Ambitions

[Assertn]

So, as I wouldn't expect any of you to know, I've been a bit busy ever since I graduated spring of 2005. I've worked hard and continued to teach myself all the things I've never learned from college and I'm pleased to say that just yesterday I've hit my 5 year goal....in just 18 months! Needless to say, it's a pretty exciting time for me. As a Flash developer, I've spent alot of extra time working on my own personal projects and finding my own ways to contribute to the Flash community. The past few months I've chatted with many huge names in the industry, attended conferences, tech-reviewed O'reilly books, and got involved in name-brand company projects while working under one of the most advanced companies in interactive media.

In just those months, I've already seen my work pay off, as I have just been given the title of Sr. Associate Flash Developer for the Creative Dept of the LA branch at another large media company. Sounds kinda flashy, but it looks like I'll be responsible for pushing the Flash side of the creative dept into the new technologies Adobe has been releasing lately. In addition to acting as the lead architect for any of their large-scale flash projects, I'll also be instructing the new flash team in best OOP practices and Flex 2 / AS 3. I'm definitely looking forward to being in a respectable position that entitles me to the responsibilities that I otherwise usually pick up on my own regardless (plus a very sweet salary increase ). And even now I'm still making plans for "the next step." For example, my roommate and I are currently planning an outline for a flash book. (Books are great for building one's name )

Anyway, I started this thread in hopes to inspire and to allow others to also share their own ambitions. For those who want to know my path, here's a few tips that I followed:

1) Find a passion in a niche of the workforce.
For me, it was flash development. Both fun and relatively untapped.

2) Immerse yourself in the most ideal environment for your job market.
This is the point where I moved out to LA. Huge demand for interactive media here.

3) Find ways of expanding your experience and your name.
In some industries, your name can precede your experience and educational background. Companies love employees with alot of ambition.

4) Know your priorities.
I try to minimize the time that I spend being unproductive. For some this is a common barrier, but if you allow yourself to be motivated and inspired, then this can be second nature. Challenge yourself, or find someone who's better than you to challenge you to reach their level.

5) Know how much you're worth.
Keep your monster profile updated. Listen to recruiters. Talk to your coworkers about salaries. Don't be afraid to put in your two weeks notice, and don't be afraid to haggle. Of course, personal leverage is definitely proportional to the amount of demand for your profession or status.

6) Network
Friends in high places are great, but friends that can mutually benefit each other to reach high places together are even better.

[Stoopider]

Hey thats great to hear everythings working out for you Assertn.

[Assassin]

Congrats on the promotion man. Sr. Associate Flash Developer is a pretty flashy title (no pun intended) for someone who joined the industry so recently. Im glad you've managed to reach your goals so quickly. Best of luck with future ambitions, we're all rooting for you

[SK]

I am unsure of the value of your chosen course in life. My ambition is to reach a point of inconsequence, which is a consequence in itself, so beyond whatever that is is my ambition, which is circular

[Stoopider]

I am unsure of the value of your chosen course in life. My ambition is to reach a point of inconsequence, which is a consequence in itself, so beyond whatever that is is my ambition, which is circular

Soooooooooooooooooo.... Your going back to Kindergarten now I presume?

[Assertn]

Thanks for the support guys =]

Erm.....and thanks for the post SK

[Lefty]

I hope to have your kinda luck when i venture forth into the film industry next year after school. Congrats man.

[masamuneehs]

ambition huh? that's a pretty strong one...

in all honesty, i see myself more as a "hopeful, wishful" kind of person. I have ideas and hopes and dreams, but they've yet to be consolidated into something more cold and concrete. essentially i fail at

4) Know your priorities.

but I really don't want to let go off those dreams yet, since I know I won't be able to do them all, but am not sure which to go after...

well, i would rather live a life that I could be content with rather than meet societal utility quotas, so i'm not sweating this ambitious thing yet. and congrats assertn

[UChessmaster]

4) Know your priorities.
I try to minimize the time that I spend being unproductive. For some this is a common barrier, but if you allow yourself to be motivated and inspired, then this can be second nature. Challenge yourself, or find someone who's better than you to challenge you to reach their level.

This one is my weak point >_>, i spend too much time doing nothing...

[SK]

I try to maximize unproductive time and minimize the time I will be forced to be "productive." This usually results in getting few hours of sleep, but sleeping is boring, so I personally don't mind it.

[Abdula]

At the risk of getting warned, banned, or neg-repped, I decided to revive this thread and see if we can get it as productive as the bitching thread is unproductive.

