Self Pitting

The BBQ Pit
41

Oookay, but only because you asked. Long, boring personal story after the click, consider yerself warned. Deep breath…

[spoiler]I started right out of high school (1991) working for a small tradeshow display graphics company – hired on a whim, when they were still using press-type, stock-photos, rubylith and circle templates. Wait, let’s hop in the DeLorean and go back to 1985…

…My old neighbor had owned an old B&W Mac in '85, and he let me use it to play in MacPaint and allowed me to spend hours in his room with my 8mm camera to create stop-animations with by shooting its B&W monitor…

…Back to the future, 1992, I’m 19, and my new boss walks in with a color(!) Mac, with a copy of Photoshop and Illustrator. He bought it because he read how desktop publishing was changing everything, and when he installed Photoshop, that 12 year old kid in me cried out, “Holy fucking shit covered in goat-jism! I know how to use this!”

Took to it like a pig to a teat, I did. I happened to catch the attention of a few old-school top designers in my area, who happened to be clients of the company I was at, and went to work being their hands, while I learned a shitload of design basics from them.

Mid nineties, I started to soak up any graphics software I could get my hands on, usually through my employers: tradeshow/display graphics company; A print/press service bureau in Southfield, MI; A small two-personed based studio in Birmingham; A graphic artist position at an internal creative team for a teir-1 company for the Big Three; worked for six years there until I reached the top position of creative director.

During all that time, I’d moonlight and freelance, doing logos, identities, brochures, web sites, slowly bringing in 3D stuff, then motion design, interactive design, making animated logo bumpers, 3D packaging design concepts for big agencies to focus group; etc. until one day, I realized I had built up enough good relations and clientele with big enough pockets to carry, at least what I was making salary-wise at my 9to5 (which was really a 9to7, and sometimes a 9to3am).

Around that same time, by way of a weird circumstance of who I happened to know, I was offered an opportunity to do some small-scale VFX work on two films (He Was A Quiet Man, and Project Greenlight 3’s Feast). I snagged that work, as my last moonlighting gig, and went freelance (June 2007) ever since working on a variety of VFX work to national broadcast animations, busting my last salary-based gross income by 20k the first year, and ever-higher since (except for the dark days of 2010-11).

There’s a lot of blood, sweat, tears and sleepless nights in there between the lines, but you get the idea. I never had to really promote myself either, it was all word of mouth, really. Every year seems to bring with it some really cool, and interesting opportunities, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing, looking back.

However, there’s a part of me that thinks I would’ve done well and been happy perusing a career in chemistry, astrophysics or cosmology… nahhh… maybe in another universe. :)[/spoiler]

42

I found it to be an interesting yarn. It’s always cool to learn about someone succeeding in a field they enjoy. Well, unless their field is like, Stalinism, or something.

43

Well, lemme tell you about my days in Soviet Russia…

44

Is this another of those charming tales where when bad things happen to other people it’s because they are stupid, but if bad things happen to the OP it’s because she’s a victim?

I love those.

45

I teach Graphic Arts and Interior Design/Architecture.
The problem I see with a lot of my students is not their chosen field. As others have mentioned, there are jobs to be had in the arts. The problem I see with them is that they just don’t care. I feel that they signed up as a way to escape reality for a few more years. It seems obviously the case to me because they are completely apathetic.

Most do mediocre work, at best, if they do the work at all. They signed up at my school because my school takes anyone with a pulse that can afford it. Their written and math skills are so horrible. I tutored one student who sincerely couldn’t grasp 2nd grade math.

I have tried talking to some students. I’ve tried to explain how if they are barely making ends meet now, when they graduate, given their current skills, they will not find a job. They will continue at their McJob PLUS have a $120,000 loan to pay off.

Part of me wants to stay to make a difference. Part of me thinks I need to find a different place to teach.

46

Hehehe.

Just for review:

My heart is one of the bloodiest on the board, but given the harshness of the OP and subsequent posts, I can’t help but think, “Man, you’ve got a lot of excuses!” If you can honestly say someone who decided to take a chance on chemistry over plumbing is a moron, then someone should feel free to judge you as a moron for not ensuring you can find employment with a broken body. Can’t telecommute with your present job? Find one that can. Building isn’t accessible? Find a building that is. Or create your own business. Why didn’t you study communications so that you could be a motivational speaker or a radio personality? MORON. No compassion for you!

