What not to do if you’re in 8th grade to age 27 Career Advice

[Gergar12]

So, I am age 27, and I have made every mistake you can make as someone who is age 27 and is playing catchup minus the obvious ones****(Your smoking, murders, and generally bad shit)

Intro: Why am I telling you this, because people, and generally men complain that there are no male role models (Because they are busy making money lol), and while I am not a role model, I have made a shit ton of mistakes. Most of them are me wasting my time, and sometimes money that I or my parents made.

So, what did I do wrong? Well, to sum it up I was always a few years late. Here’s how. When I was in high school and middle school I played video games and made hundreds of attempts at modding Skyrim and Skyrim SE. I did nothing else other than B grades on most homework with a few As, and Cs. I then in college (4 years at OSU) worked part-time jobs at multiple places every single one different than the one I had for each summer. Then in my last year of college, I went to an internship for free in a small accounting firm, did 6 months as a business analyst trainee for a restaurant, and also then a 6 month break after four years. Also, I made it a point to join only political clubs in high school, and from middle school to college I made watching war news, news, and political news a favorite activity with a few other clubs like robotics, chess, math, law, and model UN. I then got a job after 3 months at a small logistics firm earning about 21.50 an hour. Now I left it and I only have a part-time remote job on the weekends, and the only things I know are Excel, access queries, PowerBi, and Tableau, and I can prompt engineer Python and SQL.

Now think very hard about where I went wrong. I wasted too much time on nonsense and didn’t focus on finding a good-paying job, and now I only have 3 years of EXP that is relevant, and about 2 years of non-relevant crappy retail, and restaurant experience. I campaigned for Dennis Kunich and his corrupt “progressive’ friends who ended up stabbing the Democrats in the back by backing RFK and by default backing Trump. I was an idiot in high school, I focused on Gamergate even though I wasn’t a streamer or a games journalist. I loved war, and I couldn’t even serve, be in a think-thank, defense contracting, or in a DOD position. That’s how dumb I was. I have no impact on climate change, I have no impact on Medicare for all I am one peon, let the professionals and grifters, and streamers handle it, and go vote (unless your voting gets you fired at a job that you like or driving there is a bad idea due to car accidents [more on this later])

So, what should I have done?

Grades 6-8, get good grades in math, English, reading, and Spanish (or the 2nd most popular language in your country). Maybe I should have done a job in 8th grade to break my teeth into my career.
Grades 9-12(Let me repeat myself these are the most important years of your life, everything here will impact what college you go to which could set the trajectory of what you want to do for the rest of your job aka your career) get a summer job or if you have grit a part-time job in school to have a taste of money, and to learn how important having a good paying job is, and to get used to shitty people you have to deal with(just like in high school). Get good grades in science, math (calculus AP classes for example [AB and BC]), and English, and add a few Excel and computer science classes. Also, become the head of one or more of your clubs, and if you are good start a charity, or startup that’s a one-way ticket to an Ivy League right now. If you want to know about college ranking, go to US News.com or you can try my method of Private Non-Profit with high selectiveness > Public State Schools > Community College > Profit fake schools. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ALL SCHOOLS THAT DO advertisements ANYWHERE (unless it’s for like a hospital, shoutout to the OSU Wexner Center for curing my dad of cancer using some very good chemo/immunotherapy). Generally, I trust people to be smart enough to know that Havard, Yale, MIT, and or Stanford > DeVry University, but hey I am not smart anyway, so you do you. Also, unless your small college is HIGHLY SELECTIVE and will help you get a good-paying job stay away there’s even a chance, they could go bankrupt. You are better off going to community college than transferring to a state school which is what I did since my grades sucked, and I sucked at writing. (I transferred with just my community college grades)

College years 1-5(Depending on your double major like I did which I did 7 years because I am dumb, and now I have two degrees (Econ and political science mostly dealing with foreign policy), one associate of arts, and a minor in World Politics.

Get an internship after your first year,it could be a non-paying one, then get 2 more paying internships at large well-known companies or a very innovative startup with a very good idea based on tech.

Okay now it’s getting real, pick a major you like AND can make you marketable/have an actual good-paying career and a job that isn’t winner-take-all, poor starting pay, etc. I did economics, and while in the 2010s it was good, now it’s declining since they need more STEM(By science I mean only physics) and business majors or computer science, nowadays I don’t know what jobs people that the tech sector will have won’t automate, offshore, and generally not let you have because you’re an American you cost too much dummy. But don’t pick like a major people make fun of for being not marketable, liberal arts(Education, STEM, and business and even healthcare/nursing make more sense), history(History teachers are crazy competitive and you should do education instead), gender studies(Unless you plan to go to HR[More on this later), sociology(I love learning about it but the rich hate this one and your condemn to be a social worker or forced to go to academics. anthropology unless you're Yuval Noah Harari. Here are a few that people hate, but I suspect will only be more important. Economics Just kidding no one cares unless you do a master's. Communication given Gen Z hates being emotionally intelligent (Guilty), Marketing (Sales & Data & better Communication degrees), and Psychology everyone and their mother has ADHD and ASD, and the majority has trauma, and their master’s degree is easy. Just pay attention to your mental health. Here are a few that people say are good but could go away soon (Pharmacy is being overtaken by Pharmacy techs with high school education, and AI. Accounting is algebra at its worst, and 5th-grade math at its easiest, plus lots of Excel spreadsheets with a few smarter people automating it with SQL and Access (Not me but my boss). Here’s a degree that is just not going to be replaced by AI, but is hard dentists, good luck trusting a robot with sharp tools in your mouth I wouldn’t, and believe me I love my sweets, and flossing which is key. No plumbers aren’t going to be here in ten years due to smart toilets that self-combust the stool. Elevator technicians are also a good non-college way to earn lots of money, and if you are in a country with a strong Naval culture like China, South Korea, Japan, or the UK(Until recently can someone from the UK explain this to me other than funding and manpower), the US you can be the following jobs

