Topic: So, what do you do?

@DerMeister: Thank you.

@themcnoisy: Thank you. I really loved music and music production, but I made such a mess of university that it broke my heart a bit, to the point where I still have all of my instruments and "kit" sitting next to me in this room - but I haven't touched them in six years. Now I look back on it all, though, it was probably fate - I'm much better at this than I ever was music.

@SteveButler2210: I'd known the Nintendo Life people since I was 13. To cut a long story really short, when I was at school I made a GameCube website called Cubers, and Ant - who runs all of the sites - also had a GameCube website called GameCube UK.com or something. Anyway, I tried to steal the layout, and we stayed in touch on-and-off ever since! They eventually wanted to make a PlayStation webite, and I guess I must have seemed like a good shout! XD

A real blast from the past, my first site Cubers:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030205035438/http://cubers.co.uk/

I also did one called Games Main Frame during high school:
https://web.archive.org/web/20041130020550/http://www.gamesma...

Hey guys! My name is Des, I am 27, married and have one daughter.
I am currently a Supervisor at a Food Testing Lab, which I have been doing for the past 8 years. I get to play around with a lot of high end equipment just for the fun of it
However my education was in Applied Computing - I love programming but find very little time to get stuck into a new project.
I would love to create an Indie game but with not being able to find the time to do so (or a good group of friends to help me out), this is on the back burner. For now, i contribute to the game industry as a Writer over at a small games site.

@ZeD: Do you have any tips for good places to start learning to code? Through my employer I have a premium account at Lynda.com, who have an absolute shedload of high quality video-based tutorials, and I am currently going through a playlist of courses (about 30 hours in total I think) which cover the "Foundations of Programming" (not sure if it will focus on other languages later on, but so far at least it has been using Javascript to cover some of the basic principles underpinning coding in general, which can be applied to a variety of languages). It's giving me a good grounding, but once I've got the core principles down I could use a bit of guidance on which languages are the best ones to diversify into for somebody just starting out. I do also have a fairly reasonable grasp of the basics of SQL, as a lot of the applications I test for my work involve back end testing using SQL Server / Sybase, but I really want to start developing a better understanding of the programming/coding side of things, as I find it really interesting!

@SteveButler2210: It all depends on what you want to do. I have a small anount of knowledge about a lot of languages - to be honest though once you understand how one works, others will be easy to pick up.
I myself have a lot of SQL knowledge as that is what our system uses to manage all our lab data.
Usually what I do is this; I pick a language to play with (lets say PHP in this case) and I think of something that I would like to do. I then Google it to see if there is any example codes online to look at. Most of the time they have comments on so you can get an understanding of what is going on. Then take that code and put it into a dummy file and start messing around.
Currently I am starting to teach myself C+ as this is pretty much what everything is built upon these days.

My path was this Pascal > VB > VB.Net > Javascript > Java > ASP.net (Huge Mistake) > PHP > Small Amount of Android > C+
All were easy to pick up and play with but I will say Java was one of the toughest to begin with as it is very Object Oriented but once you get the hang of it, it a great tool but can be very buggy (See Minecraft)

@get2sammyb: On your cubers the main screen had virtua striker 4 as the headline game. Hell yeah. What a game.

Edited this a while after originally posting didn't realise my original sentence made no sense.

@arnoldlayne83: good for you, don't know if I could leave academia at this point... as I said I do love teaching and I feel is my vocation is just that the pay for adjuncting is not enough for a living and don't known when I will be able to find a full time teaching job...

sorry to hear about the woman of your life.... I'm your stereotypical nerd who is completely hopeless with women so I have never had a gf which is another reason I often get depressed... gaming has helped me cope a lot so it doesn't get to me as badly as it did before though...

@DualWielding: Hey man, I know it's easy for me to say from a laptop but I wouldn't get too hung up about the whole women thing, it's arguably more important having a good group of friends (or even one friend) rather than a gf. We're bombarded in modern culture with the stupid belief that it's everyone's life goal to find their "other half" and reproduce, otherwise we've somehow "failed" or had an unfulfilled life. Complete garbage. Instead of stressing on what you don't have, have a look at what you do have in life (interesting job, interesting hobby, a community here on PS). Besides you never know what's round the corner, you could randomly meet someone awesome in your job or even next time your out buying a game Again easy for me to say behind a keyboard, but try focusing on the positives in your life, considering you have a Phd you've plenty to be proud of also teachings awesome!

Alright, the time as come I guess.

Hey guys! My name is Tiago (for those of you that though my psn was difficult), but most call me T (no, I do not pity tha fool). I'm 25 and I was born in Sacramento CA, but moved to Portugal, then Switzerland, then finally to London for uni, and decided to stick around!

I studied Marketing and Business Administration, but at the moment I'm managing a huge database for an international children charity, which has given me the possibility to explore data structure/engineering and some analytics as well, currently moving on to VBA and SQL, to further the design of supporting databases, been doing this for about 3 years now and still loving it.

Future wise - I'd like to move on to bigger corporate databases, and then Senior Operational Management, or maybe Data Consultation/Project Management, which would give me the opportunity to choose my own assignments and take longer holidays to travel, which is something I absolutely love.

Gaming wise I'm happy with any kind of game really, RPG, shooter, driving simulator or arcade racer, there is yet to be a game I have absolutely no interest in. but these days you might find me working my way up (AGAIN!) the Destiny light and loot ladder.

Maybe one day I will finish the Witcher.

@xX_RiscazZ_Xx:

Cool little bio until this

Maybe one day I will finish the Witcher.

Not happening pal.

@xX_RiscazZ_Xx: @themcnoisy: I second that. I am fairly certain I will never finish that game unless I become suddenly bedridden but still well enough to play games...