As a lot of us are techies, social networking is a tough nut to crack. I've found that with my anti-social tendencies, no matter how good I am at something, I always seem to lose out to the social butterfly with no technical skill. So what do you do?

My ambitions: learn guitar, learn how to read/write the three Japanese writing systems, get my college degree.

I know what you mean about anti-social tendencies but despite that people still seem to like me, I just find myself incapable of caring about them and what they want or think of me.

I can mirror your last two goals, but I have a couple musicians in my family who have tried to teach me guitar but its not an instrument I'm interested in but I would like to find one though, liked piano but lost interest in that as well, as you can see its a recurring problem.

Its hard for me to have any long term goals as I'm expected to die very young, I'm surprised I made it to 20 , was actually planning to sign a DNR but now I have a few positive influences in my life now so reneged on that. Looking to choose a field to study now anything that can challenge me enough to hold my interest, or whatever my body permits to do. I don't need to be particularly successful just need something that would keep my girlfriend contented when I finally decide to marry her. I was thinking computer sciences, medicine or psychology as they are all things I have an affinity for.

[Animeniax]

I know what you mean about anti-social tendencies but despite that people still seem to like me, I just find myself incapable of caring about them and what they want or think of me.

I can mirror your last two goals, but I have a couple musicians in my family who have tried to teach me guitar but its not an instrument I'm interested in but I would like to find one though, liked piano but lost interest in that as well, as you can see its a recurring problem.

Its hard for me to have any long term goals as I'm expected to die very young, I'm surprised I made it to 20 , was actually planning to sign a DNR but now I have a few positive influences in my life now so reneged on that. Looking to choose a field to study now anything that can challenge me enough to hold my interest, or whatever my body permits to do. I don't need to be particularly successful just need something that would keep my girlfriend contented when I finally decide to marry her. I was thinking computer sciences, medicine or psychology as they are all things I have an affinity for.

Wow, you sound like me, except for the short lifespan part. I doubt you want to discuss it in a public forum, but I hope you beat whatever ails you, and get a chance to accomplish your goals. I'm not musically inclined at all, but I'm going to seriously work at learning the guitar. I hear it just takes a lot of practice. I plan to major in CS with a minor in one of psych/sociology/philosophy and/or Japanese.

@DB_Hunter: I meant ambitions at the workplace, which do require social skills.

@masamuneehs: I've traveled a bit, it's fun and really opens your eyes to the world beyond the US and A. I wish people would remember that they are the foreigner when they visit other countries, and that they need to respect the local customs. Americans are really bad about that.

Japan is a great place to start. Foreign country, but safe and with enough English speakers and signs so you can find your way. And if you get lost, there's less chance you'll end up in a shallow grave, unlike in some 3rd world countries. I'm practicing the Japanese writing systems right now. You have to learn by repetition, like school kids. Just write them over and over until it sticks.

@bbaucom: Everyone wants to retire early, but I'd get bored out of my mind if I didn't have a job. You miss out on so much without a workplace, like social interaction and continued learning. Depends on the job of course.

[KitKat]

I'm practicing the Japanese writing systems right now. You have to learn by repetition, like school kids. Just write them over and over until it sticks.

Yeah, I've been learning Russian and though the cyrillic alphabet wasn't very difficult to learn, I found cyrillic cursive writing to be disproportionally difficult. It really is like being back in grade 1 again, spending hours just making lines of letters (or words, as would be the case for Japanese). Best of luck with the language learning! Being bilingual is such a useful skill. I'm hoping to be fluent in Russian within a couple years, but we'll see if I continue having room for it in my class schedule.

[Animeniax]

Best of luck with the language learning! Being bilingual is such a useful skill. I'm hoping to be fluent in Russian within a couple years, but we'll see if I continue having room for it in my class schedule.

Wow, Russian? Is that your family's cultural background? Languages like Arabic, Russian and Chinese are too complex and foreign to me, I wouldn't know where to begin. Strangely Japanese isn't that difficult a language, just the multiple writing systems make it harder. I plan to take Japanese courses in college. Should be fun. Ja ne.

[Psyke]

I thought most people in the world are bilingual? I might be wrong though....

Anyway writing a personal vision statement is one of the ways to get your priorities in life sorted out. It should be a statement where you can do self reflection upon, and provide the guiding principles especially in possible life changing decisions.

