Post college grads come here

This threads a scam for aldaron to mooch off of people for a job in the future...

Graduated in 2012 with a degree in finance from stern, work on Wall Street now in investment banking. Life sucks in terms of how much I work but I get paid well and I'm leaving in a little under half a year to greener pastures. Anyone who wants tips on how to break into finance can ask me.
 

gene

(* ̄(エ) ̄*)
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past SPL Championis a Two-Time Past WCoP Champion
took my last grad school exam earlier today, will be graduating with a MS in aerospace engineering soon. i'm pretty sick of school and can't wait to get a real job tbh. although i'm not at all excited for the job search.
 
I graduated in 2012 with a degree in astrophysics. I spent a rough year working on and off in retail, before finally landing on my feet and securing a nice job in the medical tech industry. Me and my team are working on getting this bad boy onto the market. It's basically a quick and easy POC instrument that measures extremely fine concentrations of specific molecules in your blood. I'm the statistician of the team who helps to make sure our baby won't generate bogus results and what have you!
 
Earned my physics doctorate in May, been working as a research/data scientist for a small research firm since July, with my focus primarily being Twitter-based data mining (topic detection, mostly). Company is great, my boss is great. I do miss the freedom I had to slack off work on Smogon while I was a grad student, though.
 

McGrrr

Facetious
is a Contributor Alumnus
I recall reading an article some years ago that questioned what the world would be like once the Pokemon generation grew up.

I'm a qualified accountant; it's as exciting as it sounds. I trained as an auditor at a firm that specialised in film and media, working on most blockbuster productions that had scenes in the UK (e.g. Harry Potter); it definitely wasn't as exciting as this might sound.
So... I'm going to work for an investment bank. Plz don't h8 me.
 
Graduated about 3 months with a degree in sociology minors in communication. Tried to find a job in my field, but was unsuccessful. Realized I should go for graduate degree now instead of later. Applied for grad school and i'm now waiting for the verdict. Looking for a job in the meantime
 

Age of Kings

of the Ash Legion
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
I've been having a tough time with the job search as well. I graduated in December with a B.A in Economics. Since then I've been applying to banks, investment firms, and consulting firms left and right and I've only gotten one interview so far, with a firm which apparently has questionable respect for employees. I'm getting quite annoyed getting form letter after form letter; it's likely a combination of the second-tier school I went to, not trying hard enough to find internships while I was still in school, and the fact that the job market in general sucks.

I have plans to go to grad school in the future but I want to get out of my house first and save some money.
 
I ship out to the Navy in 26 days. I plan on going back to grad school once my initial enlistment is up.
 

imperfectluck

Banned deucer.
I'm retired. Graduated with degrees in Chinese and Education. Neither have came in useful. To clarify, I'm financially stable enough after graduating college to never need to work for the rest of my life, without relying on my parents either. I'm 25.
 
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I'm nowhere near graduating college, got at least three more years to go. My major is aerospace engineering (whoop gene!) and I play basketball for my university. Never had a job outside of baby sitting my siblings when I was younger and I'm not hurting for money yet. This thread is amazing and baffling to me to say the least. It's great to see everyone posting things about where they are today and how they got there. Hopefully I can heed some of ye old timers warnings and land a solid job straight out of college. Thanks to everyone for making this thread great.
 

Eraddd

One Pixel
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Graduation for me is a kick in the nuts since there exist no job prospects for the degree I'm obtaining in my hometown; I'd have to move down to the States to get a job with a competitive wage and at the moment, since I'm unwilling to move in order to attend medical school at the soonest possible moment, it's put me in a bit of a jam, especially missing the medical school cutoff by a hair.

As for graduate school, I've received offers from across Canada but doing research for another 2 to 6 years (depending on Masters versus PhD) is not one that I relish especially considering the abysmal job markets for graduate students in my field. I would consider going to graduate school if American schools offered it since it's a two to three year commitment as opposed to a four to six year. I'll probably end up taking the GREs and applying to Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard etc anyways.

