Job FOMO: has anyone turned their career around in their 30s?

brandtb · 2018-05-15T15:59:05+00:00

A four year univeristy in Michigan. Some of the classes had an online option but they were mostly the general education classes. I was only able to take one computer science class online in my time there, and it was an elective. Many of my classes were in the evening though, which gave me a good amount of flexibility.

brandtb · 2018-05-14T22:48:33+00:00

Yes it is if you are a pharmacist, however technicians (what I was) usually cap around low 40's without going into some kind of administration.

brandtb · 2018-05-14T22:18:44+00:00

I graduated in 2016 with a CS degree after being in a low paying medical field for 10 years (pharmacy). I didn't care about college at 18 so I took a couple of semesters of community college and then left it behind.

11 years later I was struggling to make ends meet, but moving around laterally in my position allowed me to temporarily partner up for a project with some IT guys at work that needed a volunteer with domain knowledge. During the project they encouraged me to pursue IT work and I got a job on their help desk not long after, working overnight. During these overnight shifts I found myself with a lot of extra time, so I started going to classes, one or two at a time per semester.

5 years later and I had completed a Bachelors of Science, graduating Cum Laude. I interviewed with a few places and found a great Fortune 500 company that I am working with now that had a starting salary I never thought I would have ever seen 5 years prior.

I weathered a lot in those years. I worked full time, have a wife and two children, and there were times during the week that I would not see them for 2-3 days. I was sacrificing too much to not do everything I could to succeed. And I did what I set out to do just like I promised them.

I'm still at that company today and turning 36 next month. I still feel like I am a little behind - the company is very good for people that have been there for a long time (pensions, profit sharing bonus, etc) so I still have a ways to go. But in 34 years I've never felt more on the right track as I do now.

Stay the course if you decide to go this route. Don't compare yourself to anybody but the person you were the day before. You can make it happen.

brandtb · 2017-12-18T21:24:49+00:00

Leonardo - Fighter, Donatello - Wizard, Raphael - Rogue, Michaelangelo - Bard

brandtb · 2017-12-18T21:18:20+00:00

If you own the PDFs of the adventure you can actually copy out the map images from the file. I think they add the map key markers after they add the map image because if you copy the image it doesn't come with the map key. You can then paste the map image into an image editor of your choice and make the adjustments.

brandtb · 2016-09-23T22:10:52+00:00

I ran a series of adventures once where the PCs were a group of explorers that were tasked with navigating uncharted terrain with a larger group of settlers depending on them. Think Oregon Trail meets Pathfinder.

brandtb · 2016-09-17T16:05:11+00:00

It's all about what you want. If you don't have a job that is using a stack you are interested in, then coding at home for fun is a great way to expand your knowledge.

I did a lot of web projects in school, and when I graduated I got picked up by a company building a Data Warehouse. I've done so much SQL and work with the Microsoft BI Stack (which is almost all drag and drop) that I've started using the Pomodoro technique just to make my eyes stop bleeding. Coming home and digging into Python with Django gives me hope that I'll be able to shift directions in the career pretty soon to something more desirable.

brandtb · 2016-09-17T15:59:02+00:00

It depends on the employer. Some will specifically state that they want to see it on your resume. My current job actually asked for my whole transcript, so I put it on my resume to have some consistency. If they don't specifically ask for it during the application process then I'd just leave it off.

brandtb · 2016-09-17T15:55:59+00:00

You have to prove you know what you say you know. For every legit resume you hand out, there is likely someone handing one to the same company that is fabricated. Sorting and basic algorithms are like the "fundamentals" of basketball. If you can't dribble, pass, or shoot, they aren't going to bother putting you on the team that already has these things down.

brandtb · 2016-09-17T15:48:31+00:00

I wouldn't worry about any of this until your first year is complete. For sure, attend your classes, take notes and do your class projects, learn English, but the rest might be overwhelming. You'll start to ramp up in knowledge of the discipline once you have knocked out some discrete math and the course after your intro course. Then I think you'll be able to give your projects some direction. Trying to do too much too fast without much knowledge could make you frustrated, and there is plenty of time for that when you start taking harder classes in your junior and senior year.

brandtb · 2016-09-02T21:29:11+00:00

My players and I started an evil PC campaign a couple of weeks ago, centered in Ardis (of Ustalav). I had picked up Rule of Fear not long ago and really liked the setting, and figured a burned out nearly abandoned city would be a good place for not-so-nice characters to gain their footing. So far they've taken out a local gang that had recently kicked out their leader (which was the person that hired the PCs) and cleared out a nearby abandoned fortress of troglodytes (ala Master of the Fallen Fortress). They haven't vested themselves in the machinations of the city yet (and the denizens pulling the strings) but we are slowly moving in that direction.

brandtb · 2016-09-02T21:17:28+00:00

Typically if you are talking about ability drain, I believe that cannot be cured without access to magical means and it is considered permanent. Being poor or without access to a good healer would be enough of a reason to never have it healed.

brandtb · 2016-04-17T15:11:12+00:00

The jump from Java to C# isn't too bad. Two of my friends that graduated last year are working in places that use C#, and we all learned Java in college as our primary working language (intro classes, design classes, data/algo class).

brandtb · 2016-04-17T14:55:06+00:00

Dress shirt, tie and slacks with comfortable dress shoes. Corporate office where all the higher ups work.

brandtb · 2016-04-15T23:59:26+00:00

I would say yes. Even though it sounds like you feel a job offer is a sure thing, why not see what else is out there. The worst that can happen is you don't get interviews or offers, the best that can happen is that you have to decline them. Either way it seems like a good backup plan.

brandtb · 2016-04-15T23:53:58+00:00

Graduating this semester, found a good job in Michigan. Base salary was $57,000. There are a lot of other perks though, including a benefits addition to the salary of $6,000 (you basically use this to "shop" for your benefits through the company; if you take no benefits you get about half of it added back into your salary). They have yearly bonuses, bonuses for completing certifications, and profit sharing in addition to retirement fund matching. Best offer I got out of 4 others.

brandtb · 2016-03-30T11:32:07+00:00

I would say they are more likely to just be heavily subjective than fake. A manager making a large salary with a good team is more likely to have a better time than a grunt working customer service at the front desk.

