OT: What's your job/career??

[Droplede]

I'm a newspaper editor on the Foreign Desk at The New York Times. The specific job is called "backfield editor" here, and I basically work with reporters before and after they write stories, making sure the big questions get answered and that the writing style is good/appropriate. In the past couple years, it's been way too much about war and way too little about understanding other people. Here's to a change in that.

Got into the newspaper thing early -- started writing sports for the local weekly in high school. But it's something you can get into later. A journalism degree in college isn't necessary, though the college education generally is. The best thing is just to jump in somewhere. Start writing for the student paper or magazine. Clips (jargon for the stories you've written in the past) get you a job in this business much more than your degree.

Alneyan: Yeah, a university degree in the is your best option for higher education in the U.S., as well as being pretty much mandatory in order to get any sort of decent job. It's become de rigeur, though there are always exceptions.

[Will]

re: where to get best education after high school?

Well, it's my personal opinion that the best education you can get is teaching yourself. But, in the current marketplace in the US, a degree is pretty much essential. I know a lot of companies will toss out a resume that does not have the letters "B.S." or "B.A." somewhere on it, barring something insane like 10+ years of industry experience in something the company is looking for. It usually doesn't even have to be in the same field, unless the position is highly technical (engineers, architects, pharmecutical, etc.). So someone who got a B.A. in Classics can get a job as an advertising exec, or something else that is basically unrelated. The big thing that companies want to know is if the person can make it through a university education, what the student learns is largely irrelevant. All that matters is that the student learned SOMETHING.

[deccan]

Alneyan said:
University is actually seen as the worst in France (with the exception of a few courses, like medecine, and where university is simply the only way), and has a pretty poor reputation, so I was wondering at the differences with other countries. I would expect the situation to be quite different, since that's a common criticism against France, but I would prefer first-hand opinions.

Heh. That's because universities in France and Germany are full of young people who have no clear idea of what they intend to do in life and keep studying and studying and studying because it's free and it frees them from needing to do any actual work. At least that was the impression I got when I was studying in France.

I believe that in the U.S. and to a lesser extent, the U.K. students are more career oriented. I don't believe that any companies recruit on university campuses in France and Germany, except for the most elite institutions, but I believe that it is commonplace in U.S. and U.K. Also, I believe that in the U.S. a university student typically has a lot of different types of part-time work experience already, while in France and Germany, most young people get into paid work only after they graduate from university. This prior work experience helps, I think, to temper them and IMHO gives U.S. students a clearer idea of what they want out of university education based on what they know of the demands of the job market.

I believe that in France, university education is generally considered a time-waster by companies, but IIRC, some specialist institutions, e.g. IUTs, art and design schools, etc. still have a pretty good reputation.

[Gandalf Parker]

Will said:It usually doesn't even have to be in the same field, unless the position is highly technical (engineers, architects, pharmecutical, etc.). So someone who got a B.A. in Classics can get a job as an advertising exec, or something else that is basically unrelated. The big thing that companies want to know is if the person can make it through a university education, what the student learns is largely irrelevant. All that matters is that the student learned SOMETHING.

Exactly true. Ive been on the hiring end in the computer networks field and I dont know how many times I heard "but I know all this" from high schoolers. Sometimes we would hire them into the intern program. Many of them DID know more than the college grads on the latest stuff but 99% of them ended up getting fired. For us.. college degree or military service was essential in a resume. I was sorry for some of the applicants but it just kept us from wasting our time.

[Slick]

Agreed. We have found also that another important thing that we look for on interviews is if the person worked while going to college. It shows that the person has some amount of responsibility and time management skills.

Slick.

[Alneyan]

Thanks for all your answers. I guess the Bachelor degrees are only useful to get to higher degrees in France; for example, there are some courses with a very high reputation at five years after High School, where companies may actually recruit students before they have their grade. That is the exception, and definitively nowhere near the general rule (which is: get your degree, and do something else on your own, will you?).

Of course, since there is no real difficulty in getting a university degree, no job would need any such qualification; if you have nothing better to do, you could spend ten years to get your B.A. here. And since most of our schools do not have actual tution fees, you do not have to have your own personal wealth to stay for a very long while in our universities.

Some students do have to work Deccan, especially in Paris, or if you have to rent your room near the university. The other solution is to take a specific loan, which may be a very good idea if you are studying in one of these schools actually giving you a useful diploma on its own.

[Mephisto]

You can't get certain jobs without University in Germany (like Medicine, Law/Judge, engineer). University is the "best" graduation you can get and companies expect it. You have nearly 0% chance to get higher end jobs without it.
I agree that some people study at university without a clear plan for their future but since you know have to pay a fee after you hit certain time-thresholds that number of people has decreased.

[Renegade 13]

Been just over a year and there's a bunch of new faces around who may be interested, so...

*Bump!*

Since people may not feel like reading all the old posts, the original intent of the thread was to share what your job or career is.

Update from me: Working in the warehouse of a molybdenum mine in central BC. Freight shipping and reception is pretty much my job. Busy job. Hectic job. Makes the days go by fast

[Arkcon]

Scientist. No really, that is a career. Scared the hell out of the tax preparer one year. He'd never heard of it before. I even left the "mad" off on purpose, so's not to frighten him.

[EDIT]

How'd I miss this thread last year? Oh well, lots of other scientists/chemists around as well.

[DarkAnt]

DarkAnt said:
I'm just a highschool student, but I hope to become a computer engineer so I can do cool stuff with robots.

We'll here I am at Umass Lowell studying to be a computer engineer. If you think you might want to be an engineer then there are some things I've learned over this first semester that I'd like to share with you.

Taking calc and physics in highschool helps enormously in the first semester
You have to enjoy math and science. If you don't, you won't enjoy engineering.

You have to be willing to put in a hell of a lot of work. People in your dorms will be playing video games and having a great time partying at night. You won't be able to do any of that for the most part. You'll be studying.

My biggest complaint about engineering? There are very few females in it. My 150 person lectures have about 5-8 girls in them.