My friend posted this link about why Gen Y-ers don’t actually have it that bad. A lot of it is good advice and what not, but here’s the paragraph that really resonated with me:
Finally, I want to call out a bit of laziness. This is hard to swallow, but the people who will get their dream jobs are already doing their dream jobs before they get hired. You wanna be an accountant? Start doing your friends’ taxes. You wanna work in an ad agency? Make spec ads for your friends’ and family’s small businesses. Wanna be a journalist? Start making YouTube videos. Mechanic? Fix some cars. Teacher? Tutor poor kids. Yeah, you gotta make money. So sling coffee. And be darn well passionate about it. Find a coffee shop you love and pitch yourself to them, so you can make a few bucks an hour to support your weekends of doing your dream job for free. That’s how economies work. People do things. Real things in the real world with grease and sweat and moving parts and grit. Your credentials are theory. Familiarize yourself with the concept “necessary but not sufficient.” The suit does not make the (wo)man.
A lot of people attribute my class cohort’s success to the coop program at Waterloo. That may or may not be true; but for me, I know I have been doing what I do in my day job since I was an teenager.
Ever since I have had an access to a computer, I wanted to build and create stuff – whether it’s webpages, or games. Building mobile apps and getting paid for it is just a way to support what I enjoyed doing as a kid.
You may not always be able to end up supporting yourself by doing something you enjoy, but if you start early and build up skills & experience around it, you are more likely to get there.
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