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Visiting the World, as a Geek?
Han Onymous asks: "In nine months my contract as a research assistent at my Alma Mater will come to an end. It will not be renewed, I don't want it to be anyway. But outside the economy is too ill to welcome me. I am young. I am healthy. And I want to see the world before I've got the wife and the kids and the double mortgage. I have no money saved, and I don't plan to save some until then. What can a skillful geek (electrical, electronical and software engineer, speaks three languages fluently) like me do to see the world. Volunteer ? Working for a multinational with exchange programs? Something with no connection at all to the tech world? Please share your experience."
The Wired Magazine article Mother Earth, Mother board is an article written by a hacker/tourist.
I've always liked reading this article, and it lists neat places to visit
Get some credit cards and slack. I'm serious. As a highly educated geek, you can probably get 10-20k in unsecured credit by filling out some forms on a web site.
Then, choose some country that's cheap to live in and go. Asian countries give you the nice added bonus of being able to generate an income stream readily by illegally teaching English. For example, in Taiwan you can teach English for $25/hr and meals cost about $3 each.
As an added bonus, you may find in some foreign countries women find you irresistible. Which is not so bad.
Finally, when the economy recovers you will be making gobs of money and not have enough time to spend it efficiently. The memories will last forever.
Is it traveling you wish to do? Seeing the world is great but I get enjoyment out of seeing the immediate world around me.
I've had two friends join the peace corps, one loved it the other hated. like most things it's about perspective. I would love to see Ireland, England and many others but it's come to my attention I have neglected to view my own country, my own city even.
I was going to join the Navy but realized military life wasn't worth it to me. The peace corps are out because I need money. So lately I've been thinking about helping others at youth centers in my area. It seems to be much more rewarding, not just for myself but for the kids.
With your skills you could be a great asset to the children. Rather than travel the world and look at the pretty sites, perhaps consider sticking close to home and getting more involved with local programs. It almost seems safer now too considering the bomb in Bali.
I would say go back to school. There are programs at various schools, including but not limited to state and private universities, that offer study abroad. Pick your country. I went to Spain this past summer for 2 months on a program to learn Spanish. That was it. Cost was $3600 including room and board and school. After the program was over I spent the next month hooving it around western Europe. With a month railpass, I was able to visit 12 different countries. Stay at hostels which are safe and offer clean, comfortable nightly accomodations for as little as $10 a night. Overall, the trip cost me about $6000. The best part of it was that I was able to get stafford loans to finance almost the entire trip. Nothing like a government gauranteed 3.4% interest loan that you don't have to pay back until you are not taking any more classes.
I'll be blunt. My friend, you should consider joining the CIA. You fit their profile perfectly. As you can imagine, they are currently hiring with a vengance.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/employment/ciaeindex.htm
The experience is literally second to none in the world, and in a variety of private industries, CIA is solid gold on a resume.
-David
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Even when the economy is bad, if you're good you're going to find a job. So, spin a globe, pick a place, and send a bunch of resumes in that direction. Make sure you "live cheap" so that you will be able to fall into a "work 6 months, travel 2 months" schedule, or something like that. Travel a bit around the "work" place as well. Then you should have enough saved to be able to say goodbye, and travel for two months straight. Then find a job again, preferably somewhere else. Repeat 2 or 3 times......
Roger.
I spent three years in the military. I was gone a lot (approximately 5-6 months out of the year) but rarely saw anything more than swamps, mountains, wooded areas and jungles.
;)
There were some really cool things. My favorite was looking at stuff through night-vision goggles- especially the stars. Animals were cool,too- it was sort of like they knew you weren't really a threat because you can't see in the dark so they come out all around you. Another fun thing that you get to do in the army is board and ride passenger jets with automatic weapons.
Anyway, if you want to see the world (that is, cities and local people) without having to kill and bomb everything you meet then the army (or any military service for that matter) is the wrong choice. The Air Force might be better, but from friends I've talked to, if you REALLY want to get out and go places the Navy can't be beat.
Those guys go from one end of the globe to the other and get free time to wander around and explore- something we really didn't.
I'm guessing, though, that military service isn't what this guy is looking for.
That's ok, Jesus likes me anyway.
Just yesterday i was saying to my wife:
"I'm so glad I could travel around the wrld when I was younger. It looks like 20 years old people won't be able o do it before long."
