Zgarbas Wrote:There's a big difference between a change of careers and sitting around wondering what to do. From personal funds(to afford the said change) to plain ol' life experience and the ability to maintain both studies and work. It's easier to go from "I work 8 hours a day" to "I work 8 hours and study 5" than from "I do nothing" to that.
I know how it's like to be held back by things you have no control over like depression, but it's not an excuse to do nothing. There's only so much you can expect your parents to handle for you. And when your parents are telling you to move out then you're too old to just sit around waiting for an opportunity to magically fly towards you.
The job market is in a weird place right now, and there's simply not enough room left for people with no experience. And even outside-the-field experience helps(at least yourself, if not your resume), since you at least know how to actually work and get to learn how to keep your brain in track. Employers are more understanding of you when you have experience behind you than when you're just a newbie which can be replaced in a day. That telescope operator thing is cool and all but notice the Math/2 years of slightly related job experience required, and it's one of the more understanding job ads imho. And the only way to get experience is to...get a job.
Well, i think even those 40-50 year olds who go for a massive career change later in life probably also sit around thinking "i hate my life, i hate my job, what am i going to do?" for a little while. It's just part of the process for a lot of people, i guess.
Yeah, i'm not advocating sitting around and doing nothing, or waiting for an opportunity to pop up out of thin air either. Essentially, you do have to take a step and just do something.
But it shouldn't be just "anything" either. Otherwise, what's going to happen in 3, or 5, or 10 years time? Well, he'll likely be in the same position as he is now, regretting the time he's wasted. If he's saving up for something specific, like, to travel and volunteer at a large telescope site, then sure, he should take any job. But it's better if he has -some- plan, i think, and is doing something that can lead to something.
Volunteering is a great way to figure out something you enjoy doing, and making contacts in an industry, especially if there aren't many real opportunities around, and especially for jobs that aren't business orientated.
And anyway, totally unconnected experience just isn't that helpful. It shows you can work, sure but you often get typecast into one job and then it can be very hard to change. Even the people i've met who career changed late had to volunteer as well as studying. Working a part time job and volunteering in something close to what you want to do is probably better than just taking any old full time job and hoping for the best.
The telescope job i posted itself was random, just one of the first links i went to, probably all the sites have that kind of thing. It wasn't to say "look, apply for this", but "look, there are jobs that don't require astronomy degrees, have a look around these sites and think about another way into what you think you'll enjoy".
We all only have one shot at life, so there's no point in spending the majority of it doing something you're not interested in. Of course, sometimes it's necessary to spend time like that!!! But if you have something that you want to do, and that thought keeps coming back to you, you shouldn't waste that either, i think.
Anyway, in Raschaverak's case, i think he needs to make a firm decision. He keeps talking about wanting to do something in Astronomy, but when it comes to it, he doesn't want to spend the time and effort, and possible financial loss involved in getting there. So he has to really decide one way or another... just totally throw away this thought that astronomy is what he wants to do, or else just get on and go for it, and deal with the negatives that go along with that. But if he does neither, he's going to just end up swaying from one side to another permenantly, feeling like a victim of his own decisions, and always regretting the past, i guess.
If you have a degree already, you could always try living in a foreign country as a teacher of English or as a teacher of what you have studied already.
Put myself out there and do things the best of my abilities.
