Saturday, April 2, 2011

The obligatory "AHHHH WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE" post

People talk about career changes and what-not, but I never really expected the change from student to non-student to be so abrupt and difficult. I mean, one day you're a student and the next you aren't. People try to tell you that college doesn't prepare you for the real world, and you try to listen to them, but it doesn't really sink in until it's happening to you.

I walked away with a degree in English Communications (though my diploma just says "English," because my former university is a prat and doesn't want to distinguish between English Lit and English Communications, despite the VAST DIFFERENCES between the two tracks). A lot of people will try to say that my degree is basically useless unless I want to be a teacher. I disagree. About three years ago when I was still an undecided major, my adviser told me that most places of employment don't care what your degree is in, just that you have a degree. He told me to choose something I enjoy doing and go from there. I think that was amazing advice, and I really did enjoy getting my degree while I was in school. The problem is, having a BA in English is incredibly broad, and could qualify me for many different types of jobs, I just don't know what I want to do anymore. I feel like specialized degrees may be easier to transition into getting a job, simply because you know what kind of job you can get with that degree, and presumably, that is what you want to do since you got that degree.

I used to think I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I have re-evaluated everything about 10 times in the past 3 months. Truth be told, the only thing I ever wanted to do was entertain in some form or fashion. When I think back to what I wanted to be when I was younger, I wanted to be a singer or an actress. When I was in high school I maintained the dream that I would eventually learn how to play a bass guitar and start a band. Then I wanted to be a VJ on FUSE. Then I wanted to work behind the scenes in theater productions. When I was in college I decided I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write for movies and TV shows. Then I wanted to write short stories and novels. Then I wanted to blog for a living. Then I wanted to become Youtube famous. For a short time I wanted to join the peace corps while blogging and documenting everything with pictures and video. Then I considered writing plays. Then I went back to wanting to write for TV shows. Then I decided I would become a production assistant at a TV show in order to work my way up to editing footage and writing and possibly directing. NOW, I am just so overwhelmed and confused that I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to somehow do everything I just mentioned. Sure, I'll be busy, but I am bound to entertain someone by doing one or more things above.

The main problem with all of this is, the entertainment business is not an easy one to get into, even for background work. It involves confidence and some kind of knowledge of what you want. As stated above, I have no idea what I want. I am also terrible at selling myself. I'm terrible at selling most things, to be honest, but I won't get into that now. There's also this thought in my head that all of that is just a dream. Plenty of people dream about being famous or well-known in the entertainment business, but it seldom happens for them. But it's all I've ever known, and why shouldn't it happen for me? I'm struggling between being a realist and a dreamer about the situation.

Things would be much simpler if I were not so complex. I'm not saying that to seem DEEP AND INTELLECTUAL, I'm just saying...people are freaking complicated and cannot be summed up in just a few definitions.

I don't know where this post is going anymore. I could probably keep going off on tangents and make this post even longer, but I think you've had enough for one night.

No comments:

Post a Comment