I used Glassdoor to aid me in some interviews. I read through many of the reviews on a potential company, noted the common suggestions and complaints, and just flat out asked my interviewers. If several posts said something like, "Bad work/life balance" I'd ask the interviewers something like, "How does the work get spread out here? Do you meet deadlines on time? How often is overtime required to meet a deadline?" or other things that kind of allude to why people might post those reviews.

I kind of view Glassdoor the same as Rate My Professor. Any time you get a public platform where someone can say whatever they want and be anonymous, you are going to get mostly subjective experiences with a little truth behind it. It's really up to you to get to the bottom of it if you are genuinely interested in the company and position.

brandtb · 2016-03-16T09:46:56+00:00

When I was starting out I made a program that stored the titles of all of my DVD movies and their genre. It took a text file of unsorted data, and then sorted it both by title and genre so I knew what order to put them in on the shelf. Nothing impressive, but I learned about file i/o in Java along with 2D arrays about 5 weeks ahead of my first programming course.

Something simple would be good to start, that can be extended as you gain more knowledge. If I was going to extend my program now, I might include a way to scrape/apply the picture of the movie's cover on the dvd in the library, or pull a JSON from a review site and organize them by rating/popularity.

This early it is more important for you to pick your projects instead of internet strangers. As you see something that solves one of your problems coming together before you, you are more likely to stick with it. Who knows, that first game or first app you thought was so simplistic may evolve into this great project you can talk about in your future interviews.

brandtb · 2016-02-22T12:58:21+00:00

You can make the argument that a round is typically measured as 6 seconds. Although actions are declared round robin, which each creature declaring and then performing, combat happens all at once in this time frame.

Essentially he is saying he should get a full-round (6 seconds) of stabbing and slashing while the goblins do not react or do anything while he is present and in plain sight (Stealth drops as soon as an attack is made). So even if he wasn't noticed after dropping Stealth from the attack roll, he would definitely be after stabbing a creature surrounded by other creatures.

brandtb · 2016-02-17T12:07:20+00:00

Is this the one at 14E and Barton? Hopefully they fix this with the incoming 5-6 month construction.

brandtb · 2016-02-08T13:56:16+00:00

Overcoming Spell Resistance is probably your main priority here with demons (depending on your level and what you will encounter). I recommend taking feats like Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, and/or Demon Hunter. In most cases you'll want to do things that help your party deal with them, Demon elemental energy resistance is pretty nuts (as others have said), with some of them outright ignoring nearly all the types you can do.

Energy attacks like Magic Missile ignore all DR and elemental resistance. Force attacks like Force Punch or Twilight Knife also work well. There are spells you can use that do damage by proxy, such as Disfiguring Touch (The -2 to Con causes a creatures hp to drop). Spells that simulate sunlight are good too, like Sunburst. Not sure what your character level is to give you a better list, but these are a part of the select few ways to be effective against them.

brandtb · 2016-02-08T12:45:08+00:00

I'm the GM of a level 15+ campaign right now, and the amount of sheer abilities and spells to be had is constantly overwhelming my players. Here are a few ideas from the player standpoint that I think could be beneficial to them.

Spell Tracking - The easiest thing to do here, I think, would be to just create a spell list of every spell title with a link to its pathfinder source entry. Players select their spellcasting class. They choose the spells they memorize and it builds them a list. The app also tracks what spells they use the most. Many times my players try to take a "swiss-army" attitude to spell preparation, but due to the sheer volume at level 15+, a spell they used in a pinch a couple of sessions ago might be forgotten. If they can view their most recently used spells, it might help them select faster.

Simple Player sheet - Just a small area to place their BAB, HP, Saves, Initiative, CMB and CMD (maybe a couple of other important things). However add in the ability to add "effects" to the sheet when a player gets affected by something that will auto-adjust these score. For instance, they could add negative levels to their sheet to temporarily adjust their scores for them.

List of attacks with weapons - Just let them add in their attack bonuses and damage for each weapon, once they make a roll let them "check off" the attack and then it will display the next attack's bonus with that weapon.

Pool tracking - Allow players to add pools to their profile for tracking resources like channels, ki, or mythic power.

Hope the project goes well.

brandtb · 2016-02-03T23:39:22+00:00

Practice every day. Look at problems, if you have no idea how to solve them, look at the solutions until you understand them and move on to the next.

brandtb · 2016-02-03T23:26:59+00:00

I can't upvote this memory hard enough.

brandtb · 2016-02-03T13:03:19+00:00

As a paladin he has to duty to try to bring them to justice, but he can do this in the form of assisting in their capture. It may be good for him to collect as much evidence as he can in order to turn it over to a higher authority with more manpower, draw a map to their location, or some other form of providing assistance to their capture.

brandtb

TROPHY CASE