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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."
Join the peace corps.
You may do well to check out the Peace Corps - especially with your language skills. *NOW* is the time for you to travel about and see the world; if you put it off you probably won't get around to it until retirement.
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
... accept a job where "very little travel is involved".
That did it for me.
aloha,
=brian
Try the Army, Navy or Air Force. I have many friends who are part of the US Armed Services and have traveled the World quite extensively in just a few short years.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
You're looking for "Engineers Without Borders":
here a few of their addresses:
http://ewob.colorado.edu
EWOB USA
http://www.ewb-isf.org
EWB CANADA
http://www.isf-france.org
EWB France = Ingénieurs sans Frontières (ISF)
There are lots of other local and national EWB groups, a google search should find em.
..you could join the Army and visit the Middle East. Sunny skies, high tech environment, and the lucky winner can play a game of "Whack the Laden"!
*hopes that joke wasn't in too bad of taste, midly bad taste is acceptable*
"Derp de derp."
Try geek corps or Engineers without borders or if you're Canadian you can apply to Net Corps.
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.
first part second part
Teaching English is always good....... ;)
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.
One of my Grandpa's buddies did an around the world tour by getting a cabin aboard a merchant marine ship.
It was super cheap and he got to spend a week or so in all sorts of different port towns. I have no idea whether it would interest you or not, but I contemplated doing it before I met my fiancee.
BTW, the guy who did this was 83!
So you don't necessarily have to do it while you are young;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Geek Volunteer Overseas - Prologue
Geek Volunteer Overseas - Arrival
You point out that you want to see the world before you are burdened down by the realities of life (i.e., wife, kids, mortgage, etc.). So why not go whole-hog and ditch the stuff that will likely dominate your life later on ?
There's plenty of time in life to work at a computer or do tech otherwise. Don't do it when you're young. It will get in the way.
Money = flexibility. You have nine months. If flexibility and adventure are important to you, save some now. Whether you end up in the Peace Corps or whatever, it will help give you room to breathe.
An aside:
You're going to be old and infirm someday. Don't believe the lies that you'll actually be able to live off of your government pension (since it started as a senior-vote-buying measure, and will end when it runs out of money or leads to huge defecits once the boomers all retire), because you will be screwed. The first thing you should do is go and buy this book, then read it. Follow its advice.
Once you have a secure financial base, go ahead and explore the world, get married, etc. Do whatever your heart desires, but do not get started without some money saved away for your retirement, or you will be screwed when you're older.
Back to the question at hand:
If you really speak a variety of languages, see what it takes to get a work visa there. Often it's a lot of work, but it can be really fun to live somewhere for a year and do whatever it is you're skilled at doing (good non-tech ones are teaching english, cooking, bartending, etc). You can't just go to a country and work there legally unless you have a work visa, so be sure to get that squared away first.
Another thing to do would be to save up money, and backpack across Europe (or somewhere else that's population dense). It's fairly easy to do, there are plenty of youth hostels, and transportation between locales is cheap if you hitch-it. Heck, if you're feeling daring, you could even try to do it while carting along a small appliance.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The worlds largest student organisation. AIESEC is a global network of 50,000 members across more than 83 countries and territories at more than 800 universities world-wide.
AIESEC facilitates international exchange of thousands of students and recent graduates each year. Whether in a paid traineeship or as a volunteer for a non-profit organisation, their experiences abroad will undoubtedly affect them forever.
Behind everything we do is our mission: to contribute to the development of our countries and their people with an overriding commitment to international understanding and co-operation.
Over the years AIESEC has evolved into something that is spirited with endless energy. We, the young people who run this organisation have a hope for something better in the world, and this is a hope that AIESEC tempers with a practical approach.
http://www.aiesec.org
1) learn to speak three lanuages fluently
2) become a tech god
3) leave school
4) set up your own international smut business
5) PROFIT!
If you are looking for technical work which will further your career, things may be a little harder. I know that the big investment banks have operations around the world, and use lots of expensive IT, and lend people between countries at least occasionally. This is a bad time to be looking for that kind of job, though, and if you want to have a life, and see your surroundings, you don't want to work there.
[1] You don't have to BE a native English speaker, just look like one. If you look Chinese, you will have a hard time convincing the locals that you speak proper English, even if you grew up here and speak no Chinese!
[2]If you want to learn about the place, rather than simply see the sights and move on.
See what I've been reading.
Join the Army. I'm sure you'll get an opportunity to visit the Middle East.
Soon.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
If you want to see the world, earning your keep as you go, then you'll have to rely on your three fluent languages.
I hope they aren't too modern, for much of the world has yet to catch up. For instance, you might be fluent in Java 1.4, but that won't help you when you are in Perl territory.
I suppose you could travel a ways on COBOL--particularly through Europe--but I'd have to say it is C that will take you around the globe in good fashion.
Robert
http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/teaching.html
Honestly. You may think you're skilled, but electrical+electronic+software guys are dime a dozen, even ones that speak 3 languages.
At least they are around here! Can you do physics and biology too? Can you play 3 different musical instruments, cook like a chef and also be near-top level athlete? Now you're talkin...
If you're so clever, go back to school for a graduate degree in something else, write some papers, go to conferences (in other parts of the world) with other people's funding.
Travelling on the cheap is nowhere near as fun as travelling in luxury, which you can do after you get a real job.
Or go teach English in Japan...
- Hey, it's simple. Really. Book a flight overseas. Pick a return date. Figure out what to do once you get there and just DO stuff. There has GOT to be somet things you'd like to see- Eiffel Tower, Louver, Rome, etc- you know what you WANT to do, so go do it!
I did the same thing, disappeared for a month. Hooked up with total strangers for a couple of days. Drifted apart. Took pictures
No one can make a trip but you- and if it doesn't work out you'll have only your geeky self to blame rather than that 'stupid slashdot crowd'. Figure out what you want out of life and do it, or do you have absolutely no iniative?
All in all, it's not unlike college: do it because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not the beginning of the rest of your life.
--sdem
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!
A friend of mine works as a Service Engineer(mostly software) in Kongsberg Offshore. He travels more than 100 days a year to places all over the world. Malaysia, Germany, Britain, etc, etc. You name it.
Of course you might not have that much time to do any sightseeing. However may places doesn't allow too much overtime abroad and that could be handy.
