It's amazing how as you grow older...
Apr. 5th, 2004 05:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hmpfyour chances and options decrease, not just because time is growing shorter (I'm not *that* old yet!) but simply because there are deadlines out there, some of them unwritten, for doing or achieving certain things.
E.g. I'm finding myself seriously considering abandoning all academic ambitions I might have had, simply because I may already be too old to achieve them. I'm approaching 28 rather rapidly (four months to go), and I initially meant to get my M.A. before I was thirty. That is beginning to look just a tad unrealistic, especially since recently I'm having great doubts about my study subjects again and am wondering if maybe I should upgrade American Studies to a main subject and drop my other minor subject. But that would prolong my studies, because I would have to catch up with stuff you're supposed to do when you do AS as a main subject but not when you're doing it as a minor subject. I would only be able to take the intermediate examination after catching up, and then I would have to study another four semesters. I think a minimum of another 2.5 years, perhaps 3 years, would be a given. I'd be 31 then. If I wanted to do a Ph.D. after that, I'd have to hurry indeed, but getting funding etc. can take a long time. And getting a Ph.D. after you're 35, frankly, isn't much use. Most employers don't want people who only finished studying after 35. In fact, 35 is pretty old already.
Not to mention the rather shameful fact that I have never actually held any kind of permanent job in my life, so far. That, also, does not look good on a CV.
In fact, there is precious little on my CV that does look good. It looks like the CV of someone who is quickly heading for, at best, some kind of unqualified MacJob, and at worst, for welfare.
And the worst thing is that I don't have the energy and not even seriously enough ambition to do anything about it, I think.
There is, conceivably, one way out for me, but that is so fantastically unrealistic that I can only laugh at it.
That way would be art.
I'm a goldsmith. I have my own workshop. It's not fully equipped yet, but if I invested another 2000-3000 Euros, it would be. Of course, that is quite an investment, but I *have* that money; I would hate to spend it, as I anticipate it will have to pay my rent and food sometime, but I have it. If I were more courageous than I am, I could set up a business. It is entirely possible to work as a goldsmith out of your own multi-purpose bedroom/living room/workshop/library *g* (as I have in fact been doing for the last three or four years, occasionally); goldsmith's work doesn't need a lot of space. You don't need a shop. All you need is word of mouth, really. That, and maybe the occasional fair or Christmas market. Some nicely designed calling cards, a website (sort of like this, just a bit more professional: http://jewellery.allabouthmpf.com)... You won't get rich, but it is possible to live like that, as long as you don't have to support anybody else and are prepared to live very modestly.
But, the fact that I still have some kind of weak-willed academic ambition aside, I am too scared to actually try to do that. And, maybe, I also feel I owe it to my parents, who have magnanimously paid for eight years of increasingly useless training of various kinds for me, to at least *finish* the latest course. Even if I will be too old to do anything really interesting with it by the time I finish it.
Frell.
And so I keep wavering. Keep trying to half-heartedly achieve that ridiculous academic ambition of mine, until one day it will die because I've passed that magical, fatal age line, and then I will be free to pursue whatever fantastic option is left to me with, perhaps, the power of desperation. And perhaps that will even be a good thing. Maybe I first need to exhaust, or squander, all my more reasonable options, before I can mentally allow myself to live the bohème life.
(Note:
Will be offline for a week - meet my parents, spend a few days in the south with them, then go to Blackpool for the con.)
E.g. I'm finding myself seriously considering abandoning all academic ambitions I might have had, simply because I may already be too old to achieve them. I'm approaching 28 rather rapidly (four months to go), and I initially meant to get my M.A. before I was thirty. That is beginning to look just a tad unrealistic, especially since recently I'm having great doubts about my study subjects again and am wondering if maybe I should upgrade American Studies to a main subject and drop my other minor subject. But that would prolong my studies, because I would have to catch up with stuff you're supposed to do when you do AS as a main subject but not when you're doing it as a minor subject. I would only be able to take the intermediate examination after catching up, and then I would have to study another four semesters. I think a minimum of another 2.5 years, perhaps 3 years, would be a given. I'd be 31 then. If I wanted to do a Ph.D. after that, I'd have to hurry indeed, but getting funding etc. can take a long time. And getting a Ph.D. after you're 35, frankly, isn't much use. Most employers don't want people who only finished studying after 35. In fact, 35 is pretty old already.
Not to mention the rather shameful fact that I have never actually held any kind of permanent job in my life, so far. That, also, does not look good on a CV.
In fact, there is precious little on my CV that does look good. It looks like the CV of someone who is quickly heading for, at best, some kind of unqualified MacJob, and at worst, for welfare.