[KitKat]

Wow, Russian? Is that your family's cultural background? Languages like Arabic, Russian and Chinese are too complex and foreign to me, I wouldn't know where to begin. Strangely Japanese isn't that difficult a language, just the multiple writing systems make it harder. I plan to take Japanese courses in college. Should be fun. Ja ne.

No, my background is purely English/Irish/Scottish.....mostly Canadian though, back several generations. I became interested in learning Russian a few years back when I visited the country of Azerbaijan. Now that I've started grad school in linguistics, I wanted to study it a bit more seriously, and I'm considering working in language development and literacy programs in the former Soviet Union with an organization known as SIL. I had a really good discussion the other day with a lady who has been working there and it was really good to get an idea of what's involved. Just to give you an idea, she said that in that area there are 157 distinct languages. Language workers there start out learning Russian before they go, since that's the trade language of the entire region, and they learn the national language of whatever country they are working in, and lastly learn the local language of the people group they're working with. I still have a couple years yet to decide, but I'm definitely planning on doing linguistics work overseas for a while. And then, probably come back to engineering at some point.

[Mr Squiggles]

My plan is to finish my studies with a bachelor of design in either character design or illustrative design. And although concept art would be my ideal kind of career, I don't want to limit myself to that.

EDIT: 300th post. SPARTAAAAA!

[masamuneehs]

Lol @ Squiggles' sparta post

So, I've been unemployed for awhile now, since graduating (I don't count temp work), and it's made me really sit down and think about what I want out of life. I'm not the kind of person who has "a plan" and sticks to it, nor am I the type to fall madly in love with one career path or industry.

But one thing I've come to learn about myself is that I don't care too much for money or going around saying "I completed my 5 year goal in just 1 year!" (not a shot at you Assertn) or "I make $XX,XXX a year!" because I think you can still be a failure of a person and be rich.

What I want is to be able to have an impact on people's lives. It's what drew me to Government / Poli Sci in the first place. But after seeing how dirty it is, and how much it's usually about helping yourself and your other rich fuck buddies, I don't think I could get involved on that gravy train.

One of the things I find I really enjoy is working with kids. The potential and energy they have makes me feel like helping them can really turn out to be something good outside of myself. I've always really liked tutoring and teaching at day camps, and so...

so i've applied for a few teaching positions, among the deluge of resumes and cover letters I've sent out to all sorts of companies and groups.

Today I finally got a reply that I'll actually go on.

So, I'm proud to say that I'll be teaching kids. It's not a glamorous job, but it's something I know I'll like and will give me enough monetary breathing room to really start out on my own. Also, the position is one where I'll have small class sizes, and an absurd amount of material support that I can use to teach with. No scrounging for supplies like in some bad school districts...

The one thing I'm slightly worried about is teaching very young kids. I've babysat, but the idea that I'm going to be teaching all ranges from infants to high schoolers (and even some 'pre-natal' classes with the moms... seriously, what the hell is that about?) So that's got me a bit worried, but I'm sure I'll be able to handle...

.
.
.
... did i mention the job is in Japan? Cuz that's kinda important. Yeah, Japan.

Banzai, mother fuckers!


One of my ambitions is traveling. I want to see the world. I think it all started when I was a kid, and all my friends went to this 'Teen Travel' summer camp where they'd go somewhere cool every day... but my family didn't have enough money to send me because that was when my dad got real sick. Ever since then i've tried to travel as much as I can, even though I've wound up spending all my life in my hometown and at school in the state of New York (not counting the semester abroad, which cost me a pretty penny, but was so worth any amount of coin I could ever have). So, yeah, that jives well with finally getting the chance to learn Japanese AND make money AND do something I'll like.

[XanBcoo]

So, I'm proud to say that I'll be teaching kids. It's not a glamorous job, but it's something I know I'll like and will give me enough monetary breathing room to really start out on my own. Also, the position is one where I'll have small class sizes, and an absurd amount of material support that I can use to teach with. No scrounging for supplies like in some bad school districts...

Oh wow, cool coincidence Masa. Shortly after I made my post, about Tuesday of last week, I started to seriously consider teaching as a work option. I'd really love to hear updates about your experiences doing this. It's not something I see myself doing for the rest of my life, but I'd love to try it out at some point.

Congrats on landing that job.

[Psyke]

... did i mention the job is in Japan? Cuz that's kinda important. Yeah, Japan.

Congratulations! It sounds great to be able to work in Japan. You'll definately learn the language much easier and faster, through daily conversation with the native speakers. So, when is the interview or is it confirmed already?