more career/major stuff

[tsukikage]

Something I realized:
If it weren't for my need to have my career be able to somehow involve Japan or Japanese, it would be so much easier for me to give up this whole linguistics thing and just go for computer science or something practical like that. At least with linguistics I could study Japanese grammar, etc., and with TESOL I could go teach in Japan. I'm not even sure I'd actually want to settle in Japan, although I would like to live there for two or three years, which I could do with JET or whatever, but I would like to at least go on occasional business trips or whatnot after I was done with that. And I suppose I could somehow pull that off if I went into straight computer programming, but with being a computer science professor... Not so much.
On a side (?) note, the Strong Interest Inventory declared me a CIS: Conventional, Investigative, Social, followed in order by Realistic, Artistic, and Enterprising. Conventional scored as very high for me, with the second through sixth place categories all being moderate. In any case, the two jobs listed under CIS on o*net OnLine were Mathematical Science Teachers, Postsecondary (ISC) and Graduate Teaching Assistants (SIC). Here's a list of the CI recommendations, which includes Computer Science Teachers, Postsecondary and Computer Programmers. Foreign Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary is listed as ASI, although the job description is obviously listed for the U.S.
Second advising appointment tomorrow, focusing on the MBTI results.

[EDIT: Also, since my brain seems to be refusing to let me sleep, no matter whatever I decide to teach, I can't say I'm looking forward to not being able to settle down until after the ten or whatever years it'll take after I get my Ph.D. to be offered a tenure-track position...]

[EDIT 2: I just watched the first episode of Texhnolyze to see if it would calm my racing mind down a bit, and I just want to say... My goodness, was that boring. I mean, the first seven or so minutes were basically tortuously so. Eesh.
The music was pretty, though.]

Comments

[carve037.livejournal.com]

I doubt that becoming a computer science professor dooms you to never see Japan. There are plenty of opportunities for travel out there in the world; linguistics and JET do not have a monopoly on it. Like, they must need people to teach computer science in Japan, and I'd bet they have some kind of school somewhere that teaches in English, like for foreigners and stuff. And you are still quite young. If you don't go until you're a little bit older, is that really so bad? My folks always told me they're glad they waited to travel till they were older, so that they weren't still like, "finding themselves" or anything on top of trying to make their way in a foreign land. I don't know, I guess I just don't think it becoming a little harder to travel justifies eliminating a career path you might be happy with (or are you not happy about the idea?).

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting perspective... *is reminded of Takemoto from Honey and Clover*
I don't know what ideas I'm happy with or not, though. Thinking about anything makes me more excited with that idea and less enchanted with the other, and for different reasons.

[akibare.livejournal.com]

Just one comment for now, but... I'm a computer programmer. My degree was in electrical engineering (which I don't use) but I fell into programming jobs (via doing bilingual data entry straight out of highschool) and worked up from there.

But, the comment is just that there are wayyyyy more people working as programmers of some sort than being professors in it, don't worry that you have to be in academia (unless that's your thing, you like teaching).

In a very real way, IT and all it involves is as much a part of modern business and modern groups of any kind, as office management and the old "secretarial pool" is - any organization of size these days has some need for IT, regardless of what the company actually DOES. This is handy if you like to have options on where to live, because pretty much any urban area will have _something_. Myself, I have a public job, I work for a big university IT department, programming various infrastructure stuff to move data around.

As for teaching English in Japan, I've never done it, occasionally I lurk around some bulletin boards of those who do (there's a big one at www.bigdaikon.com) and while some have TESOL, it's still apparently possible to get jobs with any university degree (you DO need at least a BS/BA to qualify for any sort of working visa at all, as an American, but no one cares where it's from or what it's in). Some people then move on to other jobs from there, depending on their Japanese skill. But, you might check around there.

As with anything, once you have a few jobs (or even just the one first job) that becomes the biggest factor when looking for new ones. I can say no one cares about my schooling now other than that I have a degree at all. They only care about my previous work and what it involved.

がんばって。But yeah, life is long... so I'm always hoping too anyway :)

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Actually, I am really interested in teaching. For a while now I've thought I'd like to come a college professor, but I didn't know what I wanted to teach exactly.
But that's really helpful input, so thank you.