Be very carefull of these organizations sending you on free or reduced fare trips to foreign countries to teach English. You lose out on a great deal of flexability and money. They will control your schedule and take most of the money--providing you with only a "free" trip.
My advice is to pick a country, pack a backpack, buy an airplane ticket, buy a lonely planet guidebook, and just go. Once you are there and find a hostel to stay in, you will meet people that can help you with finding a job. You might also realize once you are there, and in the budget places that the little money you had saved up will actually survive quite a while.
Just go. Things will work themselves out once you are there. The hardest thing is picking a country or continent. I'm leaving for Southeast Asia next week if you need a place to start out!
I'm sorry, I only know how to traverse the universe on thirty altirian dollars a day ;)
DISCLAIMER:
I don't believe what I write, and neither should you.
Travel to exciting distant lands. Meet exotic, interesting people. And kill them. (But only on weekends).
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 served in the Peace Corps in the mid-90s. Although I do admit these are extraordinarily dangerous times, there were plenty of dangers in the world during that time as well. In addition, I recently spent two years traveling all over kingdom come. There were lots of dangers, but what I gained by traveling far outweighed the risks involved.
Upon returning home to the US after Peace Corps, I never felt more unsafe in my entire life. In Cameroon, my host country, my neighbors looked out for me. If something bad was going to happen it would most likely be someone pointing a gun at me and taking my money. If you did what was asked, then you were OK. They weren't doing it for kicks.
In the US, my chances of dying in a car crash were much higher compared to the chances of that happening in Cameroon. Or someone might break into my house and shoot me just for the hell of it... etc. etc. Have you been reading the papers lately???
These times *are* dangerous. But you shouldn't let fear prevent you from experiencing everything the world has to offer. A little common sense during travel goes A LONG LONG WAY in increasing your safety.
Go live and stop hiding in your house.
Working as a bartender? A merchant marine? A volunteer? The Peace Corps? Bah. Forget it.
Just go.
Bartender/ski lift operator/au pair/whatever: Go to a fabulous country, have no time to do anything, and get paid next to nothing doing crap work!
Merchant Marines: Little known fact - today's modern container ships only take a few hours to offload - this means that ships spend as little time as possible in port. If you like taking weeks to get somehwere, and spending literally a few hours there, this is they way to go!
Peace Corps: Heh.
Volunteering: Well, you're VOLUNTEERING!
Bottom line is that many of these things are over-romanticized.
IMHO, the best thing to do is to get a backpack, put a change of clothes, a sleeping bag, a tent,
and a towel in it, buy a plane ticket to somewhere, and go.
I was in Turkey at a youth hostel once, and encountered a Dutch guy who was in the middle of a backpacking trip. He started of hitching in the netherlands, had gone through russia, mongolia, china, vietnam, thailand, india, pakistan, and iran, and had just gotten off of the train in eastern Turkey. He was washing washing his spare clothes - a change of underwear.
It doesn't take much money, and you can make a game of trying to find work to supplement your trip. A few thousand will keep you going for months if you're frugal, and you don't have anyone telling you what to do! If you don't like walking, and want to go fast, bring a bike.
Most of all, just have fun and enjoy the experience.
My hat is off to you sir.
I was going to say go for something unrelated, but there's plenty of volunteers working on normal average stuff that anyone can do. If you want to do good, volunteer in something that allows you to use your specialty.
For example, if I were a linux guy, I would find one of the groups that collects old hardware, reconditions it and deploys it with Linux at places (wherever) that cannot afford new computers and/or Windows. If you can do that and train a few locals too you will be making greater impact than volunteering for the Peace corps and handing out leaflets on birth control, vaccines, etc.
The reason I recommend you to pick something that allows you to use your experience is because you don't want to be left out of touch with your field for over a year (this would literally mean professional suicide for an IT person). If you are in IT and you spend a year making old and tired hardware work, you will hone your skills while you do something good, and it will even make good resume fodder later down the road.
Me? If I was single and felt like doing so, I would find a Spanish-speaking country and volunteer to teach programming and "Nerd English" to junior high kids (those of you that, like me, are not native English speakers know what I am talking about). To me teaching is the most challenging and rewarding occupation I could think of when salary is not an issue.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
I lived and worked in London for four years, 3 years in various levels of IT for various IT departments all around the city. For those that had the experience, contracting rates could go as high as 1000 Pounds/day (mainframe programmer). Americans can get a 1-year work visa, countries in the Commonwealth get 2 years or more if your parents or grandparents were British citizens.
For up to date details go to or write to your nearest British consulate or embassy.
The are lots of other countries that offer work visas as well, look in the travel section of your bookstore for ideas on working overseas, they'll have names and addresses to contact.
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
"save" $10-20K from your pay by buying everything on credit cards, use that as a down payment on a 2-4 unit apartment building, then travel off the residual income. If you have good credit and a job you can surely get $20K or so in unsecured credit at 9.9% or lower (and probably 0-2% for the first 6 months).
AIESEC is the world's largest student run organization, setting up work exchanges in 87 countries. They usually have a real demand for people with a background like yours. You won't be paid a lot of money, but you will get an amazing cultural experience.
Fact of life. There are always some parts of the world at any given time you want to avoid. So avoid them. The world is a big place with lots of interesting opportunities. What you hear on the evening news are just all the "man bites dog" stories. They make it sound worse than it really is. Yes, someone was injured in some part of the world recently. Not very likely it was or will be you.
Get out. See the world. Enjoy yourself. Have some stories to tell your kids. (and maybe a few you keep for yourself...)
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.
If travelling the world and having problems, just remember this one important phrase:
"Don't shoot, I'm Candian!"
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
"Join the Army. Travel to exotic places. Meet exotic and interesting people. And Kill them."
Or at least try. IF you are a true geek, too many dorritos, too much Mountain Dew, and far too much Everquest will likely have resulted in a physique, well, not fit for military service. Oh well. Darn
\Drew National Data Director, John Edwards for President
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
Visit India. You can even get a job replacing Americans there.
