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[Grakelin]

Yeah, seems like not being able to nab a job at Best Buy has more to do with the economy than your work experience. Probably the same reason why other companies are asking for six years of customer service for call-centreing.

Keep in mind that American call centres are being outsourced to everywhere that isn't the United States. When I lived in New Brunswick, many of my friends worked at an outsourced call centre doing IT for around 10 or 11 dollars an hour, which is higher than the minimum wage. I guess minimum wage in the US must be more expensive than what they're paying us up here. The only way the company will be able to compete is if they have a higher quality product. Since places like Canada and India are able to churn out educated workers with relative ease, this is easier said than done. Hence, you need to have six months of previous work experience to get a job as a customer service agent in the USA, despite how unfulfilling it actually is.

Where have you been working in the meantime, if at all? You can claim customer service experience just from the jobs you had in high school (almost all of which are 'customer service').

You know there has been some ranting that I heard about needing work experience when going straight out of school. The heck?

Somebody explain this to me: There are people straight out of school, in their twenties, finished university. Now when applying for job we're expected to have some experience? From where. These people are straight out of school. Other than this, there is a possibility of being refused work for being overqualified.
If these people wouldn't want to have this job they wouldn't have applied

:/

Forsaken is right, more and more universities are offering co-op and intern programs, and plenty of kids have to work through university anyway. If I were to make an uneducated guess, it will be completely unacceptable for a graduating university student not to have at least a year of work experience within the next three decades.

I hear this concept of being turned away for being 'overqualified' before, as well. I imagine it might happen, if you are signing on as a line cook at McDonald's and they needed uneducated, tired people who might try to unionize or something. The jobs you're aiming for by going through university won't. In fact, most jobs won't. I have heard 'they might try to turn me away for being overqualified!' from all sorts of people who really just don't want to do more school, at all levels. A friend of mine kept using it as an excuse not to get a Ph. D, but she recently relented after going back to the Middle East for several months, and is coming back some time next year.

It doesn't make any sense whatsoever for the good jobs to turn you away because you are too educated. When given a choice between two people who are exactly the same, except for their level of education, the employer is not going to say "This one is too smart, let's go with the high school dropout". During the 50s and 60s, university degrees of any sort were immediate tickets to employment, since they represented an ability to work hard and apply oneself. Even if you did go to the fast food or retail store, you could probably get a management position out of your degree. If I had to be a conflict theorist about this, I would speculate that the rumour was spread around to keep people from wanting to attain higher levels of education. Educated people put a strain on social control because they keep questioning everything.

If you guys can come up with some names of people who were told they could not work at a place because they had worked too hard in school, please correct me.

[DJ]

Wages are typically calculated according to level of education, so it's more expensive to hire somebody with more education than is needed. You'd think you could just pretend that the employee doesn't have a superfluous degree, but there's some catches involving unions and government regulations and I don't know what else. So yes, it's perfectly possible to be overqualified.

[nordak]

Working for yourself isn't bad, you just need to get clients, which can be rough.  Starting out you will need to do something on the side unless you have a considerable savings.  Really the economy would be picking back up if people would go out and create their own jobs.  New Industry is what the world needs.  As I said starting is hard, Especially if there is overhead, you may end up letting your personal bills go to float your business.

Also as a college dropout I make more than what I would have started with as a Mechanical Engineer.  Wages are somewhat skewed based on demand, and your personal branding.  Cambridge Who's Who is a good place to start personal branding, unfortunately it costs $1800 to get published and you must already have accomplished something.

[Rooster]

Actually my "Situation" is funny for me.
I have a lot of creativity (might be mistaken for stupidity).
I don't have only one talent - sculpting, I actually have 3.

So gentlemen place your bets, what should I study, and where is easier to get employment:
1 Sculpting
2 Natural talent for spoken (not written) languages (I seem to be hated by teachers that want to teach me grammar, while I'm sure I'm able to speak in english and to be understood, and care little for my grammar)
3 Design. Yes design. Game design in fact. I love to make up rules for my own games and test them. But I'm just an ammateur. In fact I'd rather not be employed by Games Workshop or whatever. To prove that'm telling the truth I have created the rules for Inaluct's game Roman Emperors (It's here on Bay 12 Forum, and someone tried to reactivate it once), and I revised the rules for Dwarf: The Hammering with RAM, also here on Bay 12.

