Career Advice

[Troxx]

Originally Posted by Cecily [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nursing is more my calling, I think, but I do have some serious issues with authority and that job puts in a subordinate position, likely forever.

I've never viewed or treated my nurses as subordinates. We're all a team. Everyone who isn't self employed has a boss or someone they are responsible to.

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Cecily [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I really enjoy writing as well, but an English degree seems like financial seppuku. Comedy writing would be my absolute dream job, but don't think I'm consistently funny enough. I'd love to teach, and I'd do it well, but I hate the school system too much.

I think I going with my original gut instinct for psych nursing is making the most sense atm. It's a outlet for my need to help people. Money is not my end game. I want a few elective procedures and I have almost no desire for anything else. After that I just wanna spend my life helping to unfuck what life does to people.

It sounds like you're pretty sold on nursing, which is meaningful, pays pretty well, and has almost guaranteed job security. But here's my (IT) story anyway.

I was a Literature major, Education minor in college. I learned to program on the side (didn't do CS because I hated most of the math), and while it took a little awhile because of the dot com bust I eventually got a job, and progressed to leading a team. Then I switched companies to one in the precision medicine industry (ie. looking at your genes to fight cancer). While there I wrote a book on a programming framework, and (after a few jobs in-between) this fall I'll be teaching an online Intro to Web Development online class.

What's my point from all that?

1. you don't need to like CS, or get a CS degree, or even get a degree at all to get an IT job. Just teach yourself or spend 12 weeks at a good boot camp (eg. Hack Reactor in San Francisco) and you can learn everything else on the job.
2. Even if you become a programmer, you can still help people. I helped people survive cancer by building a web application.
3. Even programmers can do things like write books and teach classes.
4. Programming pays well ... even (especially?) for Literature majors; so well I've been able to live off my savings while getting paid next to nothing to teach this course.

So IF nursing doesn't work out for you, a career in IT might be better suited for you than you realize. My advice would be to try a small IT project (eg. build a basic website) and see how you like it: it will be a completely different experience from a CS course.

[Cecily]

That's the type of story I wanted to hear. I love the kind of people who go into Lit., English, and journalism and it's interesting to see how they use it because its oftentimes an indirect path to income. You've hit most of the check marks of seemingly unrelated things I'd like to do professionally. That's pretty cool. Thanks for sharing and high five.

[Cecily]

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've never viewed or treated my nurses as subordinates. We're all a team. Everyone who isn't self employed has a boss or someone they are responsible to.

Yeah I acknowledged that last part. I'm useless for anything if I can't learn to be professional. Is your attitude the exception or the rule, because I feel like one of us has the wrong impression and I don't think it's me. Do you not tell nurses what to do? If they disagree, do you listen to them? I'm not saying you're wrong but I don't see that being the experience with every doctor or surgeon I work with.

Like Sedyt is a doctor and he's a massive c[Insult edited out by Sedyt. Application forums are not the appropriate place for name calling and flames.]

[Troxx]

Originally Posted by Cecily [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah I acknowledged that last part. I'm useless for anything if I can't learn to be professional. Is your attitude the exception or the rule, because I feel like one of us has the wrong impression and I don't think it's me. Do you not tell nurses what to do? If they disagree, do you listen to them? I'm not saying you're wrong but I don't see that being the experience with every doctor or surgeon I work with.

Like Sedyt is a doctor and he's a massive c[Insult edited out by Sedyt. Application forums are not the appropriate place for name calling and flames.]

It's all over the place really. Of those I've known I'd say about 25% follow my line of thought/behavior, 50% are more neutral and 25% are patriarchal to the nth degree (many of these are frankly dicks).

