Professional Prestige & Fulfillment | Asian American Poll

PROFESSIONAL PRESTIGE & FULFILLMENT
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:09:57 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

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WHAT YOU SAY

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AC Dropout,

You seem like a person with much expertise in the working world, enough to give people recommendations. Perhaps you can give me an advice!

I am 26 and feel like I've have failed throughout my young adulthood life. Sometimes I blame it on my parents' strict upbringing, they always discouraged me from doing things that weren't concrete or practical. I've been landing from one job to another job ever since college graduation. It is not a problem for me now, since I make 50k a year.

Currently, I am taking computer courses in the evening, I'm trying to master web developing techniques and obtain my certfication, ultimately trying to start a business on-line (not an overhyped dot com sort of thing). Now, I feel all these courses are a waste of time and money because much of it could be self learned. Should I drop these courses all together?

Sometimes I feel I'm too bold and too ambitious. In fact, I think my over ambition coupled with my excessiveness and impatience will lead me to self destruction.

After college, I had a plan in life,

1. To make more than 100k a year
2. To earn a Tech-related and a MBA/Law degree.
3. To obtain a Liberal Arts PHD before 45 years of age
4. To be a professional guitarist

None of these have been fulfilled so far but I still have the dream that I will one day. I think I need to live a spartan life and have a strong disciplinary mentality to do all fulfill all these things.

Over ambitious and need to tone down Friday, January 25, 2002 at 11:27:25 (PST)

Philip,

You're in a great position to make any career move you wish -- not married, no kids, and no mortgage payment!!! Most people can't pursue their dream job for precisely that reason. They can't afford to just go off on a whim and do what they've always wanted to do, not when there are mouths to feed at home. You do not have that problem so why not take a chance? If it doesn't work out, you can still go back to IT and at least you won't have to worry about putting a family through your experiment. If you were married and had kids, i would say no, but you are not so I say go for it if this is your dream.
Valley Chinese Dude Thursday, January 24, 2002 at 21:35:24 (PST)

I guess I should take a second look at what I am doing at the moment. As far as companies go, this is the best company I have ever worked for, so I doubt that changing to another company would change much, if anything. I think I will just stick it out for as long as I can until I get fired, but until then, I will just do the best that I can do. (I don't really think that anything I am doing merits firing, but as far as advancement goes, I don't think there is much possibility of that happening either).

I don't know about that computer certification, but I'll look more into it.

As for the guy who is already a programmer and wants to be a pilot, ... do you have any self defense training --I heard that is a plus these days!
Job Woes Thursday, January 24, 2002 at 18:14:31 (PST)

Philip (in two minds),

Keep enough in your saving and 401K, so that when you do decided to the big switch, you will have enough money to last you about 6 months to 1 year without income.

Also don't burn any bridges at the company you are leaving. Keep good relationship with someone that can get you your old job back, in case things don't work out as planned.

Then chase you dream as hard as you can. Tenacity and determination are the extra ingredients that make dreams into reality.
AC dropout Thursday, January 24, 2002 at 10:47:02 (PST)

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