[CDBacklash]

Wanted to be a musician since i was 3, and had a bout with RSI at 19. I am still 19, but currently not wanting to get back into music (due to performance related injury).
Current career options are:
Law, Vet Science, Primary school teacher.
I like animals, law will give me some money (i need all the help i can get with women), teaching will give me a lot of time to listen to music. I like to listen to music for long periods of time. I'm not overly fond of money.

Curious if anyone from the respective careers can comment on the jobs affect on their listening habits.
Members outside of these can feel free to chip in their two cents.
Thanks

 

[chesebert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDBacklash /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wanted to be a musician since i was 3, and had a bout with RSI at 19. I am still 19, but currently not wanting to get back into music (due to performance related injury). Current career options are: Law, Vet Science, Primary school teacher. I like animals, law will give me some money (i need all the help i can get with women), teaching will give me a lot of time to listen to music. I like to listen to music for long periods of time. I'm not overly fond of money. Curious if anyone from the respective careers can comment on the jobs affect on their listening habits. Members outside of these can feel free to chip in their two cents. Thanks

I go with law school professor (enough money + free time to listen to music); not sure about women, but I guess you can always hit on Master/PhD students from other departments

 

[CDBacklash]

Ha, im not asking about women, it was a snide remark about women who like money.
My heart really lies with music and comedy, but I have no idea how to get started with comedy and my passion to make music has died severely.
Disclaimer: none of my posts may actually be comic.

 

[TopPop]

Get a job that you like (hopefully love), above anything else. If you start to compromise by getting into a career for other reasons than the like of the work itself, you're simply not going to be able to sustain yourself in it... either that, or you're just not gonna be happy in your career.

Awful hard to wake up every single morning for a job that you don't like/love.

$0.02

 

[CDBacklash]

Ideally i'd be able to get by by selling my body for biscuits without ever leaving my bedroom. The main drawback here is my appearance. Everything else just seems like too much work. I appreciate the thought, however I don't think I'd really ever enjoy anything that can be considered a 'job' (no puns about jobs and hands here) and I really need to get on with my life since I dont want to stay in my parents house for much longer.
My current reasoning is: teaching (primary school) will give me enough time to listen to music, and also go out at night for comedy related stuff if i ever choose to go down that path.
the obvious downside is the money.

 

[TedwardRoberts]

You really have to choose the path that you are either in love with or are very good at... hopefully both. I find you do this by taking classes in the various subjects and really find what material strikes you the best.

 

[tattoou2]

Hey, teaching isn't easy and you might be surprised that your evenings are consumed with lesson plans, paper work, grading tests and papers, phone calls with parents, meetings, and the ultimate head-banging-against-the-wall time...figuring out how to spark creativity and spontaneity in your students and make learning fun. Unless you are completely dedicated, find something else for your own sake as well as that of your students.

I started out teaching in high school, moved on to a community college and finally landed at a small liberal arts college. I had well over twenty years in the teaching profession. I do know that primary school teachers perhaps have the hardest jobs of all. It wasn't until I began teaching on the college level did I find time for music and other pursuits.

 

[CDBacklash]

Thanks for the concern. I've done a large amount of work experience for teaching and feel that its something i take to quite easily (like a duck to oil). Man i could really go for some roast duck right now. brb

 

[peanuthead]

What is RSI?

 

[Figo]

absolutely don't go into law.

(unless you can get into a T6 school or full ride at 7-14, and love the idea of working 80 hour weeks with pretentious, backstabbing, and otherwise insufferable prestige-whores)

alternatively, you can go into public interest law, work similar hours, make less than a teacher, and be up to your eyeballs in school debt for the next 30 years of your life.

trust me.

 

[catachresis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Figo /img/forum/go_quote.gif absolutely don't go into law. (unless you can get into a T6 school or full ride at 7-14, and love the idea of working 80 hour weeks with pretentious, backstabbing, and otherwise insufferable prestige-whores) alternatively, you can go into public interest law, work similar hours, make less than a teacher, and be up to your eyeballs in school debt for the next 30 years of your life. trust me.

^Phnarr! My sister the fair-housing attorney has just taken a job at Tulane Law. My father is a very prestigious voting rights attorney, but he got into the business during the 'golden age' of Civil Rights litigation. He works like a fiend, but then he's got a touch of Asbergers Syndrome, and he sees the blazing white-hot spirit of truth behind his eyeballs 24/7. So he's happy and successful in his own obsession, but he's crummy small-talk at a cocktail party.

I'm a college teacher in Birmingham, and I'll say honestly that working for any state school will likely result in good benefits and a solid retirement fund. Teachers do still get three months off in the summer. I know I act like it's my natural right, but that's how familiarity breeds contempt.

On the other hand, as a teacher you'll inevitably encounter that sequence of five weeks in which you teach for 5 hours M-F, and then you grade essays, hold conferences, answer emails, do feudal boon service for the department/school, put up with students bad-mouthing you for being an unreasonable jerk, simper through the sneers and jibes of senior faculty members, sweat with fear that you'll lose your job in disgrace, and wrassel with the demons of poor self-esteem and exhaustion. Twenty hours a day, seven days a week. For about five consecutive weeks. And then--like magic!--it's Christmas or summer vacation.

I find that I need 12 solid days of drinking beer and playing video games in my boxers to recuperate a solid sense of self. Your wife/gfriend/lover will have threatened many times to leave you during your end-of-term panic. The sig-other may go through with it once s/he realizes that you're finished with school, but you're spending all your leisure playing Team Fortress and drinking PBR in your plaids (and getting your sanity back! --How can you make her/him understand?!).

So you'll go insane a time-or-two each year. But you'll have the best dental plan of anybody you know.

 

[AlanY]

If you value free time, a career in law is not for you. (Also, you will be deeply disillusioned if you think law is anything like what it appears to be on TV.) Given your interests, it might make sense to go to graduate school if you can find an area that you're passionate about.

 

[skitlets]

Are there many law careers that don't consume exorbitant amounts of time? My lawyer brother-in-law managed to land a job at a tech company, and he works a typical 9-5. I really don't have any desire to land the big-firm 6 figure 80 hour work week position. Are there more relaxed alternatives in law? How time consuming are governmental lawyer jobs?

 

[cyberidd]

My current plan is to do a degree in teaching (what I'm working on currently), and then jump into Law. Law is the profession that interests me most, and is what I would like to do with my life, but teaching is a happy alternative for me. To me its all about what I think I would enjoy most, although the money and long vacations are nice incentives for each of these jobs!

 

[AlanY]

Quote:

Originally Posted by skitlets /img/forum/go_quote.gif Are there many law careers that don't consume exorbitant amounts of time? My lawyer brother-in-law managed to land a job at a tech company, and he works a typical 9-5. I really don't have any desire to land the big-firm 6 figure 80 hour work week position. Are there more relaxed alternatives in law? How time consuming are governmental lawyer jobs?

Government legal jobs are generally good in terms of work-life balance, but the pay is not comparable. You usually do have the benefit of a pension, which makes up for it somewhat. If I didn't like the firm I was working at, I would consider a legal job in government.

In-house counsel is generally decent as well, though it is quite a bit more stressful than government.

The people who get the most disillusioned by law seem to be those who go to law school thinking it will be exciting like on TV where you're defending the innocent and seeing justice done. If you go in realizing that it's generally an extremely detail-oriented desk job with a moderate amount of interaction with other people and long hours, you'll be fine.