After college, I had the chance to participate in the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), or the German Academic Exchange Service. I got the opportunity to work in Berlin at the PTB (their version of NIST) for the summer before I started graduate school. I had also applied to DAAD for the previous summer (for between my junior and senior years), but they got back to me late by which time I had accepted another summer research opportunity in the States. If I had held out for that, I would have been working in Aachen at a nuclear physics institute, if I remember correctly. When I participated, I got a reasonable monthly stipend which I was able to live off of month-to-month. Depending on the involvement of the local support group, you may have a lot of activities available to you or not. But the weekends are typically yours, so you can travel around Europe some then. And in Germany, I met participants who were there for nearly a year, so they were allowed to take a week-long vacation. And depending on the activity of the local chapter, there may be many students there from other countries. I met people from at least 10 different countries during my summer. Actually, regardless of my title above, you don't necessarily need to know German. Some of the other participants I met barely knew German, but still were there. After a quick Google search, check www.daad.de for their web site (or www.daad.de/deutschland/en for the English version).
i highly recommend this to anyone that hasn't done it yet, i don't care how old you are.
grab a backpack, and an open ended round trip ticket to europe. travel and stay off the beaten, touristy paths. go by yourself, you will never be alone.
staying in youth hostels is the best way to meet people, and you will meet a lot of great people this way.
run out of money? so what? grab a job as a bartender or work the front desk at a youth hostel until you have enough money to continue again. some people have actually been living this way for 10 years and more.
i can't tell you enough how much these experiences will help give you wisdom and insight in being a better person.
i started traveling this way when i was 27, seeing almost every country in europe. i've been going at least once a year. i'm 32 now, and ill be in finland, russia and germany next month... just me and my backpack, woohoo!
Every civilized country in the world has Working Holiday Visas that allow young people to visit their country and work. The "young" bit is a subset of the range between 16 and 35 and the time they allow you to work is somewhere between one and three months with some odd requirements. For example in Australia, you can visit for up to a year, but can only work in any location for up to 3 months and only 6 months out of the year. The idea of these is to allow visitors to earn enough money so they enjoy their travels but to be restrictive enoungh not to displace local workers. The work that people on these visas get tends to be the kinds of jobs no one else wants but with computer skills, you should be able to find something.
The US of course only has these visas if your a Saudi even though they would be a major help to the depressed travel business. If your in this age group, maybe its something you should write your congresscritter about because they are making lots of changes to the immigration rules.
Most places also have Youth Hostels. These are cheap places to stay and they can range from small private rooms to a more typical dorm with several bunk beds in a room. In a big city downunder, it will cost you about US$10 a night. Other places can be three times more (London) or $2 nite (Bali last month). Its a great way to meet people. Some of my geek friends even meet their girlfriends while staying at yough hostels. The typical traveler will pack up all their stuff in a backpack and just go from place to place and find work when they can, see the differnt places, meet lots of people and then keep on going. Its a great way to spend a year or so.
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
Make sure you sew a Canadian Flag onto your backpack.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I've been to many countries in 4 continents.
My sugestion is go somewhere very differenet from your home. It will give you a new perspective on the world, and probably make you more greateful for what you have.
Good choices in the world are currently:
India
Thailand
Vietnam
Cambodia
These are places where young toursist can easily cope. There is pleanty of tourist infrastructure to help you out, pleanty of like minded people, and an INCREADILBE amount of history you likely wouldn't even have thought of. India's definitely my pick of this bunch, I'll be returning again next year for a month, bringing my total to 8 months in the county. I first went as a student. My average daily cost of living was 6 USD. (but that was extremely cheap. 15 USD a day gets you reasonable accomodation, and good quality transport and food. you'll find pleanty of people to meet/travel with there.
These countries have huge varietiies of food to try, and are the locals are very friendly and comfortable with tourism.
As far as helping out. Travel as a tourist first. I've worked in rural thailand and Papua New Guinea. Working out what suits you, and what you think will be the most will benefit the local most from your skills takes time.
I've meet pleanty of peace corps volunteers in PNG, and volunteers with Mother T. in Calcutta. Most of these people where like kids on holiday. They where definitely committed and being useful, but often it was just like a holiday or an experience for them. Its hard to discribe, but they can be a bit condescending to the locals etc. Its like its just a summer camp with a twist for them. In PNG the peace corp all have breaks where they are piad to go to the fanciest resort in Madang. They do good, but they are a funny bunch.
Go and Look at the rest of the world before you decide to help them. Then you will get some idea of what is helpful. These people need the basics. Food, Water, Education, Health Care.
Go to somewhere like India for a holiday. You'll have a great time, and you will have some appreciation of what help you can offer if you choose to. don't start by joining the Peace Corps or equivalent. Do that after you know why it would suit you. There are litterally of thousands of NGO (non-governmental agencies) working around the world to help developing countries.
Elivs
I hear Saddam Hussein is hiring electrical engineers that know a lot about high-speed centrifuges. Apparently they use them for making baby formula, go figure.
But if you drive a car, you're much more likely to die from *that* than you are from terrorism. Not to mention the fact that September 11 demonstrates that terrorists can just as easily kill you at home as abroad.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
www.solbeam.com
.com who quit before the .bomb to see the world. She seems to find work whenever she needs it, and her journal even gives some good tips on how to travel alone, find work abroad, and keep in touch with the world back home.
She was a tech girl for a
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
if you put it off you probably won't get around to it until retirement.
WHY? Why does everybody have this mindset that there's no choice after college except to get a boring job in a cubicle, get married, pop out kids, buy a big house, and hopefully, have enough time and money at the end to sit on your ass for a few years? That's so fucking depressing. You've only got one shot at life, and it may not be long. You never know. If you think that the rest of your life will be so bad that you won't get to do what you want to do (or at least, not for another 40 years), then you need to rethink things. Hell, just watch Fight Club a few times and *think* about it.
- From a person living a very unusual, fun, and rewarding life (ie: not a lemming)
Open source projects don't generally provide many travel opportunities.
If you're concerned about general less friendly reception rather than just your security, you might find that going in with a sense of humor, a bit of respect for the local way of doing things, and refrain from regularly proclaiming to anyone who asks and plenty who don't that the US is the greatest country on earth and we do things better at home (even if you think it's true) tends to help ameliorate that problem.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
If you travel somewhere with a lot of history,
buy a history book. Its a lot easier to appreciate historic locations like Paris or Athens if you know a little bit about the landmarks.
