Career Advice

[clevergirl]

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

Yeah that's why I want to do it. A nurse helped me out of a dark place once and I've always wanted to do that for others since.

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

Yeaaaaa. Fuck being the trans ambassador of the US.

+1 (sorry the replies are messed up)

[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.

[Wonkie]

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

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.

this is very cool!

have you been to oppai pub yet?

[clevergirl]

The nurses I knew all got something from being able to help people and touch lives in a positive way. My mom treated a lot of critically ill patients and she's proud of what she did looking back. That helped sustain her despite the profession being incredibly hard.

[Cecily]

Yeah that's why I want to do it. A nurse helped me out of a dark place once and I've always wanted to do that for others since.

[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.

[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.