On the other hand, my wife had to flee her country as a child because of another country politics deciding people like her parents(artists) needed to be persecuted. So she told me that she would have loved to stay at home to discover her own land.
This I also did. Travel through my country by bike. It's so different from being a tourist. People get in touch with you because they see you take the time to actually meet them.
Become a consultant. As a consultant I have traveled about 75% of the time over the last five years. Now in my case the travel has been strictly domestic, but my company has had international clients. There are many companies that specialize in technology consulting where the job is 50-100% travel. Data warehousing in particular is very mature in the US, but less so overseas. There may be opportunities for placement overseas, particularly if your language skills are good.
Admittedly, the job market is kind of sketchy right now, though many companies (including mine) are still hiring. The company I work for has actually still managed to grow our revenues and become profitable throughout the recession.
As an added bonus, you typically do not have any material living expenses, as your meals, transportation, and hotel are covered by the client. On top of that, consulting salaries are much higher than corporate IT.
If you make the cut, you will also get to work with very high caliber individuals who are experts in their fields. There are exceptions, but typically this type of exposure is difficult to get in a normal IT shop.
There is a downside, however. The work is stressful, you don't have the luxury of making as many mistakes, the hours are long, you are living out of a hotel, and it is nearly impossible to sustain meaningful relationships.
Good Luck!!!
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
My brother, who is in med school, decided that he wanted to do something completely different for a semester.
He contacted a freight company and got a simple job onboard a ship. The job was pretty simple (e.g., removing rust) but not that demanding (only 8 hrs a day). Being the only one educated among the sailors, he was often invited to have dinner and discussions with the captain, who had a lot of stories to tell. And of course, it was always plenty of fun when he and the other sailors were 'let loose' in some port for a couple of days.
Sounds like something for you?
Tor
My parents are born and bred in North America. They are high school teachers. My dad just retired and my mom just took a job with a college. In Qatar.
Sure, it's right on the Persian Gulf and all their friends are worried, but they feel guilty because they have it so good over there. Good pay, good work environment, and a quick weekend trip takes you to India or to the pyramids.
I'm saving my money to visit them next year.
Mozilla
Although I can certainly understand that sentiment, in some cases the opposite is very true.
My experience in the matter happened this summer. I was working in Zambia and took several trips down to Zimbabwe during all of the land reformation madness. While all my friends and family back in Canada thought I was nuts, I ended up having amazing trips each and every time. Apart from the fact that Zimbabwe is a beautiful country and the people are warm and hospitable, the political instability lead to a black market on American currency (the exchange rate was being regulated by the government). So, while the official exchange rate for US dollars was officially about 75:1, the unofficial rate was somewhere between 400 and 1000 to 1. In the end, this difference translated directly into purchasing power for foreigners and I was consequently able to do stuff that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.
Other than a little anticipation the first time I went there, I never felt in any danger at all. As long as you use your good judgement then chances are you'll be fine. That being said, the social and political issues there are immense, and it will be decades before they recover from everything.
I think you're being paranoid ('Latent IT'). Tell us the places you've visited and when you found them the most dangerous.
At the grand old age of 35 years old, last year, I packed in my job and bought a round the world ticket. UK- India (near the Pakistan border) - Singapore - Thailand - Cambodia - Australia - New Zealand - USA - back to UK. Best thing I've ever done. Forget your alma mater, travel is the university of life. Wish I'd been able to work in one of those countries, the other posters are right about trying to pick up a job and stay for a while.I only ever got into a scary situation once -yup, you guessed it, in the USA (three cop cars pulled me over on a desert road in Texas and pulled their guns out and accused me of smuggling drugs). Only time anybody pulled a gun on me.
Ok so bad things happen sometimes everywhere in the world but hey I can laugh about the scary bits now and I had some damn fine times that I'll be able to bore the grandkids with.The world's still a very safe place. A cheeseburger-eating habit is many times more likely than a terrorist (overeas or at home) or a sniper to cause you real harm.
We make these little choices every day that have much more impact on our health and well-being than do terrorists:
Americans want to be invulnerable, and then to blame others when things go wrong. The sniper in D.C. has probably shaved less person-years off residents' lives directly than have residents themselves through their own reactions to the crisis.