1. Get a job.
2. Save every pennt.
3. Spend it on your trip around the world.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
You could always work for the russian mafia - setting up compiter systems to protect their international sex slavery ring from the meddling feds. I hear its good pay, until......
I'm guessing you're American because I'm lazy. I know plenty of people who have traveled around the world, and when people ask them where they are from, they say "Canada". No one thinks of Canada as much of anything (Sorry, Canadians). People I know with Canadian and US citizenship who live here, travel with their Canadian passport. Worldwide, Canada is just another country the US picks on.
A friend of mine has been living in India for a while and that's kept her from getting her ass kicked. Don't wear American t-shirts, too.
I'm sure there's so many responses that you won't read this, and it'll probably be given a 1 so you'll never notice it.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Unless you're lucky enough to have Red Hat or Mandrake or someone fund your travel to expos, or have an expo pay your way to come talk about the project. It happens.
> What can a skillful geek (electrical,
:)
:>
;> are all rooting for you, even if we are a bit jealous too.) :>
> 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.
I ended up doing the first -- volunteering -- and also took classes at the local university. I spent two years living in Europe and travelling through it and the then-current Soviet Union. I don't regret a minute of that time, although I didn't get started on a career or make much money.
You've got the right idea -- now is a great time to go.
First, if by "speak three languages fluently", you mean HUMAN languages and not Java or C++, you might want to pick a place where you speak the language. One reason I enjoyed my time in Europe so much is that I speak German and Russian. (Not fluently when I went -- fluently after two years, though.)
Then, find some charity or NGO that's doing something you believe in and would like to contribute to. Poke around and see if they have an "internship" or could even offer to pay you enough to pay for your room and board.
They might be willing to do that in return for computer geek skills, but your English skills might prove to be more useful in many parts of the world. (I notice a bunch of people suggested teaching English -- that is definitely one way to do this.)
You have nine months. I'd start at the college Job Placement/Career counseling office, and also contact a bunch of charities of your choice and see what they might have available.
And keep us posted! (Us old fogies
Catherine
I concur indeed!
I did this through SE Asia for four months. When I started i had a sizeable budget, however when I was in thailand I stayed on koh phangan for a month for $250 - which included all my meal all my beer and my bungalow.
Hostels and bungalows is the way to go (just be sure to get a proper toilet)
Right. Latin America truly rocks. Great people, great sights, good food, inexpensive. And it's reasonably safe if you don't do anything stupid. Not to mention the fact that you just need to know Spanish to get around most of it.
I recommend Guatemala or Ecuador to start. They're really easy to travel in and have much to recommend them.
I am a white water river guide, a kayaker capable of boating class V water, I can rescue people that have been thrown from a river raft with my kayak, and can also run a video camera. That skill set enabled me to strap my kayak on my car, remove the back seat of a Honda Accord and pack it full of crap (including a tent and sleeping bag), and tour the US for a year and a half. I got to boat some of the most intense water in the country and see some of the most beautiful scenery you can imagine. I spent 20 days traveling 228 miles through the entire Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. I started ten miles below Hoover dam and boated all the way to Lake Mead. It only took about 100 cases of beer to get the 16 of us through the trip! :-)
I boated in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North & South Carolina, New Mexico, Utah, and California. I did have to work at a ski resort for Dec, Jan, and Feb when the commercial river industry is pretty weak but I could have gone to Australia, New Zealand, or South America if I could have afforded the air fair as some of my friends have done. All of those countries, as well as Europe and Asia, have large white water attractions. It takes as little as a week to become trained to guide class III water on the Arkansas River in Colorado: the most rafted river in the country. You can get information by contacting the:
Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area
307 West Sackett Ave.
Salida, CO 81201
U.S.A.
719-539-7289
They can give you the names and numbers of over 50 rafting companies that will train you to become a guide at the beginning of every year. From there you will meet enough people to get to know where the commercial river comapnies are all over the country. I worked for so many different companies during that year and a half that I lost track.
Best of Luck,
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
I just recently finished a year's worth of travel. It was budget travelling, 3/4 of which was in the third world, all of which ended up costing about $22,000. Highly recommended.
A great book to get you started is: The Practical Nomad. Read through that, or similar literature, and you'll be so stoked to travel that nothing will hold you back.
Don't worry about "the world climate." The media hypes everything, just like shark attacks. Keep your wits about you and you'll be fine.
Don't worry about geeking out. Take a PDA with a backup cartridge; there are cyber cafes all over the world you can use for internet and mail access.
Fly high little bunny!
Matt
P.S. check out my website if you want to read through some of my travel stories.
I totally agree. I had an opportunity to go to one of their presentations two months ago, and it appealed to me greatly. Believe it or not, Wycliffe is actually one of the organizations most involved in computational linguistics and language-processing research these days. Not just Christian organization, but organization, period. People from Wycliffe present papers at linguistics and CS conferences every year, just like their peers in academia and industry. For the nerds who know what I'm talking about they've managed to get a lot of revisions done to the Unicode standard (the character set that tries to include every character known to man, more or less.) In short, they're doing a lot of interesting stufs with computers, so one would have a lot of opportunities to do real CS, ie actually solve problems and write software, not just be a sysadmin/IT guy like one would be with any other missionary sending organization.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I did the peace corps thing after college. And I'd recommend it highly. If you have the chance, jump at it. You'll see and do things you'd probably never encounter otherwise and you'll learn a lot. Some employers will discount it as will some grad schools - but others will look on it as a big plus.
Take a tour around Cambodia for two weeks enjoying the culture while distribute Malaria drugs and mosquito to remote villaes along the way. I'll be there in this Janurary.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
If I were in your situation, my own first choice would be to hook up with an Intentional Community and stay for a couple of years.
Twin Oaks is an example of a particularly successful and long-lived Intentional Community; it's been around since the 60's. You can follow the links from that site to dozens of other ICs.
One of my pipe dreams is to chuck my career and start an Intentional Community with a geek focus: the cash industries could be things like building custom computers, doing installation and tech support, web design, video production, etc.
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.Ok more than one.
Asia now provides near unlimited opportunity for someone in this position, especially when they are multi-lingual.
China, while stacked to the ceiling with skilled workers, needs middle and upper level managers for all sectors that have decent experience.
Korea needs project managers to act as liasons with overseas factories.