1. Stealth plate welder (Good luck 3d printing those)
2. Naval shipyard jobs (high demand low supply of workers)
3. And if all else fails and you’re a natural-born US citizen or EU citizen or UK or whatever join the civil service(I can’t because of HR backlogs but maybe they like you better)

Jobs: Glassdoor for income guesses, Claude for projecting how much to ask for YOUR income(more accurate than GPT-4 or Gemini), LinkedIn for experienced people and sales, Indeed for idiots like me, and lastly search on the company website, and or This: https://briansjobsearch.com/. And when you die due to climate change, or the water wars, or the nuclear wars, or just regular wars, you will at least die knowing you did your best for yourself. None of us have political power, It’s networks that have powers, and we aren’t in them.

So why is this political you may ask it's because the years I wasted doing politics I could have gotten experience for a career. I went door to door and on some days I was the only Sherrod Brown Canvasser in a select area because I am an idiot don't be like me. Don't watch the News endlessly and doom scroll, listen to experts, but don't obsess over the news unless it's weather-related, or Astroid incoming spent a few moments with your parents. Politics is for the upper middle class, and the rich to fight our. AOC and the squad are an exception, Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi are the rules. There's a medium between your sanity, and your career try to hit it, most people end up hitting the sanity part of your hobbies vs your career.

Edit: Spelling, Grammar.

 

[Ag3ma]

and if you are in a country with a strong Naval culture like... the UK(Until recently can someone from the UK explain this to me other than funding and manpower)

There's no money. There could be manpower, but there's no money to hire the manpower.

Firstly, the UK still has a relatively powerful fleet. It's well down the list globally in terms of total number of ships, but that's hopelessly skewed by middle-power navies with a ton of smaller patrol craft.

However, what's it actually going to do with a navy? There's no empire with far-flung territories to defend any more. The UK does not have the military power (or interest in) invading places - at best, we're talking defending the Falklands again or something similar. Those aircraft carriers it just built aren't ever going to have that much to do.

The Royal Navy therefore might be best thought of a diplomatic tool. It means that when the UK's allies want to do something - be that the USA, NATO or Europe - the UK can add something useful and show support, which can translate into return favours and influence. I would potentially suggest a second role, which is simply maintaining expertise long-term. Countries that have let their militaries go to ruin can have a hell of a task rebuilding should a crisis come along.

 

[Satinavian]

So why is this political you may ask it's because the years I wasted doing politics I could have gotten experience for a career.

Well, yes.

Once i was done with school, i decided what to do next. Personal interests were among others physics and history. So i went to university and studied physics, because what kind of jobs would a history degree allow me. And it was the right decision. I nowadays know some people with PhDs in history and it is not fun for them to find jobs. They make do but i have way better pay, job security and so on and their career start was even harder.

We also don't have colleges which i kinda still don't really get.


OTOH you should follow your interests to some degree when choosing a career. That makes it far easier to succeed there instead of falling in a motivation hole sooner or later. Seriously, if you think a bad degree is bad, look how people react to a university student who failed to get a degree.

And while it is important to choose an occupation that can earn money, don't chase trends. Properly learning the basics of a job is roughly 5 years and getting enough experience to be trustworthy on your own is another 5. That is way longer than any trend and the labor shortages of when you started are things of the past when you are done.

Don't watch the News endlessly and doom scroll, listen to experts, but don't obsess over the news unless it's weather-related, or Astroid incoming spent a few moments with your parents.

Now that is more work life balance. In your free time you can do whatever you like or what feels important. But don't compromise your education or work or you will have issues later. As long as you get proper grades/degrees / get the work your employer wants done, you can watch as much news as you are interested in. They are way worse potential free time activities.

Also don't work unpaid overtime or let yourself be exploited. An employer who want to exploit you is not such a nice being that they would reward your loyalty/dedication.

And yes, doing politics proper is a full time job. If you want to dive fully in, you can't do it just in a couple of yours after work. That is a hard lessen the Pirate party had to learn when trying to make most policy decisions and discussions via online polls and forums. There is just not enough time.