sndaox
Newbie
Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Posts: 1
Career Advice: +0/-0
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 Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:40 pm Post subject: What career for me: the creative hands-on thinker? |
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| I've noticed many times before that whenever playing a video game that I would always love to use the custom level creators and editors, especially with physics based games. I love being able to draw out my ideas, schematics, or diagrams onto paper of what I want to create/build, and to bring it to life. I love computer design. I love working both with the computer and with physical materials. I like to create. What careers could possibly suit me? Mechanical Engineering was the one I've researched most so far, but I'd like to know if there are any other possibilities that will fit into my criteria. Right now I'm a freshman in college, if that helps. Thanks! |
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Pauloz
Expert
Joined: 02 Oct 2007
Posts: 1160
Career Advice: +3/-0
Location: Sydney
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| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 1:35 am Post subject: |
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sndaox
I can see now that we've got a whole new systems design motif in progress here. If you like working with hardware, and appreciate the software, you're likely to have a very good career creating your own stuff, as well as a slightly nitpicking early career dealing with other people's messes.
Which, incidentally, is a pretty novel situation in systems. Very few people do work with both hardware and software; they usually prefer one or the other, and over-specialize to the extent that they don't understand the needs of the other. You were talking about schematics in your post; you may have noticed that some people get lost even thinking about them. It's why we have so many truly lousy designs fluttering around.
Creators and editors, you will also have noticed, usually come in two basic formats; Naive and unusable, with rare exceptions. Games, in particular, which aren't that difficult as software, get either fossilized in formats or too graphics oriented, etc, and there's a huge hole in the gaming industry for customizable materials. From what I've see that stuff is off the shelf, LEGO-level software, and the hardware is pretty much all standard gaming stuff from about 1995.
To say nothing of the "Gosh, look, we can have a game which looks like The Sims did in 1998"... I think the hardware's at least partly responsible for that, and again it's because of this disconnect between hardware and software design. People can write software that hardware can't operate, (Vista, etc.) and hardware can have features that software can't run. Brilliant situation, really.
The relevance of this to your career is that there is a real desperate need for people who can design from the ground up. If you can get into the nuts and bolts, and speak the language for the software, you have a potentially brilliant career in both fields, acting as an interpreter, for one thing.
Mechanical engineering, systems design, programming, and some good hands on work should suit your needs perfectly. You already know how to put them together, all you need is some unsuspecting college to give you the excuses.
Just make sure you get accredited courses, and watch the costs. You should be able to balance a job you enjoy with covering the dollar factor, and getting the training.
An apprenticeship in mechanical engineering will do that nicely. You can fit everything else in, do some stuff online, etc.
Hope that helps, |
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