I think I figured out "what I want to be when I grow up." · 4:04am Sep 2nd, 2015
This is a continuation of the blog post: I probably should have figured out ‘"what I want to be when I grow up" by now.
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This week — the first week of school — I commenced operation: “Figure out what I’m going to do with my life.”
I know how utterly ridiculous it sounds to try to figure out a question that has eluded me for years, but that was the plan's purpose.
The plan consisted of attending the beginning classes of three different majors at the beginning of the semester. I wasn’t signed up for most of them, but I go to a huge university and no one notices one extra guy in the room.
The three majors I was exploring were: Information Technology, Geographic Information Systems, and Japanese.
I think I would probably love Information Technology. I was able to credit by exam (Got an “A” woot!) the “intro to IT” class that served as the gateway before doing the rest of the major. But the problems occurred when I looked at the classes I would actually have to take. I just can’t do assembly programming again. I just— no. And the two physics classes sound so depressingly dismal. Calculus I, II, and Elementary (nothing elementary about it. Liars) Linear Algebra is enough math for now. If I want anymore there's Khan Academy.
Another major I was considering was Geographic Information Systems— which is frickin’ cool guys. GIS is all about cartography and mapping the world around us digitally. I think this would be a really cool major to take. I still dream about Augmented Reality pet games and having the skills to map the world around me would be a good thing to know how to do in order to make Augmented Reality better integrate with the real world. But I looked at my Excel spreadsheet and fiddled around with it enough to realize that it would be another two years at school and while maps are cool, it’s not necessarily what I feel like I should be doing.
Japanese… I was unenthusiastic about. But I’m warming up to it more and more. I just want to graduate. Here is a way out by continuing to study something that I love learning.
But these graphs scare me so much:
These graphs, probably more than any other graphs I’ve ever seen in my life, have effected my worldview and a lot of the choices I’ve made in life. I lack the courage to take the liberal arts path. That is living life on hard mode.
Except… I found something wonderful that may change my opinion on that.
A job called: “Localization Engineer.”
What sold me on this particular job was the description at the beginning of this Localization textbook.
In the broadest sense, web globalization requires an interdisciplinary potpourri of skills from areas such as international business and marketing, advertising, project management, IT and e-commerce, language technology, linguistics, intercultural communications, technical writing, and even human resource management.
I can do that! In my wanderings on what I should be when I grow up I’ve taken classes in all those disciplines. I’ve read books on my own about those subjects. I love the global nature of the internet and the world we live in today and working with people from different cultural backgrounds.
Localization Engineers are the middle man between the programmers and the translators, they're the project manager that learns about the culture the product is being aimed for, the guy that needs to know a little bit of everything but not necessarily the full depth of it.
This is my kind of job.
I’ve talked with an academic advisor and there are plenty of companies that recruit out of my university looking for Localization Engineers. I still have to actually do the job to know for certain. But if I can nab an internship next summer this could be it. This could be the job I can do that I've been looking for.
The Localization course at my school covers Trados and other obscure software for those jobs. (There are so many good jobs out there that use obscure, difficult to learn software you've never heard of.) And the professor that teaches it was a Spanish major, CS minor that didn't like CS. And while he programs some stuff on the job, it doesn't get too technical. And for a job like this, they accept language degrees. I can get a major in Japanese and still get a good job!
Granted, now I have to do the Japanese major. I have a lot of Kanji to relearn. (Three years ago I knew 1200, by now I've probably atrophied down to 500 or so. Oh well! Time to relearn!)
But for the first time in... ever really. I have a plan!
Okay, let's do this.
Graduation date: December 2016
Major: Japanese
Minors: CS and Digital Humanities
Yay Chilly! Glad to hear you've found something to work towards!
YAY!
I'm so happy for you!
So you went over everything with the academic advisor, and you planned out everything with them so there are no surprises waiting for you, right? You just have to take the classes and you're good?
Also, what is going on with that IT degree?
I'm in my senior year of a computer engineering degree, and I've interned in an IT department for three summers, and I've barely used (and barely remember) assembly language at all. I guess I can see how it might be relevant, but it seems like a bit of a stretch. And why do they require more than the basic physics class?
3364062
Thanks! I'm so relieved!
3364064
This is a very, very, good point.
I still need to officially declare Japanese as a major. Aw man that's a permanent decision at this point. No turning back. Yikes. Oh well, now that I know there's a job I would be qualified for at the end of the tunnel I feel much better about that decision.
And I don't know the deal with IT either. I think they want to be a little bit of everything, including Electrical engineering. IT departments at other schools probably do something different.
But in the real world very few people program in assembly, much less the IT department.
I'm sure you'll do great at whatever you decide upon, because you seem pretty talented in all kinds of things already.
You might like to watch this Computerphile video, which (facetiously) discusses the programming side of internationalization.
3364088 In my experience, Assembly is taught as a way to make people actually understand how computers work, rather than because it is an important skill. You need it to properly understand how a compiler works, and, quite frankly, that is the difference between a decent developer and one of those "write by spec" code monkeys you get on code factories. Also, it isn't the kind of thing you can learn in a couple of minutes on Google, unlike most other things in Computer Science.
Anyway, congratulations on your decision, it seems like an interesting one to say the least! Remember, more important than what career you choose out of Uni, is to be flexible enough to get opportunities which may appear. No point in trying to plan the rest of your life while you are still on your 20s.
