"Several thousand pounds of student debt" would also be true for many students leaving university here in the US also. Except here it is referring to the weight of the bills.
In Australia, we have a government-run hex-debt system, where you take a loan that covers the bulk of the cost and only have to pay back a little a week for the rest of your life
@@tomvarga5515 I guess the system here in the Netherlands works on similar principles; the government issues the loans, and what you pay back monthly is income-dependent and never all that much. If you still have any debt after 35 years, the government clears it, to stop you from going into retirement while still having student debt.
I work with people in high school and college, and this is just so _incredibly_ valuable to demonstrate how entering the "real world" actually works. Very few people leave high school, have a career plan, major in the thing for that plan, find a job before they graduate, and work in that field forever. The dominant narrative of how careers work bears _zero resemblance_ to the way that careers actually work. This is how careers work. You muck about, and you try stuff out, and eventually, something works, and then you're like "Oh, hey, wow, I have a career now."
"Ended up coming into the studio, poking things, oh that's broken, I'll fix it." That's pretty much how I got into Broadcast Engineering. To the letter, actually. One of the best thing I let myself get roped into, all things considered.
One of my Computer Science professors half jokingly said that the field of Computer Science has a -1% termination rate. People are needed so bad that if you show that you are in any way competent, you will get promoted. Guess it applies to getting a job too.
I'm not even half way through my degree and I'm a software engineer. It really is a matter of competency and what you learned on your own rather than what you did in school. School for me is about the opportunity for post graduate studies and research instead of getting work.
+Matt and Tom While I was out of work I applied for a circuit designer job that I wasn't qualified enough for, they told me at the end of the interview that I wasn't qualified but created a position for me on the spot and gave me a technician job :-)
+Matt and Tom I can relate to the whole "I didn't know that was a thing people could do and get paid for but it's now my job and I like it" feeling. I was an unhappy person who had given up on dreams and had settled for whatever society had decided to throw on my plate. ..until I helped out at an event one day and realised I loved that! But I still thought it was just something you volunteer for and never considered that there are people who do this for a living. But I got asked to help out the next year at the same event, and an idea dawned on me.. I was still not ready to make the decision, but then a third edition of the event was coming up, I was asked yet again, and everything fell into place; I quit the toxic thing I hated, found a new crew looking for members, applied, got in, and am now a very happy roadie/event manager/crew member. I'm with one of the artists competing to represent Belgium at Eurovision 2016!
+Matt and Tom Going to university costs money in UK? I thought that was a US thing. I guess I'm lucky to live in Sweden, it doesn't cost money (apart from buying your own literature, food and housing).
VorpalGun I hear from reliable sources you do get what you pay for, which is to say not the highest quality of education, but then I study at the best university in the Netherlands (no really, surveyed and all).
+Matt and Tom how do you guys tell the future. So here I am thinking about responding to this job somebody contacted me about today. All the sudden here is park bench telling me to do the damn e-mail.
8 лет назад
Why do you always say: "We'll have to explain this to the American viewers"? I'm from Europe, but most of those things are new to me, too :)
+Anita Bedő Because the majority of our audience is American, surprisingly enough - and I've probably spent nearly a year of my life there, so it's close to my heart :) -- Tom
Omg yeah I have an American mate and she says sometimes I'll talk and shell be like *triple blinks* wanna do that again in English? And its like... I just said cottage pie dafuq XD
The thing about not being afraid to waste the big man's time reminds me of the time I job shadowed. I knew the answer would be "No, you *cannot* job shadow in a major national laboratory." Well I was wrong, and that's how I job shadowed at ORNL.
16:00 I'm tempted to bookmark this and watch it every day. Just to build the confidence to try a shot at a new opportunity every day until something great happens.
That's basically it. What is the hard part is just not giving up and keeping your spirits sufficiently high, so you don't go "naaah, that's bollocks, I'll just drown in misery". It ain't gonna be flowers, but eventually, you'll find something that suits you. At least it'll be more likely than when you do literally nothing.
"Never turn down a chance". I saw a cool video of a guy telling a story in a performance that won a story-telling contest, and the moral of his story was essentially that. In the story he was working as a security tester in Israel and his team had finished their job early when one of them noticed that the contract actually gave them permission to test PHYSICAL security in addition to their computer network. And they were working for a bank. So they technically had permission to rob a bank. And one of them made the persuasive argument that this was probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and they shouldn't let it slip by. What follows is a tale of a group of people who aren't very serious about it and have no idea what they are doing planning and executing an armed robbery of a bank, and it turning out to have been a whole lot of fun. Which is why, he explained, he quit his job the next day. Because he had received a once-in-a-lifetime offer to travel to the United States and study under prestigious people at one of the top universities in his field, and he'd been going back and forth for some time, but the lesson of the bank robbery was "say yes" when life gives you opportunities.
Tom, how did you hook up with Computerphile? That's where I first saw you. Your bit on dealing with time zones had me laughing so much I looked up your channel and I've been subscribed over 2 years. I just checked and it's Computerphile's highest viewed video. In fact you've got the top three, all with over a half million views.