The list goes on. Start with the major job boards and build a list of jobs you find interesting and you suspect you can fill. Salary packages are always negotiable, and can be very profitable. Keep an open mind and be patient.
Good luck
For pictures of my experiences, see my site. You'll notice that I brought my laptop with me and was able to apply my geek skills by teaching computer classes on the side. You can find more stories about my geeky life in the Peace Corps here.
When I left Ghana for good in August 2001, I still wasn't yet ready to return to the life of a software developer, so I immediately applied for a job as an English teacher with Nova, the largest private school in Japan. As some here have suggested, this is another great way for geeks see the world and learn skills that don't require electricity. For anyone thinking of that route, I've written some tips on deciding whether to join Nova.
Trevor
Oui! I thought I couldn't spell (i.e. ./'ers). Ok...It's assistant and electronic(- al). Electronical isn't a word in an English dictionary.
Other than that, I'd say get a job doing some real manual-type labor for a couple years before you get a desk job, or else you'll turn into a Jabba-like human. Developing some muscle strength while your still in the late stages of development, will keep you fitter later in life. If you've been a fat slob all your life, and at 35 you decide to get in shape, it's going to be, like, 5 times harder.
I used to frame houses(construction job) when I was around 18, and 10 years later, I can still do handstand pushups(like 8...when I'm sober). Course it helps that I only weight 150lbs, but I never work out or anything.
When I was in your situation, I joined the US Navy and became an air crew member. Things were dangerous then too (Vietnam war), but all in all it was a great time in my life and produced more memories/month than any time before or since.
Of course, your mileage may vary, but the military can really be quite a neat adventure, and there are lots of geek opportunities (I flew on one of the highest tech aircraft of the period and worked on the electronics when not using them).
The only good weather is bad weather.
The other answers are in the book. ;)
Seeing the world isn't nearly as expensive as we Americans think it is, and now is the perfect time in your life to do this.
Here's what I did...
Got on a plane and went to Chile where I knew they were building the largest optical telescope in the world. I then applied to become a telescope instruments operator... they gave me the job because I had 15 years of software development experience and I spoke fluent English (which is what they use at the observatory)...
Coincidently, my contract is up in June, and I'm not renewing because after six years in South America operating the telescope and writing, it's just time to come back... So, if you're a smart geek, you can have my job. Hell, you don't even have to wait until June as there is a position open now.
Like AIESEC mentioned above, IAESTE is a great exchange organization: International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience. Find the US site at http://www.aipt.org/subpages/iaeste_us/index.php
I got a summer exchange internship in Norway over 20 years ago with IAESTE, and met many current friends that were there with both IAESTE and AIESEC from around the world - that summer in Bergen alone there were exchange students from these organizations from France, Denmark, Scotland, USA, Canada, Nigeria, Yugoslavia (that was then), Greece, Turkey, Indonesia, England, Ireland, Italy, and probably more that I can't remember.
Enjoy!
Check 'em out
Engineers without borders
u ga nda.shtml
http://www.ewb-isf.org/
Here's an internship for a hardware/software project leader in Uganda:
http://www.ewb-isf.org/content/internships/f02/
Hells yeah...
Even in high school I see these kids who spend all their fucking time playing an instrument, joining the debate team, being in the school play, playing three varsity sports, etc ad infinitum et ad nauseam... There's no way in hell they can actually *ENJOY* doing all that stuff and having no free time whatsoever, but they want to have a big shitload to put down on their college apps, becuase their worth as a person and future happiness in the world is decided by whether or not they get into one of the Ivies.
If I ever worked for a college admissions office, I'd take all these applicants who are defined as a person by their impressive list of Extracurricular Activities, and shitlist them.
Do stuff you *ENJOY* with your life. Fuck all else.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I find it hard to believe that ships still lie in ports for serveral days at a stretch. By my understanding (at least in the ports in Europe and most Asian Industrial centers) they can turn around a container ship in less than 24 hours.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Sorry to disagree, but this is completely wrong in scope and feeling. Here's why:
You have three options, you think things will get a) better, b) worse or c) stay the same. So you then have three "do I see the world now or later" arguments.
a) World will get better - well how much better and how quickly? Doesn't matter, it's an excellent time to see the world right now - and then when the world's all better, see it again and contrast!
b) World will get worse - so now you have no excuse at all for "seeing it later". Getting worse, very much the most likely scenario, tends to say "pack your bags and get your seeing done while you still can" to me, but YMMV.
c) World will stay the same - so then, no time like the present, go out there and see things!
In short, you have no excuse, whatsoever, to avoid doing what you want to do, what you will find is the best thing you have ever done, and what will be the most fantastic thing you ever do by far.
The only thing you actually have reason to fear is fear itself.
Get in touch with the Athens Olympic Committee or the company doing the IT for the next few games, SchlumbergerSema. The pay may not be great and you'll probably work your ass off while you're there, but you'll meet more people from all over the world than you could ever imagine. If you do it right, it's easy to set yourself up to work for future Olympics as well. After Athens, the next games are in Turin, Italy (2006) and Beijing, China (2008). I worked in IT for the Salt Lake games and I wouldn't trade that experience for the world. In fact, had I not decided to stay in the states to finish my CS degree, I would have moved on myself.
i suppose that might be the way to go if you're willing to kill other human beings as part of your job description.
Thats an option. With a degree, you have the option of going straight to Officer Candidate School, or going enlisted(with an automatic promotion to E-2 or even higher depending on service and specialty) and going somewhere. If you take this option, and go active duty for a few years, GO OVERSEAS. Its a waste of a tour not to. Odds are there is something in the military related to your civilian training.
Granted, especially now, there is a serious risk with military service, but the pride will last forever, and most employers will see military service as something that sets you apart from a sea of resumes.
Which service to choose- That depends. You can go into whatever service your family is most connected to, you can go into the Marine Corps for a tough life, the Air Force to get in, go places, while staying as far away from the bad guys as possible, plus the Air Force has the most high tech type jobs available. The Navy is good if you want to go to sea or want to work on nuclear reactors, the Army... they are good if you want a military life but don't have a preference, or if you like the idea of ground operations and either hate water or don't want to make a religion out of your service(like the Marine Corps expects)...
Its an option, I wouldnt trade my five years in the Marine Corps for anything.