@xX_RiscazZ_Xx: Lol I live right outside of Sacramento.

I am currently unemployed as I look after my 4 year old daughter. I've been to both Community College and University. I took technical drafting in CC and never could find a job, so that was a 5000 dollar loan that I needed to pay back. I attempted to attend university but I really didn't like it at all. I plan to go back to community college to learn network administration, but my daughter will need to be in school before that happens.

Hey, this seems like a neat thread. I'll add to it!
I'm Mikes! I'm just a friendly high schooler in California! In all honesty, I'm interested in pretty much anything artistic.
I've been playing piano since 7th grade and managed to learn some music on my own, and gradually became better. Playing that instrument not only made me the most patient person alive, but it opened my mind to teaching myself how to do things rather than wait for others to help me do it eventually. Since then, I've been trying my hand at a number of different studies. I'd like to become a great artist, animator, and game programmer someday (aside from being a musician as well)! People usually tell me that's a really high expectation, but I'm pretty determined to get better at all of them. I'd also like to use my talents to help other people in various ways, so that's a big motive. In short, I like to try to do a lot of things on my own.
I sorta have a job. YouTube's the closest thing I'll have to that. As someone who isn't even out of school yet, that's pretty darn helpful.
Oh, and besides that, video games were actually what made me start trying my hand at the piano and other sorts of art forms. I remember the first piece I learned was Dire, Dire Docks. Good times. Now I'm working on one from Final Fantasy VII!
@SaiyanFury Whoa. Hope all goes well!

Thanks, mate, I hope for the best for you as well. I don't really believe in anything except my own achievement. I make things happen for my family and I don't depend on anything else, especially from any government. I will go back to school, I will get my diploma or certificate, and it will be earned by my own blood and sweat, an overly dramatic representation I know, haha. But thank you for the kudos, I do indeed hope it will be well deserved once I am finished. God bless, and thanks again. Best luck to you and yours.

@Mikes: Keep at it man, I'm starting to realise more and more that you can do a hell of a lot if you're really determined to push for it.

Since I started this thread, my plans for the future have taken a pretty radical shift. Through my role as a software tester I've been gaining more and more exposure to bits and pieces of coding, which has eventually led me to realise that's what I really find interesting and want to get in to. For years I'd sort of thought I was past the point of education, as I had gotten pretty bad grades during my AS levels before dropping out entirely, and I figured university was never going to happen.

But, now I know what I want to do I am determined to get there, and so I am furiously studying for my Maths A Level with a view to taking the exams in May/June next year. With any luck, that combined with my professional qualifications and experience will be enough to get me on to a Computer Science degree, and by this time next year I hope to have been able to quit my job and be engaged in full time study for this!

It's scary going back in to education for the first time in over 5 years, but I'm finding the self study fits me much better (I'm taking the A Level via a distance learning provider), and I'm actually really enjoying it! Long term this should enable me to get any number of jobs involving programming, but I plan to devote some serious self study to game design/development while I'm studying at uni, and hopefully I just might be lucky enough to land myself a job making games if I can build up a decent portfolio

On the piano side of things, how are you at reading sheet music? There are some fantastic books out there for the Final Fantasy games (and many others), which can be picked up fairly cheap, as well as loads of great free sheets online. If you can't read sheet music yet, but are interested in learning to play music from games/anime etc, I fully recommend learning to read sheet music (even if it means paying for one or two piano lessons to have someone teach you the basics faster) as there is so much of it out there and it is so satisfying when you can bring to life some of your favorite pieces from a game

@SaiyanFury Independence is great — that's the spirit. Thanks! You too!
@SteveButler2210 Thanks! That sounds pretty neat. A degree too? Even better! I'm not very sure if I'd be willing to head back after five years. I'd also love to study my stuff full time, but I guess that can't happen quite yet.
I'm not very good yet, but I'm learning. I'm currently on key signatures. I'm very used to using YouTube/midis to learn how to play 'em, so it's very different. I've seen a bunch of sheet music without midi counterparts, so it gives me some motivation. I've been on and off about considering a teacher, but I may be transferring to a music-centered high school with a music theory class, so I figured it'd be best to wait and see.

Hi, I'm Sam and I'm 16, I do the reviews here at Push Square but I also occasionally write for a personal blog that my friends and I run, as well as being in the middle of doing my GCSEs. I live near Brighton in the south of England, and I'm currently hoping to work my way to getting a Journalism degree at Uni.

My dream job would be something in the journalism or writing field, preferably one that would let me travel the world. I'm thinking about either Sport, Technology or Gaming Journalism, as they all sound like great experiences, and I love all 3 topics, and right now I'm getting some experience under my belt! Either that or radio presenting, preferably for a sport station such as Talksport or the like - I just want a job that lets me talk about what I love.

@Anchorsam_9: Your in gaming journalism already aren't you? Keep at it pal, my pal was hiring a youtube presenter for Barcroft the other day thinking about it. Maybe that's a good line to follow.

@Mikes: Put some riffs up for us, would like to hear some of your music. I'm amazing on reason (propellerhead music software) but can't warrant £500 for the full new one (6??) and my old pc died last year so 3 is toast

@SaiyanFury: Some jobs will support you and help. My wife's will hopefully be on a flexible working pattern when she goes back after our baby.

@themcnoisy: Yeah, thanks! I'm gonna keep working at it and hopefully end up doing it full time as an actual job. Doubt I'll go into YouTube, but hosting a podcast and livestreaming on the side sounds fun as well as writing

@Anchorsam_9: Brighton's a great location for games to be honest. There are a ton of developers there, plus Eurogamer, etc.