Do I tell them what to do? Yes and no. I direct the patient care and am ultimately the individual most responsible. We call them orders for a reason. If anyone on my team disagrees (nurse, respiratory therapist. technician, whomever) we pause and discuss/debrief immediately. Most of the time all it takes is explanation and we're back on track, but there have been occasions where a different perspective has saved the bacon of both myself and other docs I've known. This is especially true for seasoned and highly specialized ICU nurses (both pediatric and adult), oncology nurses, and obstetrics nurses. We're all human ... and humans make errors (at all levels of care). They watch my back. I watch theirs.

Originally Posted by Kayso

I think the first decision is to decide rather lifestyle is more or less important than career success/satisfaction. If you love skiing move someplace that allows you ample access to ski and figure out a way to make a living while you're there.

The important things for me are living in a place I like and having weekends off to spend with my family. The place I chose to live is expensive, so a decent income is a necessity. I also like a flexible schedule, again to make time for family.

I'm a commercial real estate broker for those reasons. I don't love or hate my job. The down side is an unreliable income stream -- I've paid more money in taxes in some years than I've made in others. The upside is the flexible schedule. But again, all of those are really secondary concerns to me.

Man ain't that the truth. There are those who live to work and those who work to live. If I rolled out of bed 18 tomorrow morning knowing what I know now, I'd likely take a different path. I'm here now and very happy with the work I do but if I knew just how long and hard the road would be I'd probably do something else. Something less stressful ... and something that would have me drawing a paycheck before I turned 26 (and not eating ramen until nearly 30). 9 years on I'm just now almost free of the debt and I'm pretty sure I've taken years off my life from lack of sleep and stress.

[Phenyo]

I play elfquest 16 hours a day professionally

[LulzSect©]

livin' the dream

[Jimjam]

^ Heal thyself, physician.

On topic: I taught business English to non native speakers. I was not formally qualified, just used relevant materials I could gather off the web and did a free Cambridge course to give me ideas for content and delivery.

Was fun, did some face to face (group seminars and 1:1) and some online (1:1).

Obviously living in Greece at the time facilitated this as I could use contacts to receive clients. Had clients flown in from Eastern Europe and Russia, so obviously they thought it was worth it.


Create a web presence then go directly to regional HQs of international corps. Describe you want to run a special offer exclusive to their staff, Explain the value of your coaching for their staff and management (many will have meetings, conferences and correspondence with English speakers at the international hq in New York or London). Improving their English improves their bottom line.

You may well find companies willing to shit money on you.

[Cecily]

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's all over the place really. Of those I've known I'd say about 25% follow my line of thought/behavior, 50% are more neutral and 25% are patriarchal to the nth degree (many of these are frankly dicks).

Do I tell them what to do? Yes and no. I direct the patient care and am ultimately the individual most responsible. We call them orders for a reason. If anyone on my team disagrees (nurse, respiratory therapist. technician, whomever) we pause and discuss/debrief immediately. Most of the time all it takes is explanation and we're back on track, but there have been occasions where a different perspective has saved the bacon of both myself and other docs I've known. This is especially true for seasoned and highly specialized ICU nurses (both pediatric and adult), oncology nurses, and obstetrics nurses. We're all human ... and humans make errors (at all levels of care). They watch my back. I watch theirs.

I hope I end up working with people like you then or at least that first 75%. If I only have personality conflicts with roughly 1 in 4 doctors I think I can make it work. Thank you for the inside perspective.

[Tethler]

Originally Posted by Wonkie [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

is teaching english internationally still a thing? i think you have a degree and that's all it used to require. gets around the rude american student issue.

chime in here if you know better folks.

It's still a thing, yeah. That's what I do currently. People like to do it as a year-off kinda job before their "real career", so it has a bad reputation in the host countries sometimes due to many unqualified teachers. I got a degreee in Linguistics and a teaching cert so I wouldn't be like those guys. In my second year now and I really enjoy it. The pay isn't amazing, but it's enough to live comfortably (able to pay all bills and save $800-$1000 a month) and I am able to explore Asia cheaply (based in Japan).
There aren't many advancement opportunities though unless you get a masters or doctorate and teach at university level.