I don't recall seeing the guy ask where he can go if he wants to get YELLED at all of the time and made to run through mud, jungles, and other places. Besides, a LOT of the military divisions these days are adding *more* tech to their everyday lives. He said that he was looking for something with *less* tech.
:P
:P
Sheesh.. if he wanted to get yelled at, he'd just need to stay in his cube all day. I'm sure he gets enough of it.
Besides.. I used to work with someone that joined the Navy. you know where wound up? Fallon Naval Air Station - in the middle of friggin Nevada. Now *that's* seeing the world.. not.
I was feeling a bit like you when I finished my MA in physics. Except that, while getting out and being elsewhere sounded interesting, I had good reason to stay close to home (Austin). So here I am, madly trying to finish my thesis last summer, and realizing that I needed a job. And of course even in Austin "entry"-level geek jobs are/were few and far between. But I think to myelf... I'd like to give something back to my community. And I want to get to know and understand people from diverse backgrounds (read: not middle-class suburban, aka WASP).
...Lo and behold, I hear about this AmeriCorps*VISTA opportunity. They needed someone to do some database/IT work, and to serve as a Loan Outreach Coordinator (the company is a non-profit focused on economic development, providing training and loans to low- to middle-income entrepreneurs).
I've gone back and forth on it, but now that my year is almost over, I've really grown to understand the value of such an enterprise. In the tech sense, I've become very good at Access/VBA (not my preference, but better than one might think!) and better at translating real-world user needs into the software. But the big things are learning about business, finance, capital (in my case). Learning about the community's needs, and who does (or does not) serve them. Learning to appreciate and see the diversity in my little town. Learning that Austinites think themselves free of racism--and that such only deepens their racism. And much more of course.
So, my tech skills were a bridge to get me into a very different, yet very rewarding situation. And it has definitely been worth it.
(by the way, the company is called BiGAUSTIN).
I volunteered on the lady washington for a month and loved it.
on their site is a list of links to other tall ships
i'm sorry, but where were you that there were 'bombs exploding all around me'? boot camp? there havn't been any real wars in years, only bombing campaigns -- a real war requires two combatants.
as for the 'prestige' of being in a war... look at vietnam. did we really 'anty up' for freedom? these things always look good on tv, and we can always justify our actions in the movies that follow but the reality is that we don't fight for our fundamental freedoms anymore -- we fight for free trade.
all i'm saying is that being on slashdot, you probably have your own ideas and opinions on situations throughout the world. by joining the military you loose the opportunity to act on your own ideas and instead submit yourself to the wishes of those in power. which brings me to my last question: how well do your ideas and goals match those who are in control, politicians between the ages of 40 and 70 with a net worth of at least 4 million?
i know i don't agree with them so i won't be ordered by them.
fear is the mind killer
Army is great for a single guy, but this guy has children who need a father all the time, not just when it's convenient for the army to let him spend time with them. You owe a lot to your country, but your first loyalty needs to be to your children because they're more helpless than the USA. Better to join up before you have kids, or see if they'll take you after the children are grown.
Circular argument. The regret would only be felt if there was some desire to have children in the first place. If that desire never existed (and it doesn't for many people), then there's no regret at not having had children.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
I did pretty much everything in high school except music and drama, and I loved it. I got to do some really cool stuff, event went to DC for a week and met a buncha real politicians. (They look like real people up close!)
Now, don't get me wrong, I spent my fair share of time in front of the computer too, but if oyu'er not doing sports, or part of student council, or on the debate team - what are you doing with your free time? Drinking?
Frankly, I had a lot more fun in high school than my friends who spent most of their time high.
Oh, and there's one other very good reason to get into college:
I got to go to Europe for a YEAR because I got into college and knew some German.
paintball
"How does one look "American"? Do you mean look "white"? Or do you mean "not Chinese"? Seems like a bad generalization."
Maybe it is, but it's not necessarily inaccurate. I've often heard my relatives use the description American to describe someone white. Or more accurately, I should say not ethnically Chinese (with the presumption of probably caucasian), since that's the context it's usually presented in -- like, "Oh, is your new friend Chinese or American?".
My general feeling is that in these cases, they are using "American" as if it were both a nationality and an ethnicity. I suppose it might be natural for older folks, who came from a time and place when the world was not so small, and such things were usually one and the same.
Stupid? Maybe. Ill-timed? Probably. Cut us a little slack-- we had wanderlust on the brain. The dot-com disaster gave us the kick we needed to shed the albatross of responsibility hanging from our necks and hit the road.
As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to be irresponsible, you might as well go all out. Why have a young-life crisis quietly when you can have one loudly? Why not broadcast it to the world and convince others to follow in your footsteps? Because the truth is, once we started looking into it, we realized that taking a traveling sabbatical wasn't as hard as we thought it'd be. And you didn't have to be as rich as we thought you did.
The hardest thing about leaving for the unknown was deciding to leave. That, and figuring out what we needed to do, check, bring. We started thinking about creating a place where would-be bohemians could go for "The Big I's"-- information and inspiration. And that's how emergencyexit.net was born.
Love this site!
Since you guys can't tell on your own...(bookmark it so you'll know next time)
:)
sniff sack and die
Now, drag your ass over to the keyboard and mod this correctly.
Folks, "-1: Overrated" isn't a conversational weapon. I read pretty high when I'm not moderating, as I'm sure a lot of folks do. We're counting on useful moderation. So please don't moderate based on whether or not you think slashdotters should join the military -- moderate based on whether or not you thought dan_lamb's comment stimulated discussion. Obviously, it has.
If you disagree with his comment, please do so. If you do it intelligently, thoughtful moderators will mod you up for the same reasons they modded up the statement that you disagreed with.
Please don't piss in the pool. Thank you.
</rant>
So then you're saying police officers live an unfulfilling and meaningless life?
no.
"the US military is the great Satan"
your words, not mine.
In the last decade, the US military has handed out a thousand times more food parcels and given out a thousand times more medicine and treatment than they've killed people.
i think i understand now. for every 1000 parcels of food and medicine someone gives out, they get a credit that gives them the right to kill someone.
And the people they have killed, in most cases, had it coming.
it's good to know that there are persons of integrity in the armed forces such as yourself who are capable of making that judgement, as to who deserves to be killed and who doesn't.
