What do you do?
- Thread starter tomd
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hucks
Your Message Here
Mate, that is the best idea I've heard in ages. Do it!
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Similar here. I'm just moving into the writing up year of a number theory PhD (ie they stop paying me and start charging me council tax), and thinking of tutoring rich peoples' kids and/or undergrads with more money than aptitude to keep me alive until I've finished.
I wouldn't say I did it for long-term career prospects, though, more to avoid thinking about what my long-term career prospects actually are for an extra four years.
sufi
lala
me too
Went to university for philosophy and art history - dropped out because "philosopher" isn't a job
Went to college for music business - dropped out because they were a load of hacks using suckers tuition money to plan for their retirements
Now I work jobs that pay my rent, go out on the weekend, and desperately try to spend other people's money on reckless pursuits that I think might somehow inch me closer to leaving this restricted, cyclical lifestyle I lead.
Went to college for music business - dropped out because they were a load of hacks using suckers tuition money to plan for their retirements
Now I work jobs that pay my rent, go out on the weekend, and desperately try to spend other people's money on reckless pursuits that I think might somehow inch me closer to leaving this restricted, cyclical lifestyle I lead.
first job ever was drug dealer (i was 16) - ganja, LSD, and for a short time, heroin (China White no less - best of the best)
first job after art uni was making henna tatoos. lasted about 6 months. after which i decided i wanted to get into graphics.
didn't have a comuter, didn't have any education on how to use them. no design classes, knew nothing about "type" or "layout" or anything else -- only found out what "kerning" was about 4 years ago, when i had been a professional designer for 5.
to build my first portfolio (for fake clients), i used to take the bus to UCLA design department and pretend i was a student to work in their lab. great times. i still keep in contact with people i met there - they all thought it was great that i was doing that - but the security didn't and after a few months they started checking iD's but i had a portfolio already.
jumped on the dot com wagon in 1999. crazy ride with THE biggest one in the states. it was all lamborghinis in the parking lot, go-go girls at company parties, my water-bong sitting pretty on my desk; getting freaky after hours at the office (one of the girls from there went on to start Suicide Girls)
and now I'm freelancing for mostly US design companies from Berlin.
this site needed to be updated about 3 years ago: www.optikom.com
first job after art uni was making henna tatoos. lasted about 6 months. after which i decided i wanted to get into graphics.
didn't have a comuter, didn't have any education on how to use them. no design classes, knew nothing about "type" or "layout" or anything else -- only found out what "kerning" was about 4 years ago, when i had been a professional designer for 5.
to build my first portfolio (for fake clients), i used to take the bus to UCLA design department and pretend i was a student to work in their lab. great times. i still keep in contact with people i met there - they all thought it was great that i was doing that - but the security didn't and after a few months they started checking iD's but i had a portfolio already.
jumped on the dot com wagon in 1999. crazy ride with THE biggest one in the states. it was all lamborghinis in the parking lot, go-go girls at company parties, my water-bong sitting pretty on my desk; getting freaky after hours at the office (one of the girls from there went on to start Suicide Girls)
and now I'm freelancing for mostly US design companies from Berlin.
this site needed to be updated about 3 years ago: www.optikom.com
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
*makes mental note not to spill zhao's pint*
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Number theory, eh? Cooool. Like most physicists, I have something of an inferiority complex in the presence of proper mathematicians (you cunt
).Umm, yeah, that's kinda what I meant to say! Although career prospects does figure to some extent, since so many people have a degree these days, and even a Master's (though not necessarily in a science subject). I've been doing it for so long now that I just want to finish because I've started...
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Like many mathematicians, I have deep envy for anyone who can give a rough answer to the question 'so what sort of thing do you study' to a member of the public in less than an hour...
Alfons
Way of the future
I just finished my b.a. in philosophy, am working now at a local youth center (as someone said upthread, you can't work as a philosopher). It's a nice job, co workers are nice and the kids range from horrible to annoying to awesome, wouldn't want to make a career out of it though.
Would like to (try) work in journalism, I do the odd culture/music piece freelance for a local daily which I quite like. Do some dj-ing and promoting as well, this gives me some pocket change every once in a while but far from enought to make living of it.
Seems like a lot of people here don't like there jobs to much...?
Would like to (try) work in journalism, I do the odd culture/music piece freelance for a local daily which I quite like. Do some dj-ing and promoting as well, this gives me some pocket change every once in a while but far from enought to make living of it.
Seems like a lot of people here don't like there jobs to much...?