This summer is the last summer in which my grant money is available so at this point, I think I'll travel abroad afterwards and teach English in a third world country (I have something lined up potentially) for a few months and get some experience in a completely different environment. Afterwards, either travel to South Korea to teach more English for decent money or head back home and work as a tech washing test tubes and dishes for the next couple of months and see if I get into medical school then.

Graduation is more real than it seems like when you're entering university for the first time. Damn those years went by fast.
 

Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
is a Contributor Alumnus
^ I can't tell what your course is? I assume it's something related to sciences but then you talk about English teaching stints.
 

Eraddd

One Pixel
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Synthetic and Medicinal Organic Chemistry.

And yes, teaching English is completely unrelated but I found out through TAing that I really enjoy teaching.
 

Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
is a Contributor Alumnus
Dude look. I have known people who are happy doing something completely different from their college degree. There's this one guy who is an independent dramatist and has recently started his own production house with the help of his friends and his dramatic circle. He graduated with Physics. Then I also another person who teaches English and elementary science to Turkish slum kids (he's a part of this worldwide NGO/Organization) and he did his Masters in History.

So yeah my point is if you really like teaching take a serious consideration to it. Otherwise you can also go ahead in your own field and take a few more years and may happen to get the privilege of teaching college undergrads in that very same field. Sometimes backup options and hobbies (even late in college) become your passion.
 

Eraddd

One Pixel
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I don't have a conviction for teaching it's just one of my interests. It's not something I want to do for all of my life. My passion has been basically chemistry and medicine all my life and I don't intend to stray from the medicine aspect and chemistry at this point isn't practical at all.
 

Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
is a Contributor Alumnus
They all started it as a hobby and it grew into something greater.

I'm just giving you anecdotal instances, but whatever floats your boat man! Best of luck with whatever you decide.
 

Eraddd

One Pixel
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I'm not trying to attack you or anything and I appreciate the advice. Medicine (and chemistry) has been my biggest passions in life and at the moment I still don't think there's anything I'd give up for the opportunity to pursue it.
 

cookie

my wish like everyone else is to be seen
is a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
got my physics shitty UK version of an integrated masters and bachelor degree MSci 18 months ago, then spent the next year tutoring for monies while i worked out what i wanted to do with my life (as well as write and stuff). I'm now working as a software developer/tester, which is great (fun and plenty of money) except I had to leave London for it.
 
Going for my PhD in Electrical Engineering. Currently I'm making every single Pokemon Professor related joke about what I'm going to do when I'm a Professor. (Get my research assistants to go down to see the undergrad lab tech to get some parts before I allow them to do anything, end all my emails with a randomly generated evaluation of their PokeDex, etc).

I actually got my position in my research lab thanks to Pokemon. I took a graduate probability course by my future research adviser and he had us write a paper about probability in whatever we wanted to do. He was suggesting we'd do it in our research, but I had no research at the time. So I wrote it on the one subject I knew REALLY well: Pokemon. Because of that paper and the fact that I was like the first and second best student in the 50 person classes for the two course sequence, I got my research position as an undergrad.

My research is on speaker verification - the automated computing task where a computer has to determine if a certain utterance comes from a specific speaker or not. The problem is it's ridiculously hard to get up to the state-of-the-art. I've been working on roughly 2004 tech up to last year. My partner is working on roughly 2008 tech. I'm also now doing 2007 tech. We still got to get 2012 stuff working which finally is the state-of-the-art. The problem is a lot of it is actually hokey math and hokey models of speech.

I volunteer at a local science museum in a robotics program for middle/high schoolers as well. That's kind of fun.
 

EV

Banned deucer.
Graduated with a BS in Community Development to which I have done absolutely nothing with so far. Worked for a bank through part of school up until this year. I decided my passion was writing so I've been pursuing that for last few years and even though it's never a guarantee for success, I still love every second of it. (Yes, even those days when you get like close to zero done on your ms. because your effing characters get as defiant as a Bisharp up in your ass and refuse to cooperate!)
 

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