Hey, if you're that worried about the snooty French waiter spitting in your food, go for it, but Canadians aren't gonna be going home with his girl, eh? ; )
If you simply want to travel and do good in a tangibly fruitful way, join the US Peace Corps. My cousin did this and actually speaks well of it *after* getting so sick she had to leave early. You get a really solid lifeline in case you suddenly require medical attention or quick evacuation. Almost everyone will respect what you did, regardless of their national, political, and/or philosophical background. And the experience lasts a lifetime, usually in a positive way.
If you want to do good and (also) find out lots about who/what you are, join the US Army. I guarantee this experience too will last a lifetime; but it might not be so sweet. You'll find out things about yourself, and about people in general, that don't surface during the medi[c]ated experience most of us accept as everyday life.
Now that I've exposed some of my own biases, let's explore a bit of reasoned counterpoint to some of Ian Bicking's writings:
----------------
Surprising this assertion is. I've reviewed a fair number of the primary documents without coming across anything to support this observation. I'm aware of at least two US Navy fliers who got courtmartialed for not following orders whilst in the aeroplane; but their crime was deviation from course and an unauthorized weapons release, not a mission refusal. Can you recall which historian made this claim/when/where/to whom/citing what? The question of what makes a target 'military' is the subject of numerous thick books. A restrictive definition would have precluded, for instance, turning out the lights in Ho Chi Minh City. But Operation LINEBACKER doing that, and things like that, brought the North to the negotiating table at a time when they were already correctly confident that they would win the war. Whether or not you accept that US intervention was morally right, it's hard to argue that bloodshed is presumptively preferable to negotiation. (The same argument applies, more recently, to Kosovo/Belgrade/Yugoslavia.) Orange was used *as* a defoliant. There were technicians who knew how toxic it was, but it's not clear that the decisionmakers in Vietnam did. MAC-V also dropped Orange on its own troops -- difficult to reconcile with a desire for victory, if the release authority meant to employ it as a chemical weapon. Really? Where? Are you referring to the human shields whom Saddam voluntold they'd go stand next to the air defence systems that were about to start shooting at US and British pilots? US soldiers do die in battle. The US Army has had some success in reducing the numbers, but a dispassionate review of US military history over the last, say, twenty years reveals that US soldiers died in battle in Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan. The US Army's deployment to Albania in 'support' of the Kosovo Air Campaign killed US soldiers only in accidents. It also killed zero persons of any other nation, since it never executed a combat mission. No, they're betting *their* lives on their Army's ability to protect them. And they know an uncomfortable lot about how finite that ability is. Soldiers in battle generally do not fight for causes. They fight for survival, frequently for the survival of their buddies, occasionally for a charismatic leader. Citizens who enlist might do so for a specific cause, but more often than not they do so for a complex combination of reasons. Patriotism is usually one of these. Yeah. True. If you aren't comfortable with the fact that you'll remember the nameless people you killed for the rest of your life, stay away from the US Army. There are nations that win wars, but no soldier ever won a war. All the soldiers in a war lose something. But until a universal substitute for war comes along, the US will need something that can fight one and win. Leave that job to those who have reflected on their willingness to do that specific thing. If you want to die for a cause, just write a lucid note and cut your throat. The US Army is a lot harder and more effective than suicide. Oh yeah, the guy who beat the temple moneychangers with a stick hard enough to drive them all away? Yeah, that was definitely a guy who would shrink from employing force in a righteous cause. The teachings of Christ emphasize personal responsibility and explicitly de-emphasize the manner of one's death. Do you really mean to claim that an 'ethnic cleanser' killed whilst shelling civilians would be preferentially blessed by Christ *because* he died from a US munition? Although Christ's blessings are denied to no repentant sinner, there's no basis in scripture for such an exceptional claim.----------
Please take to heart bugnuts' advice to get IN WRITING the recruiter's promise about where you'll be assigned and what you'll do.
Finally, regarding kasparov's comment in this thread:
He's right. The entire US DoD reflexively punishes defiance. Paradoxically, those US citizens who pledge themselves to defend the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution are less free than those they defend.Orders are fundamentally about trust. The soldier issuing them believes they'll get done. The soldier receiving them believes they're right. When this breaks down, so does the US Army. If trust is at issue, then *before* it breaks down, the issuer and the receiver owe a frank discussion to each other and to the Constitution they pledged they'd defend. If you're not ready to have that discussion, face to face, with a guy who can put you in jail, don't join the US Army. Sometimes it really *can* feel like an Army of One.
There are easy answers in the US Army, just as there are in 'everyday' US life. You can keep your head down, learn exactly what is required, do it as well as you can, and ignore/forget the inconvenient remainder. But if you are a geek, your predilections will force you along a harder, more rigorous, and ultimately more illuminating path. This is no more a fact of the US Army than of US 'everyday' life; but in the US Army both the situations and the outcomes will matter more to you. The answers you find might not be comfortable, or even unambiguous; but they will be true.
Also you'll have lots less bandwidth :-)
I am the original poster. Thanks for the many answers. Too bad I could not participate more actively due to hours incompatibility between US and EU. At first glance it will take ages to read everything. One thing I noticed is the frequent mention of the Peace Corps. I should have told that IANAUSC. I am not an US citizen. No peace corps for me.
It doesn't seem at all surprising -- during WWII, I believe I've heard that when given the opportunity to fire at an enemy, only about one third of the time the soldier actually fire. I believe this was true on both sides in Europe, not sure about the Pacific (I think people would find it much easier to fire on someone of a different race). The military was very concerned about this. I believe they increased that number by the time Vietnam came around.
Forget the military, there's a civil service component that goes with it. You get a decent salary plus paid housing and cost of living allowance. For Europe, go to the hiring agency and put your resume into the automated system. Then after it's processed, surf the site for jobs. Even though you're in Europe, you won't be paying European taxes.
I think from most of these posts we can draw the conclusion that you can do this any time of your life -- young, middle aged, or old. You don't have to do anything but what you are ready to do. And that doesn't necessarily mean travelling overseas, you can get a hell of a lot of life experience right here in the USA -- lots of people from other countries come here for that very reason.