While I'd rather go with Sculpting arts, I'm comfortable with keeping it as a hobby, and translate books instead.
So how goes employment for Artists, Philologists, or Amateur rules designers? (Thinking about that, being employed in Magic The Gathering R&D would be SWEEET)

[AntiAntiMatter]

Translator is probably a good bet. There will probably be a good demand for those in any touristy city.

[Spreggo]

I didn't read all the replies so I don't know if this was already covered.

Becoming an artist is a intellectual pursuit. It requires discipline and rigor to actually sit yourself down and work on your art all day.

Not only that, but it also requires a lot of reading, especially when you are trying to understand a technique you want to learn.

I am currently attempting to be a full time artist and it is quite possibly the most difficult thing I've ever done. I could probably figure out how to properly extract a tooth more easily than I can become a decent artist. Generally, artists who don't have the ability to study, do studies, and practice constantly, fail.

[abculatter_2]

I didn't read all the replies so I don't know if this was already covered.

Becoming an artist is a intellectual pursuit. It requires discipline and rigor to actually sit yourself down and work on your art all day.

Not only that, but it also requires a lot of reading, especially when you are trying to understand a technique you want to learn.

I am currently attempting to be a full time artist and it is quite possibly the most difficult thing I've ever done. I could probably figure out how to properly extract a tooth more easily than I can become a decent artist. Generally, artists who don't have the ability to study, do studies, and practice constantly, fail.

Very true. I love drawing, but can barely bring myself to focus for much more then just sloppy doodles.

I suppose art school/classes could help a lot, but I don't know myself.

Also, one industry that I've recently began getting interested in is the culinary industry. No, I don't mean McDonalds, Walmart, or any of those mass-produced things they sell there. I mean real culinary, chefs, bakers, restaurateurs, etc. It doesn't take that much to be a good cook, and if you can become a chef you can make a good amount of money.

[penguinofhonor]

Man, I'm not going to tell you to stay in school if you don't want to. Honestly, you know better than I do what you want to do with your life. I need to go to college to do what I want to do, but that doesn't necessarily apply to you. The whole "put up with this torture for your own good" attitude seems to reflect something horribly wrong with the school system (and how little society cares about us young people).

On the other hand, if you want to stay in school then you should see if you have ADHD or something. I have ADHD and didn't really figure it out until my senior year of college. I thought I was just lazy and couldn't do the work and stuff like that but I'm currently being tested and I feel a lot better than I did when I was lazy and hopeless. It can be a bit of a hassle to get to a psychiatrist if your parents don't believe you (and a lot of money), but I'm not sure how that works in Poland.

[zagibu]

So gentlemen place your bets, what should I study, and where is easier to get employment:
1 Sculpting
2 Natural talent for spoken (not written) languages (I seem to be hated by teachers that want to teach me grammar, while I'm sure I'm able to speak in english and to be understood, and care little for my grammar)
3 Design. Yes design. Game design in fact. I love to make up rules for my own games and test them. But I'm just an ammateur. In fact I'd rather not be employed by Games Workshop or whatever. To prove that'm telling the truth I have created the rules for Inaluct's game Roman Emperors (It's here on Bay 12 Forum, and someone tried to reactivate it once), and I revised the rules for Dwarf: The Hammering with RAM, also here on Bay 12.

This might sound a bit harsh, but talents alone won't get you anywhere. A lot of teenagers think that ingenuity, creativity, etc. is enough to base a living on, but they are only quality modifiers. If you have them in large amounts, you will be a better X than someone without, but what is really required in almost any half-decent job is the ability to finish things, even if you don't like doing (large) parts of them. It's called hard work.

I know this sounds a bit like grampa. Also, I'm not saying you don't know what hard work is. Maybe you already do. The fact that you can't motivate yourself to do homework indicates otherwise, though. The ability to motivate yourself to do hatestuff is absolutely essential for your entire life. I know that hatestuff is no word. You know what I mean. There is no job that doesn't include activities that you will hate.