The thing about 'never be afraid to waste the big man's time' is ~ even if the answer at this point in time is 'no', still, you've made an impression and it is amazing that sometimes somewhere in the future that contact can still come back to be quite valuable in a way you could never have foreseen.
I started learning how to program games when I was 8, started taking formal classes over the summer when I was 10, and now I'm 18, going to my dream college in September, and developing an MMO with a group of friends over the summer for fun.
I literally have this video on one half of my laptop screen, and a window with my email open, waiting for me to send out a CV. Welp. I guess the last 40 seconds is made for such a person like myself. Thanks Tom!
I *was* settled into a career at 25, a career I despised! I quit just after my birthday and then decided to do a job I liked instead, now I'm just working part time and free-lancing on the side.
+JonFawkes I'm 30 and just starting one. I mean literally. I'm applying for my first ever paid writing gig tomorrow, and in a weeks time I'm having someone help me find an online university I can get with income reliant deferred payments.
Your advice to never turn down an opportunity couldn't be truer. My job/education path has been like this: census enumerator>factory worker>inventory taker>hospital housekeeper>began studying journalism while working>moved to South America to be with wife with cancer (long story) with the help of leftover pel grant funds>journalism internship>launched online games journalism project, which lasted less than a year, but netted me industry contacts>community manager>games marketer>volunteered to a local English theater group>English teacher. Basically in the end I was saying "yes" to every opportunity that I saw, some were enjoyable, many were not, but the experiences I gained and the people I met along the way have been so valuable. I'd have to say that teaching English to people in South America has been the most enjoyable job I've had yet, and the whole reason I have this position is because I volunteered to help out a local theater group. I was kind of unsure about it at first, but I did not want to turn the opportunity, so I did it, and I met someone who coincidentally was from the same small U.S. town as me, who offered me a teaching position despite me having no formal education as a teacher. So with that said there are definite potentially life-changing benefits to accepting opportunities, no matter how much you think you might hate them. Naturally there are some opportunities that are rather dubious. I remember one time I stooped down to searching for work over Craigslist and I happened upon a listing where someone was asking for an "erotic model for a graveyard shoot". I think you can safely pass on those ones...
I just read Cal Newport's book "So good they can't ignore you", which gives career advice. It disapproves of the advice "follow your passion" and instead teaches something along the lines of "keep getting better at doing something, and you'll find people and opportunities turn up and give you chances to use those skills in a way you enjoy". Both of your stories sound like examples of that ethos.
I don't know if this will get a response but... I feel like sharing the gist of my 'story so far'. I went and did a degree in Music Composition and Technology, about 7 years ago. Since completing that, I've been doing odd bits of freelance, I've done a film score, I release on a label and do all sorts of projects and voluntary work. I still feel like I haven't made it, I'm not in a comfortable place financially, and I hate it. I'm 27 and haven't got it 'figured out'. I'm trying to find proper work of some kind in something relating to my field, but as a composer, producer orchestrator and mixing engineer, finding a job outside of hunting down freelance work to be paid a fraction of what I invoice... I envy people who have it figured out.
@@Bagofnowt In a better place financially, I got out of freelancing, away from jobseekers allowance and earned some freedom to find my own way. I have a partner now who is very supportive, I'm working on becoming a full time musician on my own terms, and we both have a backup plan of moving away and opening up our own business together should our big dreams fail. It's not brilliant but I'm doing a heck of a lot better than I was. Thanks for checking in :) I hope you are well
My family had a phrase ‘just open the box.’ It came about because we would often hesitate to start some project for our home because we weren’t sure how to do it but once we just open the box and got started we figured it out and it came out great so the moral is donut do something because you’re afraid just try.
God dammit Matt & Tom I've had all your videos playing in a row and now I have to email a friend of the family to ask for advice on buying phones internationally. You men and your great hair.
"Do not have Fraternities and Sororities" "I don't know what that even means." Good for you. It's better not to know. Those aren't the people normal people hang out with.
Request: When you say "we need to explain it to our US audience", you should say "we need to explain it to our worldwide audience". Think globally, explain things so anyone who watches it from any country would understand. And by the way, your description of student unions is perfect (like politics but nobody gives a s***).
I was going to say the same thing, but then it occured to me that there is a chance they're doing it on purpose, as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the famed ignorance of people from the US, and if that is the case, I think I actually rather like that...
I have to say I'm very impressed by your knowledge of digital security. I recently graduated from my computer science master (no specialization in security), and yet I have the feeling we are on about the same level in this respect even though for you it was/is only a hobby.
Me: Lecturing my little brother over making good friends, giving him examples of Matt and Tom Tom: Wow I never knew that! I just thought you did muuusic!
@@mirzaahmed6589 *Only if you're ordinarily resident. You don't need to be born in Scotland, you just need to stay for around 3 years, it has nothing to do with nationality.
I do work with computers and there's equal measures of people who got there along a direct path and those like me who have meandered our way to where we've got. Interestingly, I watched this with RU-vid's auto comments on and despite the bleep on the audio, the caption system was happy to transcribe the underlying word.