Freakaholic
not just an addiction
this post has come at a very opportune time for me.
for the last 3 years or so, have been working a mundane and pointless desk job. not as bad as i make it sound, since it is for a major private university, and hence there is no one on my back constantly telling me what to do. but, ive grown weary from enforced presence in an office climate, restrictive schedules, and basically a pointless existence.
therefore, come October, i move to mexico. i have a lady friend that lives there currently, teaching english (although she is a citizen there, and in italy). my goal is to move to cancun or some other beach community and try to DJ, or barring that (all ive heard is the music in those areas is TERRIBLE) work in the tourist indursty somehow: event coordinating, sound/stage tech, djing, wahtever.
really, id like time to sit on the beach and produce music, while still being able to dj to crowds pretty regularly. that cant be THAT hard, can it?
for the last 3 years or so, have been working a mundane and pointless desk job. not as bad as i make it sound, since it is for a major private university, and hence there is no one on my back constantly telling me what to do. but, ive grown weary from enforced presence in an office climate, restrictive schedules, and basically a pointless existence.
therefore, come October, i move to mexico. i have a lady friend that lives there currently, teaching english (although she is a citizen there, and in italy). my goal is to move to cancun or some other beach community and try to DJ, or barring that (all ive heard is the music in those areas is TERRIBLE) work in the tourist indursty somehow: event coordinating, sound/stage tech, djing, wahtever.
really, id like time to sit on the beach and produce music, while still being able to dj to crowds pretty regularly. that cant be THAT hard, can it?
Speaking for myself and others of my age group, no 21 year old enjoys their job.
redcrescent
Well-known member
I wish you the best, Freakaholic! I made the move to Mexico (I live up north in Monterrey, far from nice beaches) 2 years ago and I have not looked back. However, starting up was not easy, even as a native Spanish speaker with Latin America experience and lots of help from my Mexican girlfriend and her friends and family. I now do climate change-related consulting work for NGOs and state governments and do the dj thing on the side, and I really could not ask for more.
I don't expect anything but travel money and drinks for me and my friends when I play out - art spaces, private flats, parties, the odd inner city bar or radio show - and I'm happy not to have to do it for a living. In Europe the djing at least paid for all music-related expenses, but I find it difficult to believe that could be done here. I have two close friends who are really committed, full time dj's, work 5-6 hard nights a week playing everything from Latin house, psytrance, reggaeton, MTV hip hop and norteño, have tremendous deck skills, winning smiles and know everything about how to work a crowd, posess an encyclopedic knowledge of every sort of hipster music scene you care to mention, but they still do car audio work/jingle production during the day and live with their parents.
Music and event culture in touristy Mexican beach resorts is truly soul-destroying, you're lucky if you run across a fairly quiet bar that is not mobbed by tequila slamming American frat boys looking to pull, coked-up businesspeople from the capital and middle-aged Germans slurping happy hour strawberry margaritas. Forget about playing anything but the safest chart business or building up a vibe because clueless requests come thick and fast and you will be playing "Las Mañanitas" (the birthday tune) about 6 times a night. I would not recommend the dj rental equipment route either because I guarantee a lot of sleepless nights (in a bad way), slashed cones, robbery and/or your equipment being held hostage against some insubstantiated claim. After border towns, beach resorts with rich gullible tourists are the biggest magnet for the worst sort of human scum you can(not) imagine. Competition for and in any job - real estate, bartending, sports instruction, etc. - is very, very tough, and life in general tends to be more expensive than in the rest of the country because of the steady influx of foreign exchange.
I hope this doesn't sound patronizing, but if I can give my two centavos' worth to a fellow Dissensian...
- If you don't already speak Spanish, make every effort to learn it asap
- Get a paid job and working papers (FM3 visa) as soon as you can and register as an employee with a company you trust. You are nothing and nobody without papers, not even worth keeping a promise to
- Be prepared to do a lot of legwork to get what you want, and, unless you have some cash reserves, be prepared to do a lot of things you would usually resist doing
- ACAB
Good luck and keep in mind, if it were easy, why isn't everyone doing it? :slanted:
being able to work from anywhere in the world is cool but sitting in front of a computer every day hardly feels like "winning" sometimes... (but i can get by with a 1 day work week so it's not so bad... the rest of the time it's work on music and other projects and... wasting time on this board
)i fantasize about being a bartender for a while. or working on a ship (no idea as what though. dj would be sweet
). or just something fun in a social way... there is an agency in the US that allows people to "trade" jobs for a certain amount of time, which i think is an awesome idea.
N
nomadologist
Guest
nothing, and it's great except school
except school