It’s possible to roll your eyes at some of the sad-sack stories from people who studied underwater basketweaving and thought they’d become CEOs right out of school, and also feel compassion for folks who made reasonable decisions and were bitten by bad luck. This is where you seem to fail.

47

Similar story here: teaching Graphic Design and Illustration at a technical college. But for every ten “students” that need remedial “The Cow Says ____”, I do get a hard-working kid that I know is going to self-motivate themselves into an awesome job*.

I got schooled by an older teacher: “Why waste your time worrying about the students that aren’t really here to learn? Take that energy and invest it in the few that are sharp. They have dreams you can help them make work.”

*(and make more money than I do, and travel the world on their company’s dime…ah, well)

48

Sounds like a lot of students go to college or trade school because they think it’s what’s required of them (or their parents have pressured them into it), or they think it’ll make them smarter or more talented.

I’ve always seen higher learning as a road for those that already know, to some degree, what they are passionate about, hard wired for, or just naturally talented at, so they can sharpen their skills, learn the lingo, correct for bad habits, share and learn from peers, gain the proper perspective of the field, and of course, acquire honest to goodness knowledge, so they can continue on in a far more well-rounded and professional manner, as well as earning degrees and licenses were necessary (i.e. not to merely have an impressive lable to put on your resume).

I tend to be able to discern those in my field, within a very small frame of time, those that have always had it, from those that are more of a poser, or “can you start my orange for me?” personality types. The former are much, much more resourceful, talented and take the initiative, where the latter types are far more passive-aggressive and lazy about what they do, and depend on a lot of help from their peers; it’s my opinion they shouldn’t be encouraged to rack up huge student loan debt.

49

More than likely, we work for the same place.
I think that teacher is correct. It’s great advice!

50

I don’t disagree with this - too many kids head straight into university without a clue what they are doing, because parents and teachers have basically made it seem like that’s just what you do after high school.

But I also think it’s okay to do some exploring in university, test out various things, and then decide what’s for you. I don’t think that having some feelings of uncertainty means that university is definitely not for you, or that you won’t ever succeed (it might mean that trade school is not for you - I can’t speak to that part). The vast majority of my college friends are now successful and well-employed, but back then very few of them knew exactly what they wanted to be ‘when they grew up’. They might have had some paths in mind, but most of them changed their minds, sometimes several times. But for most of us university was a necessary part of figuring out what we wanted from life, so going in with some doubts was sort of a given.

51

Very true. I didn’t want to go to college. It had no appeal for me at all, but my parents acted like that attitude was killing them slowly with dull knives, so I went (and I didn’t really have anything better to do). I dropped out after a semester because it just wasn’t working. After two years of working, I went back. Still didn’t enjoy it, but I got it done.

And then I didn’t use it.

I’m using it now, but it really was a matter of feeling pressured into going to college in order to meet other people’s expectations.

52

My parents just acted like university was part of the natural progression that everybody goes through - elementary school, high school, university. They would just say things like “when you’re in college you will need to study a lot” rather than “IF you go to college you’ll need to study a lot”. It wasn’t until I got to university that I came to the realization that I hadn’t ever really made a decision about what to do with my life (although I did pick my school and I did want to go, just to get away from home and move to a more exciting town).

However, unlike you I ended up actually loving school and actually got into it to the point that I continued on to grad school. I don’t think it was at all a waste to go, even though I didn’t really know what I wanted to do back then. But it would have been nice if there had been more discussion about choices back when I was younger. I can see the OP’s point on that part - a parent shouldn’t just assume their kid is automatically going to college, they need to take the kid’s desires and strengths into account. But then she goes way beyond that and says that she would just dispatch her kid to trade school with no concern for what they want, and anyone who doesn’t do that is an idiot. IMHO pushing a kid into a trade is just as bad as pushing them into school, if not worse. I’m not sure why one is okay and the other is not.

I sense the OP is not coming back though, so I guess we won’t find out.

53

I agree with everything you said. I may have made too strong of a point about heading into college knowing to a good degree what it is what you want to do. But I do believe there is some exploration to be done while at university. If I could change my career, and attend U of M, I’d be doing all sorts of exploration within the hard sciences.

But at the same time, I’d know I was there for the right reasons. Because I have a passion for something, and I’d require that level of academics, atmosphere and guidance through direct experience of the prospective fields.

This isn’t to say going in totally blind, with absolutely no idea what field you’d like to take up, would be futile, there are plenty of exceptions. It’s just that I hear the exasperation from teachers and professors alike of how many of their students just aren’t there like they fucking mean it.

Pity.