[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Joshua Grasso

Oh, it's the same all over America--especially in college. So many students are in college simply to graduate and make money.

I was in college to study stuff I liked. I'm a technical software engineer. This means that I write non-userfacing software. Think about stuff such as firmware, embedded software, website backends, and so on.

However, most of that stuff has gone out of the Netherlands; it sees to be out-sourced, or replaced by off-the-shelf software backed by half a computer instead of a microcontroller. Therefore I'm now a software engineer doing nothing of the things I studied, and I think that's a pity.

Anything that doesn't seem to lead to money or lucrative careers (in other words, all the classes I teach!) is seen as pointless hoop jumping or liberal propaganda.

I think that this is the reason why there are so few people that have reading/writing or music or other arts as a hobby. The current society only encourages doing things that make money. Doing things just to enrich oneself is seen as something for the well-to-do who have the money to do as they please.

The problem is that to obtain money, you'll have to get it from someone who already has it. The only two ways to do that are:

1. Sell you time and knowledge to do stuff others need done, but can't do themselves.
2. Create stuff that you expect others want to have, and pay you to get it.

Most people do the first (working in a company, possibly their own), but I have a feeling that most of them would rather do the second. All of the arts are in the second group.

I think it's one of the reasons that we see a lot of 35+ authors cropping up in the Indie world: they have a job, and make money, but they're not doing what they want to. Now that publishing requires nothing more than an €450 computer and (if you want) free/open-source software, many of them seem to think that it's now viable to make a dash for it: write that story, publish it, write some more, and maybe, just maybe, hit the scene like a bombshell.

We saw the same when photography went digital and it became affordable for the masses to shoot thousands and thousands of pictures after the first investment in some decent equipment. I've worked as a freelance photographer for some time. I would never have done that if I'd had to shoot on film.

With the economic down turn here as well, people are understandably worried about money, but you think it would make most of us more reflective as well. If anyone can lose his/her job and no job is truly secure, then why define happiness or identity with that job? Why not try to find a vocation or career that satisfies you since, if you spend years and years getting a degree and then toil away in a job that only ends in making you redundant, what was it all worth?

I feel as if I'm at this exact point right now. I have a degree, but I'm writing software of a kind I did not actually study to write. It's not that I hate my job, but it doesn't "feel right."

One thing I've always done is teaching things to others. It was my first choice; IT and programming was a hobby at first. I actually completed half a degree to become an English teacher, but was forced to quit (by the school) because I couldn't get rid of my Dutch accent.

After that I decided to make my hobby my work.

I'm doing a part-time Master now. I hope to finish it in about 4 years (it's normally a two year Master), and then I'll see if I can get a teaching position to teach what I've studied.

Then, I could teach my hobby to others. Wouldn't that be great? I wished I had known that 15 years ago. If I had, I would've probably gone for a master right away, maybe even a promotion, and would have sought out a teaching position in IT from the beginning.

However, I was heavily advised against it because salaries in the business world would be much better and it would be stupid to go for a master and a teaching position in college. Going for a Ph.D. was seen as something one shouldn't even think about if one didn't want to end up in "some low paying teaching job in the academic world".

If I had known then what I know now, then I could have said: "That 'low' pay is still WAY more than enough for me to live comfortably without any problems (it would be far more than the mentioned €34K reference income), so I'm still going to do it."

In a way, the less you have, the less you have to lose. It all comes back to finding things that make you happy that can't be taken away from you. Books, ideas, writing, music--these are always yours. I think that's why, in America, at least, many people are starting to write books (or read more books) as they reach that seminal age of 40. Goals have been reached (or lost), success has been achieved (or lost), so people start asking themselves, "what did I used to do for fun?" or "how the hell am I going to spend the rest of my life without wanting to kill myself?"

Yes. At this point, I'm feeling as if I should be adding "something more" to this world, apart from only doing what I'm expected to do. You can say that you added something to science by getting a Ph.D., and are teaching that same science to younger people. If I continue like this, I could only say that I got a degree, got to work as I should, but in the end, anybody could have done that.

It's one of the reasons of wanting to write that story; to add something that NOT anyone could do.

But don't get me started on the problems of higher education--then you'll see how cynical I can sound! And trust me, you can't be too cynical for me...cynicism can be a healthy thing, especially when married to idealism.

There are enough problems. I know, since I've studied to become a teacher in the past, and because I've returned to school to obtain the requirements for starting a Master. There are problems a-plenty.... most of them having to do with money.