearing the other way around.

I think that what really gets you a job is initiative and confidence; the drive to succeed and make yourself fit into a good situation. Willingness to try something new. You can do this with a lot of backgrounds. I'm afraid my husband just doesn't really have this, or the desire to market himself. I think this is why I've succeeded and he hasn't, though he will claim that I just majored in something more marketable.

I actually use my college major in my job; of course, there are marketable skills (lab analysis etc.) that come with my major. And I ended up teaching anyway, since I feel more comfortable in the academic arena. (in other words... let's face it, once a science nerd, always a nerd, even though you may feel that doesn't describe you. on the other hand, it's nice to be able to stay "in" college all your life )

 

Left college with one semester remaining - never finished.

I won't bore you with the many jobs I went though. I've been a musician since I was 14, so I've always had that to fall back on - in fact, the opposite of what my mom always thought.

Getting to be a web developer went like this...

Had a band in 1995. Wanted a website. Friends were flaky. Pros were too expensive. Knew enough about computers to decide to do it myself. Used befa version of Adobe PageMill (seriously).

Designed sites for small businesses where I worked. Continued to practice on personal sites.

Hooked up with Clutch to do SaveOurRockets.com. Gained tremendous knowledge about it from him. Began freelance designing sites with Clutch in 2001. Decided we could make a living. Started our company in 2002.

I learned about business by reading, talking to people, making mistakes and asking a TON of questions.

The average adult will go through 6 different CAREERS (not jobs) in his/her lifetime according to statistics from my mother the former guidance counselor. I'm on about number 5, so I'm almost there!

 

-Drank and partied a lot in college
-Somehow managed to graduate with a degree in Music Education
-Worked at Enterprise Rent A Car for 3 years after college
-Worked about 10 jobs after that (none of them involving music or teaching)
-Now I'm working for AIG, just got promoted, and I'm taking the Series 6 next month. When I pass, my marketability within the company increases 10 fold.

Someday I will use my degree...

 

I was an accounting major in college.

Hated accounting but figured it was a good way to get a job.
Worked for a year as an accountant. Hated doing accounting.

If you hate working the logical step is.... More school.

Received an academic scholarship to go to law school so I went.
Hated law school. The best thing about law school was meeting my fiancee. We now have 4 lawyers in the family - sympathies accepted.

I didn't want to practice law so I went into financial planning.

Enjoyed that and that's what Im doing now. Im the Agency Director of Financial Planning for my firm working primarily with estate planning for high net worth clients.

 

Tried to follow in my dads footsteps by working in the grocery business. Found out I hated most people and that it wasnt for me.

Took a job working data entry in a body shop. Slowly worked my way up to a shop foreman, and actually working on cars. Found out I hated not being able to get dirt out from underneath my fingernails, so I become a manger. Took a job at a Ford dealership managing their body shop. Found out I hated body shop customers even more than grocery store customers. Went to work for an insurance appraisal service after I lost all my hair as a body shop manager. Found out I hated working for someone, so I went to work for myself about 5 years ago at age 24.

Been doing it ever since.

 

I studied electrical engineering in college. Never finished the degree out of utter boredom. I loved computers and still have no idea why I picked EE to study instead of something like Comp Sci. During one of my semesters I was working 3 jobs (loading trucks for RPS, unloading trucks for WalMart, and working as a pharmacy tech).

That August I flipped through the classified ads in the Houston Chronicle and came across a company hiring "software testers". I interviewed for the job. The company was a tiny 19 person company. I told them I could set up a BBS up for them to help support customers and that I could help them put up their first website (back in 1995 the WWW was still a new commercial thing). They offered me $20k a year (hehe) - I said "cool". I started learning stuff on the job and worked my butt off to do it. My average workweek was about 60-70 hours. I showed up to work at 11pm on Saturdays and went home at 4-6am sometimes. My whole goal was to just gain knowledge. I had plans to go back to school after that, but everything started steamrolling. I officially dropped out of college and began sacrificing "ye old social life" in order to teach myself things that most people learned in college and teach myself tools and acquire skillsets that no college was teaching.

I'm doing pretty well in life as a result now, but it took a lot more effort than the average person goes through. If I had to do it again, I would. College was dull - the excitement and fun for me was the hands-on experience. Most of what I learned was by buying tons of books - I probably spent more on books than on food most months. Would I recommend dropping out of school to anyone else? Not really. Unless you have a clear understanding what you want out of life and what you need to succeed, I think it's probably not wise.

That being said, I'm looking to do something else now. Maybe open up a chicken wing store. lol. ClutchFans Wings. j/k. But I seriously want to do something else in life - I'm deciding what at the moment. Maybe get into buying, reconditioning, and reselling real estate?

The one thing I notice about people with degrees is that so many of them seem to be tied to their degrees - they have to do what they learned to do or they think that they have somehow wasted 4-5 years of their life in school. That's depressing.

 

-USMC, 10 years
-USMC Reserves, 5 years, University of North Carolina-Charlotte (1 year), University of Alabama (3 years)
-Sports Writer at a puny little paper in Georgia (1 year)
-Sports Writer at much larger paper in GA covering the SEC (3 years)plus some prep (high school athletics) coverage.
-Now ATL Falcons beat writer (present) plus prep and some SEC coverage.
Find something you like to do (and would do for free), get the approriate level of education, be prepared to:
-work your ass off
-mail off more resumes than you ever dreamed
-meet and befriend people in your field
Enjoy the rest of your life.

 

I was going to college just passing time.

Got a part time job learning prepress and the printing industry as well as mastering photoshop, illustrator, quark, and the intricate workings of the mac and pc's.

Went out on my own doing freelance design and photo retouching.

Got in debt to the IRS

Got a full time job doing design/production. Added Web design skills to my porfolio. Taught myself all about web hosting, email hosting, networks of all type, server technongy. Hung out with the Marketing guru's and learned to talk the talk and do presentations, proposals, cost analysis, etc...

Got laid off Jan 9th, found a new job Feb 5. Never had one person ask about college when they saw my extensive skill set on my resume and my extensive porfolio for A list clients.

 

when i was a kid i wanted to be a lawyer or second baseman for the astros.

in high school i lucked into writing advertising copy for a local mall...won some national awards. went that direction a bit in college, studying marketing. really enjoyed marketing strategy courses.

senior year of college i'm on the phone with a lady who wants me to come down for an interview. we set it up and just as i'm about to hang up i say, "wait...i can't...i really want to go to law school, and i'm afraid if i don't do it now, i never will...and i don't want to be 50 looking in the mirror with that regret." so i went to law school. now i'm a lawyer. the end.