Jeremy, Pete's right. Have you also considered a career counselor?
I suggest that you create a specific goal, with room to be flexable. Figure
out, at a minimum, the direction you want to go, and then figure out exactly
what you have to do to get there. It might mean taking more classes at a JC,
interning, who knows. It might totally stink at that time, but if you keep your
goal on that horizon, you know you can get through it. Plus, the experience
itself, just opening yourself to it, will open all these doors you never knew
were there.
Personal anecdote: my educational background is in theater and English, NOT
technical writing, which is what I do now. I'm a crappy actress (except, no,
wait, I act every day, hello), and I knew that I'd never make a living at it -
waiting tables, not my bag - and got a really boring, awful job answering the
order hotline at a software company. I noticed the technical writers seemed
just as clueless about the product as I was and here they were making a lot
more money than I was, and so I considered that as a career option. The more I
read the training manuals, the more I realized it was the closest thing to
fiction writing with a steady income that I'd ever find, and a technical writer
was born. I took courses at UC Berkeley Extensions, and kept applying for jobs,
and I was turned down and discouraged, but still, the discouragement was
nothing compared to talking to stupid purchase ordering departments on the
phone all day. I kissed butt to get to where I am at now, and I'm not
ashamed to say it. I'm now the only tech. writer left in the very same company
(well, we're just a division now, eaten up by the big corporate brother) I
started answering the phones for.
And it all started from a dream, the vision in my head that I CAN write
end-user instructions. Acting is believing. And I believe I can write about
math!
You can do anything you want to in this lifetime Jeremy. All you have to do is
make it happen.
Katie K.
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