And the worst thing is that I don't have the energy and not even seriously enough ambition to do anything about it, I think.
There is, conceivably, one way out for me, but that is so fantastically unrealistic that I can only laugh at it.
That way would be art.
I'm a goldsmith. I have my own workshop. It's not fully equipped yet, but if I invested another 2000-3000 Euros, it would be. Of course, that is quite an investment, but I *have* that money; I would hate to spend it, as I anticipate it will have to pay my rent and food sometime, but I have it. If I were more courageous than I am, I could set up a business. It is entirely possible to work as a goldsmith out of your own multi-purpose bedroom/living room/workshop/library *g* (as I have in fact been doing for the last three or four years, occasionally); goldsmith's work doesn't need a lot of space. You don't need a shop. All you need is word of mouth, really. That, and maybe the occasional fair or Christmas market. Some nicely designed calling cards, a website (sort of like this, just a bit more professional: http://jewellery.allabouthmpf.com)... You won't get rich, but it is possible to live like that, as long as you don't have to support anybody else and are prepared to live very modestly.
But, the fact that I still have some kind of weak-willed academic ambition aside, I am too scared to actually try to do that. And, maybe, I also feel I owe it to my parents, who have magnanimously paid for eight years of increasingly useless training of various kinds for me, to at least *finish* the latest course. Even if I will be too old to do anything really interesting with it by the time I finish it.
Frell.
And so I keep wavering. Keep trying to half-heartedly achieve that ridiculous academic ambition of mine, until one day it will die because I've passed that magical, fatal age line, and then I will be free to pursue whatever fantastic option is left to me with, perhaps, the power of desperation. And perhaps that will even be a good thing. Maybe I first need to exhaust, or squander, all my more reasonable options, before I can mentally allow myself to live the bohème life.
(Note:
Will be offline for a week - meet my parents, spend a few days in the south with them, then go to Blackpool for the con.)
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-04 10:38 pm (UTC)Then again, thats just my personal opinion, and I am in a very different stretch of work.
*shrugs* Just thought I would let you know Im stillr eading and paying attention here
Thank you.
Date: 2004-04-15 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-05 03:54 am (UTC)I say... finish the academic stuff. I think that is what I would personally do.
Well...
Date: 2004-04-15 05:39 pm (UTC)I will finish my M.A. (which is the lowest degree you can get in Germany, anyway), but the Ph.D. thing is looking more unlikely by the minute.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-16 01:51 am (UTC)Perhaps if you looked into doing some volunteering, it would help to pad out your cv?
no subject
Date: 2004-04-05 03:42 pm (UTC)Hope you have a good time at Eastercon! :)
Eastercon was great...
Date: 2004-04-15 05:40 pm (UTC)Preach it!
Date: 2004-04-06 11:57 am (UTC)I'd rather make a living as an artist, too. Accomplishing that, aye, there's the rub.
Now that I've made it all about me, getting back to you. This advice probably blows donkey chunks, but employers may not look too closely at how long it took you to get this or that degree. A lot of them prefer well-rounded candidates who have things listed other than "experience for job A." As for the CV, writing those is its own art form, too. Taking what's there and making it look FAAAAAABulous. If there are areas you'd like them to ask about, but they're not, then you work it into the interview somehow. I *always* keep "Author" on my CV whether it has anything to do with the job or not. If they don't ask about it, which most do, I bring it up!
Keep plugging away at the jewelry, too!
I was mostly talking/whining about...
Date: 2004-04-15 05:45 pm (UTC)Thank you for your reply, though. I feel warmly understood. :-)
Oh, and CV writing... yuck. Trying to sell myself = something I'm not very good at. I tried to make the best of my current CV, but it still looks like crap. Because, let's face it, there just isn't anything really useful on there. I know English very well - but many people do. I can type quickly - but there, too, I'm hardly the only one. I'm a goldsmith - yeah, right, and everybody is looking for those. What kind of job would you apply for with these 'qualifications'? *sigh*
Re: I was mostly talking/whining about...
Date: 2004-04-17 08:01 am (UTC)That's most useful for folks like us who are self-proclaimed stinkers at selling ourselves. Cursed with an unshakeable sense of humility, I cannot claim to be "the best' at whatever job I'm seeking. There's always somebody else out there better than I, and I know it, but that doesn't help win over hiring managers, alas. So I suck at self-promotion.
Drat. I had no advice in there. Is empathy okay? :-D
I'm afraid that at least in Germany...
Date: 2004-04-17 08:28 am (UTC)Ah well. Maybe I don't really want this, anyway. I feel more and more as if I really only want to write. Not that I'm feeling at all sure that I can be good enough at that, but...
Never mind.
Thanks for your sympathy... :-)