Schools should teach how to build motivation. They should teach how to learn. You might think, because there is no course about motivation and how to learn, that they don't teach it. But they teach it implicitly. I don't want to praise schools, as those I've gone through all mostly sucked. They sucked, because most teachers didn't really care. But the fact that they sucked and that most courses felt like a chore actually DID teach me what they weren't teaching. I'm still not sure if this was intentional or not. Probably not, like most brilliant things.

I myself am still not very good at it, though. But whenever I achieved something important (those rare occasions), it wasn't because of my intelligence or talent, but because I persevered.

There are also some more practical considerations. Finishing school might seem tedious now, but what's really tedious is going back to school in your twenties, maybe with a pregnant girlfriend and lots of bills to pay. Also, you might think that you know what you wanna do. Yeah. You know what you wanna do in the next 3 years, maybe, but life changes, and if you don't have a solid base education, a lot of doors that you didn't think you could ever want to go through might be closed.

Now this DID sound a lot like grampa. I'm getting old...

[nordak]

Need motivation? Join the army.  Bonuses are gone but the training is still worth alot.

[Il Palazzo]

Il Palazzo, the Great Advisor, says:
Whatever you do, don't rely on wishful thinking.
You say you are considering quiting school, and getting a job.
Fine, your call. But you can either do it in the above sequence, and end up without education and without a job, or try doing it the other way around. You won't magicaly be able to get one just because you'll put yourself on the job market. You'd have higher chances of managing to do so, if you were an assertive, self-confident fellow, with lots of personal charisma, so that you could bullshit your way through any interview, even without "matura"(Polish~A-lvs/GCSE).
Do you think you've got what it takes? No offense, but judging from your posts over the years, you're rather introverted.
Look for job opportunities first, if you find something concrete, then you can start thinking about leaving school. There's nothing worse than not having either - it's a straight way down to degradation and depression, which makes you even less desirable of an employee.

You think you've got a talent for sculpting, but are you really as good as you think? Don't be basing your life decisions on your own perceptions - start sculpting in your free time, and see if it sells. Or find a sculpting school, and ask them what sort of education do you need to enroll.
Otherwise you might learn that your talent is not worth a dime, and again, you'll end up depressed, without income, and without prospects for the future.
Still, the most sensible thing to do, even if you do have what it takes to become a sculptor, is to find some job first, even part-time, and work on your own business in your spare time.

As for your other two skills, you can probably start a business making games, IF you're really as good at it as you think? - believe me, it's not easy to come up with something that hasn't been thought before in the realm of board games. At least research the market, and see if your ideas are really so original. And they better be, as nobody is going to pay to publish another Republic of Rome. Still, you'd need a side job to support yourself while your business is in a nascent phase. Or better yet, keep on attending your school, AND work on your projects when you'll find some time.

English - if your teachers tell you that your English is not good enough, then maybe they're right? It might be good enough to converse with a foreigner, but you can't be making any mistakes if you want to live off of it. Do some certificates - FC is not saying much, really, about your ability to use English, although I do know a few people who teach kids in language schools with that one only. You can also try tutoring begginers privately - it all depends on the competition(i.e.saturation of similarly, and better skilled people) in your city, and in this line of work, you need to have something to put in your tutoring advert, apart from "I think I'm good at English". Work your way to CAE, and maybe also a pedagogical course, and your prospects on getting a job at a language school are much, much better. If you've got those, nobody is going to moan about you not having the matura.
But do try getting some certificates before you decide to base your living on teaching English. People won't pay you for lessons without some proof of your competence.

[tl;dr]Be sensible, and make a decision based only on what you have proven about yourself(proven=it sells), not what you think about yourself.

And one more thing, don't let the difficulties that your life is throwing at you make you take the easy way out. Instead of ditching the school altogether(because you can't handle the people, or the teachers, or whatever), why not simply change your school for another one?

p.s.good luck living a comfortable life at 600PLN/month. Unless you're going to live with your parents, and leech off of them every now and then.