I was in the middle of college in South Dakota (where I grew up) when I was 20, and I was bored out of my mind. The "challenging" tech university I was going to wasn't so challenging, and I wanted to really experience life. I knew I wanted to get to California or the east coast where I could continue college, but get a lot more out of life at the same time. I ended up with a girl from California at my night-job during college and we moved to California together. I knew nobody in California and had no family there. I ended up breaking up with that girl and for two years had almost two dozen extremely different jobs while I went to college part-time in the Silicon Valley. I also met a LOT of women here, and met SO many people from so many different cultures that I often felt like I was in a foreign country (I still live here and 1/3 of the local community is non-native Asian-American).
That was 11 years ago. I had a great time, had a lot of foreign cultural exposure and other life experiences I'll never forget (you wouldn't believe how many pages of stories I have from working in a busy Silicon Valley gas station at night!). I found my perfect job, make great money (even today), I've been married to a Vietnamese woman for over four years, and now have 2 kids. The start-up I hooked up with 9 years ago grew into a $150 million company that got bought by a British company 2 years ago -- perfect travel conditions considering I'm the I.T. Director.
So, I'm 32, have all the "bad" things that are supposed to prevent me from "seeing the world", but in the past 5 years I've seen Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, Holland, Canada (not a big hop, but it ain't America), Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, & Thailand. That's not including all the travel around the good old U.S.A. All that travel, and I've got my family, home, mucho money in the bank, and a job I love to go to every day. AND, one evening with my 1 1/2 year old son beats everything else by a mile.
I don't know what that means to anyone reading this, but I guess it means that if you follow your heart and what you feel you want to do, you absolutely can't go wrong and you'll find what you're looking for.
I left home for a four month trip around Europe to get away from my 'tech job'. It's been three years and I haven't been home yet. Being Canadian I can work in the other commonwealth countries, but aside from that I've worked in France helping out at a hostel and ended up running a bar in Turkey on the beach for three months.
If you can get some money saved up before you leave, it's very easy to find jobs working in the tourist sector where you don't make any money, but you get free accomodation, food, and usually enough cash for some beer. There's lots of work in hostels and bars for anyone who speaks english and doesn't need to get paid a lot. Stay there for a while then travel for a bit, dipping into that base of cash and find another place to work.
At the moment I'm in Romania. I've been travelling with two other guys who've come here looking for work. They asked around and ran into a Peace Corp's guy who gave them a lot of information on work here working in orphanages with kids, or even working with the city to help with the stay dog problem (catching, vaccination, and such... )
If you're a little nervous about just comming over and 'hoping for the best' you can always check the internet for volunteer jobs.. They'll often even pay for your travel to the place.. www.care.org is the firts to come to mind, but I'm sure there's other a google search will bring up.
If you want to see the world and don't care about doing a geek job.
And since you have a University Degree you can pretty much teach English in any country you want in Asia.
The ESL Market is really large and you have the ability to save a decent amount of money too if you decide to work in Korea, Taiwan or Japan. If more exotic locations are to your liking, you can teach in China, Indonesia, Phillipines, Thailand, Vietnam etc but the pay in those locations is abyssmal by North American or European standards, however you usually get paid about 10x what local residents do. For instance, in China an english teacher gets paid 6000 yuan a month where most locals earn about 600.
Most schools will pay for your airfare and your housing so you have very little upkeep.
In addition, if you have a Masters degree, regardless of field, you can get a job teaching English in an Asian university as a visiting Professor.
Best way to see the world.
I know because I'm a geek with craploads of qualifications but decided to teach English in Seoul, Korea and its quite the experience.
For more info you can check out www.eslcafe.com it can get you started for whatever you need.
Don't think those things are required elements in life. They're not. Be your own individual. Do what's best for you. After all, it's your life. If a wife and kids and a house with a white picket fence is what you really want, then by all means go for it. But don't do it just because one society (or even all societies) expect you to.
This world is very big with all kinds of people, places and ideas. Don't lock yourself into one way of doing things or one place of doing things. See the world, talk to people, take the knowledge and understanding from their experiences and add it to your own. Then make up your own mind. Otherwise, you're doomed to live someone else's life.
The only thing to add to the Let's go advice is to use the web to find people willing to walk you around where you are going. Hello to "Damian Veen" who was so nice as to show my wife and I Paris. My brother in law knew him from, of all things, music chat.
By the way, you can still see most of the nicer places in the world with a job, a wife and even an infant. If you can't live in Paris, a week there is nice.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
A few years back, I worked for Royal Caribbean as "systems specialist." Sort of an on board systems admin.
Didn't really see the "world" and what I did see was sort of "touristy." But the pay was good, and it was a decent experience.
What about some adventure in your own country? Another geek did this, and had many surprises.
How many old rich hags would drop major $$$ in a heartbeat for a boy toy? Used to work with a guy who had one that his wife knew about. She loved it because the old hag paid for the house, his Porsche, 57 Stingray, his side business ventures that always failed, and of course Travel. Too easy.
...start in Prague, lots of jobs there, great city to live in. cheap, too. get a TEFL cert (there), takes 5 weeks at ITC, tell em chris weekly sent you. wife and i did that 4 years ago, found jobs right away, no regrets.
La via sola al paradiso incommincia nel inferno
You know we seemingly have only two sides from what i have read so far: 1)join armed forces 2)join peace corps Ok, if you don't feel like you're the military type, why not work as a federal government employee in science apps or engineering? You end up traveling alot, and while the pay might be less than private sector, it's certainly nothing to sneeze at. And if you can get a security clearance you'll ususally end up working on cool new tech. I'm a Navy software engineering co-op and have thoroughly enjoyed my work thus far. It's not like you're IN the military (I think many are afraid your boss = drill sergeant, which is not the case at all).
-- (Score:i, Imaginary)
BUNAC has work programs for young people in all sorts of countries. http://www.bunac.org/
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
I don't understand why you equate doing what you want to do with hedonism. This is true only if you assume that people not capable of wanting anything except immediate pleasure. Are you *that* cynical about human nature?
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
I served 6 months in Sarajevo last year as an Army Reservist. I ended up working with civilians from the UN and NATO who had neat jobs and were making decent (tax-free) money.
http://www.nato.int
http://www.un.org
The point is that these kids I see do activities they *DO NOT* enjoy.
And I stand by what I said about admissions. Someone whose whole life is joining any school sponsored activity he can just for the sake of being on activities isn't going to be interesting.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.