I’ve really been procrastinating doing a lot of things and specifically sending a tweet to that one person so I can get help on Music things and HELL TO IT LETS GO
I want to work for the NTSB doing aircraft accident investigation. I've never had much in the way of ambition or motivation until discovering this hidden passion. At this point I need to finish my 2-year degree program before heading out to uni, but I've already made significant progress towards that. The NTSB is a very exclusive gig that I might not end up in, but I have a passion that makes the hard work worth it.
I know I'm late watching this and commenting but your thing about not missing a chance/opportunity is something I agree on very much. I won' t tell the full story here but an opportunity arose which I turned down. Because I turned it down, it was offered to someone else who has now become a very well known RU-vid personality and has had a hell of a lot of great experiences because of it.
5:00 you payed your university costs by building web sites and web games for people. But how do you start? How do you find a company that wants a website / web game that's small enough so it fits in your university schedule, unimportant enough that they are willing to give the project to someone with almost no experience and hopefully is for money? edit: i do get some offers from startups just by studying for computerscience but most offers are like: We have this completely unoriginal idea, we need someone to do all the work for free. We have this project, but we need someone for a half to full time job (so no time). We have this project, we need someone who already got their masters degree (why that they send it to the students still working on their bachelors, I don't know)
+samramdebest Yep, that was pretty much it. Word of mouth - I made some projects that got a bit of attention, volunteered to make a couple of projects, and worked my way up form there! -- Tom
+samramdebest "How do you find a company that wants a website / web game that's small enough so it fits in your university schedule, unimportant enough that they are willing to give the project to someone with almost no experience and hopefully is for money?" You're hunting for a unicorn, my friend! May you find one! Get involved with some open source projects that interest you. Do some charity work. I designed portions of an alert system the local police department uses to this day. Several hours, not a dime, but it got me recognition. You need to show potential employers solid work that you have done to get ahead. Otherwise you offer nothing more than your fellow CS classmates as someone without a degree.
dowRaist and how did you get started on that police system? Because I would think the police wouldn't risk their software to have bad security by trusing it to someone without a degree.
You are absolutely right. I did records entry for the same police station later on and the certifications and vetting required to even get close to that data is very stringent. Was not applicable in this situation. No certification or special data handling rules required; It was to be used as part of their community outreach programs and was hosted on a off-site VPS. Securely hashing phone numbers, emails, and passwords is fairly elementary with PHP. Service was completely opt-in and you can opt-out whenever. Few legal disclaimers "XX Police Department, State of Minnesota, etc not liable" and we're good to go. I got started by being involved in the Community Emergency Response Team for my local chain of cities. Bunch of volunteers that can act as reserves who know first aid and basic crisis management in the event of an disaster like hurricane Katrina (program started after Katrina leveled New Orleans actually!)
Well it appears my Uni background was relatively similar to Tom's so this video was really interesting! Considering I graduated 8 years ago, it all still feels like yesterday... And I still get the "oh, you work with computers" tagline. Solid advice there too guys... I ended up with a degree in Computer Science, and I now work happily as a software developer... But throughout my A-Levels my interest was in Electronic Engineering, when I looked deeper into it I found that I was actually more interested in the programming of PIC micro-controllers, hence my move towards development. It's all about trying and adapting!
"Never turn down a chance" sounds like something I heard David Sedaris say. Someone said to him "Your life is so much interesting than mine," and he said "That's because I say 'yes' to opportunities."
Huddersfield University is fantastic for music technology / coding / audio engineering etc. I've been studying here for 6 years, finishing at the end of this year with a PhD (hopefully). However, if you were referring to the town itself, it does have some redeeming features. E.g.. the pubs. There's loads of good real ale pubs and breweries here now, Magic Rock for example.
Please come and do a speach when I graduate from York next week! XD. I had to suffer through an electronic engineering degree there too. I totally agree with never turning things down too, thats what I've always tried to live by.
I totally understand Tom's dislike for Huddersfield. My uni is partnered with them but they only allow our students to attend German courses in their time there so basically wasting their time while they have to go abroad to become an English teacher. I'm happy that Coventry was different and actually let us continue our general English and humanities studies.
Thank you. I needed to send a thing. I'm a do-it sort of person when it comes to things like that, or I try to be, but sometimes head stuff catches me out. Working on it.
the most annoying thing is telling someone you have no idea what you want to do, and saying you're good at maths and being told "engineering" and nothing else 🙄
Thanks very much for the advice! Really interesting video and really relevant subject for myself right now, thank you for touching on it. But, following your advice about not procrastinating and going out there and doing / sending things - The thing I'm going to do is to hit the big "SEND" button my my UCAS application right now! Hopefully it'll lead onto some of the chance and opportunities to do things similar to the sort that you two have so much fun doing. So thanks for the motivation, thanks for the videos and at the risk of sounding incredibly soppy, thank you for being you! Two genuine, real, hilarious guys who do some great work on the internet :P
I'm 27, and just about to start Psychology at Uni. I've been doing Computer Science for a while now but gotten fed up with it, and I need a change of pace. I'm so hoping this goes better xD
I have a question: how old were you guys when you "figured it out." Or even, how old are you guys now? (By "figured it out," I mean knew what you wanted to do and started doing it).