3364363 Assembly is also taught in case you ever need to write some. I've had to do this at my real-world job.
The terrible thing is that when mathematicians say "Elementary" they mean "Anything below what a mathematics major takes in his/her third year of university." Basically, "Everything prior to real analysis" is "elementary".
I've been looking into localization recently, but I think I just don't have the background for most of it. :(
It's great to have a goal to shoot for and I hope this works out for you and makes you happy. But I feel like I should point out a couple of things.
First:
And second:
I don't know why you are taking a couple of made up graphs with seemingly no data attached from a place called 'WeKnowMemes' so seriously. I was a machinist for the last 6 years and could easily have studied to be a mechanical engineer at any time. But it got to the point where I just didn't want to get up in the morning anymore, I didn't like the work.
Now I've started school again and am majoring in Liberal Arts focusing on Fine Arts. I don't know where this major might take me, I just know that books, animation and art have always been an interest and made me happy. Even if I struggle financially, I'd rather be doing work that I can look back on and say I'm proud that I did that.
But that's just me.
What I'm trying to say is, it's awesome that you've found something to shoot for and I encourage you to pursue it! But don't think that this is your one and only chance to get things right, because it's not. If after working in the field for one, five, even fifteen years you decide it's not for you, you can change it.
Best of luck to you.
3364236
That is a fascinating explanation of the problems facing internationalization. I know how big of a mess working with other languages and how they do things is. That's why I'll have a job. :D
3364284
It's nice to have something decided.
Thank you!
3364363
Very true. I do understand and very much appreciate what's going on between binary and assembly and C and all the work in between. It's just the kind of stuff I can't handle well at all.
But yeah! If there's other stuff I'll watch out for it.
3364374
Well... you do have a Masters in CS. That's a good qualification for doing professional low level assembly programming. Which, I am very grateful for. I'm sure elevators and stoplights and other mission critical everyday objects are done at least partially in assembly.
Elementary... yeah, I can see why they do it. But it's so humiliating to struggle figuring out the intricacies of eigenvectors with a name like "elementary." Well, at least the class wasn't named "Easy Linear Algebra."
3364379
Do you speak a second language? Can you recognize the structure of sentences and see that the way text is displayed in one language and understand why the sentence structure might be wildly different to display in another language?
Do you like learning or reading about Business?
Josh Kaufman keeps a list of the 99 best business books. His strategy was to get an "MBA" without actually having to attend an expensive university. Reading a lot of books on the subject might be a good way to get your foot in the door to get a starting job.
3364452
Those are very good points. I loved the video.
And yes, I'm very aware of the hypocrisy of the graph. After all that time doing CS I realized I would still dislike it even after graduating. But I did believe that graph for a long time and it's taken a while for me to understand that in some cases, like mine, it's not true.
And yeah, I know I'll probably change careers pretty often. But this job description has made me feel safe enough to go for the Japanese degree without panicking uncontrollably.
3364472
I've never gotten near fluency in any second language, and the one position where that wasn't an issue went away shortly after I started looking at the industry. :(
Yay! I'm really glad you figured it out!
Now keep running toward your goals!
Like Tamagotchis?
3366028 more like Nintendogs with the special cards that come with the 3DS.
3364472 Actually, only one class in my degree programs prepared me for the job I actually have. Woot.
3366129 3366028
Something a little bit beyond both of those.
With the advent of Microsoft Hololens and Google Glass, it will soon be possible to overlay the real world with some kind of screen. As the technology progresses we could overlay a lot of things, including fully 3D animated animals. The prototype I want to make would be a "shoulder dragon" game in which you could look to your left and the glasses would simulate a tiny dragon on your shoulder.
The final goal of the augmented reality project would be to create something like Google's April fools day Pokemon joke, but for augmented reality glasses, and y'know... real. Well... as real as invisible creature you can only see while wearing special glasses can be.
Geographic Information Systems would be useful for the endeavor as which Pokemon/mythical creature could be obtained or seen would depend on the terrain of the area in which the user is walking through.
Sounds great! I think it would fit you well.
3364236
Hay! I was going to post that video!
3364064
I'm officially declared now. Japanese Major, CS and Digital Humanities minors.
3399706
Huzzah!
So do you just have three semesters left now then?
3399909
YEP! Dec. 2016!
My parents use Trados a lot. (They're translators.) You're going to have fun with that...
3407427
I've played around with it a little so far in my localization class. It looks needlessly complicated and very "Microsoft"-like. I wish it wasn't Windows only because typing in Japanese on Windows is such a pain. (For now, I don't have a good workflow for typing in Japanese on Windows nearly as easily as I can type on a Mac)
Are you also interested in Translation as a career?
3408617 Oh, no. Definitely not. It seems unnecesarily stressfull and unexact. I always hear my parents complain about some idiot who's nagging that they chose the "wrong" one of 17 possible ways to translate one sentence. Translators are also being pushed more and more into "heavy" texts (legal writing and whatnot - computer translation is more and more handling the simpler texts), which is something I'm not willing to put up with.
I like the simplicity of mathematics. I'm interested in languages as a hobby though.
3408734
So much of translation is inexact. That has got to be frustrating. And yeah... I wouldn't want to translate stuff like that either. Legal documents have to be exact, but the legalese is barely readable even by native speakers. Well, at least you like Math, there's plenty of jobs and careers there.
If I get the right kind of job, a Localization Engineer should only have to code and translate a little.
3408987 Seems you've hit the best of both worlds then.