Need motivation? Join the army.  Bonuses are gone but the training is still worth alot.

After Poland got rid of the national service system, you need to be able to pass a physical exam to enlist. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Rooster mentioned once that he's a bit overweight?
Nothing that can't be fixed, especially at this age, but it'd require some serious work. Again, he'd need to find out the requirements, and get in shape before he tries enlisting.

Man, there's a lot of Do's and Don't's. I'm probably sounding like your parents or teachers - but believe me, I'm speaking from experience(as are they, most likely).

eds: grammar

[durins_day]

I find its not what you learned in school but the fact that you graduated. Will an employer ever ask you to recite facts that were taught in history class? No.

If you don't absorb 90% of the material, that's fine. Do what you must to finish this race, and move on with your life.

[Grakelin]

Good thing you're so quick on the draw, durins.

[Tellemurius]

Man, I'm not going to tell you to stay in school if you don't want to. Honestly, you know better than I do what you want to do with your life. I need to go to college to do what I want to do, but that doesn't necessarily apply to you. The whole "put up with this torture for your own good" attitude seems to reflect something horribly wrong with the school system (and how little society cares about us young people).

On the other hand, if you want to stay in school then you should see if you have ADHD or something. I have ADHD and didn't really figure it out until my senior year of college. I thought I was just lazy and couldn't do the work and stuff like that but I'm currently being tested and I feel a lot better than I did when I was lazy and hopeless. It can be a bit of a hassle to get to a psychiatrist if your parents don't believe you (and a lot of money), but I'm not sure how that works in Poland.

Dude i have ADD and aspergers but i never gotten help for them. i almost failed high school and my teachers ridiculed me for being smart but wasting time. i used to take meds like my brother and sister (they have ADHD, mine downgraded after 7th grade) in the 2nd grade but the shit was terrible and my parents saw me suffer more. i got some control over me now but i will go off some times. the aspergers i diagnosed that myself and my psychology teachers but i never revealed it to my parents yet.

[Taco Dan]

Man, I'm not going to tell you to stay in school if you don't want to. Honestly, you know better than I do what you want to do with your life. I need to go to college to do what I want to do, but that doesn't necessarily apply to you. The whole "put up with this torture for your own good" attitude seems to reflect something horribly wrong with the school system (and how little society cares about us young people).

On the other hand, if you want to stay in school then you should see if you have ADHD or something. I have ADHD and didn't really figure it out until my senior year of college. I thought I was just lazy and couldn't do the work and stuff like that but I'm currently being tested and I feel a lot better than I did when I was lazy and hopeless. It can be a bit of a hassle to get to a psychiatrist if your parents don't believe you (and a lot of money), but I'm not sure how that works in Poland.

Dude i have ADD and aspergers but i never gotten help for them. i almost failed high school and my teachers ridiculed me for being smart but wasting time. i used to take meds like my brother and sister (they have ADHD, mine downgraded after 7th grade) in the 2nd grade but the shit was terrible and my parents saw me suffer more. i got some control over me now but i will go off some times. the aspergers i diagnosed that myself and my psychology teachers but i never revealed it to my parents yet.

Are you sure it's not one or the other? Aspergers and ADHD have some of the same symptoms, they're kind of hard to distinguish at first but there are some telltale signs that you have aspergers or don't. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid and that was my diagnosis until this summer, when I was officially diagnosed with aspergers. I've also got depression, which doesn't help at all, and the medicine doesn't do shit now.


 I'm currently failing high school, and not because I'm dumb, it's just because I hate doing the work. Now I've even got a tutor that treats me like a little kid, and everybody is saying, "Just do it, it's not that hard." Well, I'm sorry if I don't want to do the same shit every day for another four years since I failed two grades. Yeah, I'll be graduating high school at 20, with all the skills ready at 16. If I could find a job, and somehow miraculously graduate high school right now, I could be in college next year. Go figure.


I can't even take a GED, because of Washington's stupid requirements, I have to either be over 18 or have a really good reason why I'm dropping out, and mental disorders don't count.


tl;dr: I hate fucking school.