This week's Economist has an article "The Logic of Irrational Fear", examining American behavior in the face of risk. Check it out. They maintain that for a short time, the sniper has raised the overall chances of being murdered in the area by several times. But this increased risk must be short-lived, and Americans and their freedom-preserving media are overreacting to the situation.
Forget the Peace Corps.
...'?
Join the Army. I did it, and I loved every minute of it. You should also forget about using your 'tech skills'. Join the Infantry. You'll learn more about life in three years in the infantry than you would in a lifetime in some crappy cubicle or university lab. You might also get a chance to see some beautiful places like Japan, korea, Thailand, or Germany. You might also see some not so beautiful places under less than ideal circumstances. Which story would you rather tell your grand children: '... and our database design was better than everyone elses' or '... and there I was in my fox hole with bombs exploding all around me
If it's adventure you're looking for, look no further than www.goarmy.com. Freedom isn't free. Anty up and kick in.
Peace Corps does have a number of things going for it:
The "things going for it" you list don't exactly coincide with the poster's desires, but at least they're accurate.
I found that the Peace Corps bureaucracy is pretty much the worst nightmare of any free thinking geek. And the tech jobs they talk about just don't exist. While I wouldn't trade my time as a volunteer for anything, I certainly wouldn't sign up again.
I was accepted in 1997, invited in 1998, delayed, invited, delayed, and finally made it to Poland in 1999. I had planned to teach networking skills, having owned an ISP in the early days. I ended up as an English teacher in a rural school, because that's pretty much what Peace Corps does. The school treated me like a kid, because that's what their previous volunteers were.
I resigned after a year in-country, (having outlasted almost half of PC Poland 15) resolving never to work for the US Government again.
I certainly see myself volunteering again, but next time will be with a privately funded NGO. Or maybe just on my own.
Advice to poster: steer clear of Peace Corps. Do some serious research before committing to any organization. Or if you're not of that mindset, put $4000 in your bank account, grab "Lonely Planet" Eastern Europe, and wander around for a year. Email me if you like - I know your situation well.
+1 Insightful. There's just way too many interesting discussions on this article to sit and moderate, though.
Though some of my faith in humanity was restored when I heard a historian note that by the end of the Vietnam War pilots were refused en masse to run bombing missions over North Vietnam, having destroyed all plausible military targets.
Sorta like what some Israeli officers are doing in Palestine.
(The military is working hard to make sure something like that can't happen again, e.g., military drones)
Yes, there is the geek "contribution". Sigh. It would perhaps be better for the world, if not necessarily for each nation's military might, if all the World's geeks motivated to develop better weapons were to instead enlist. If nothing else, it might at least put a face on the death and suffering caused by the previous generation's "defense" geeks, rather than making the decision to kill a less human one.
With regards to the parent, I would agree that you are ultimately responsible for every action you take. Having "orders" is a dodge. My advice would be to join no military or organization that would issue you orders that you would feel uncomfortable refusing, should they conflict with your own judgement. Lend your skills and judgement to your employer, whomever it should be. Never give up your judgement, or become a tool for others to do evil.
I'm always reminded of the Allies and the Germans, at the signing of the Armistice at the end of WWI, getting up out of the trenches and meeting each other in No Man's Land for congratulations and revelry. Why didn't they do the same ten minutes earlier? Because the orders to kill were still coming in, and the order for peace had not yet arrived. How odd.
I believe there are very few people fighting wars that want to be fighting wars. The real motivation is coming from the top, the orders of people who aren't involved in combat. Everyone else is praying for peace, but have been stirred by a sense of duty to compromise their judgement in the service of the war mongers. Again, what an odd thing to value more than life itself.
Having been one of those people that went into a military environment quasi-normal and coming out shattered... This depends on you. Entirely on you, and on nobody else. If you thrive in a high-pressure environment, where rigid structure is present, good for you. If you are physically and mentally capable of joining the military, and accepting that when you joing the military you will not only give up substantial rights and freedoms but may be called to risk your own life or take another person's, then you might be a good fit. It is difficult, and anybody who has ever been there will agree, but you could get great things out of it. If you are a free-spirit, and orders that you don't understand don't sit well with you, if you object to use of force, then don't go. If you know in your heart you won't fit in, don't go into the military.
yellowcat ^_^ ??