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Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

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861–870 of 881 posts

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#861

Charter Pilot. Been working on that transition for 3 years now, getting my CFI soon ;) Love development, but I'd much rather do it on the side than 40 hrs/week.

If you're going to do it, I'd try to join the industry ASAP. It's a good time to get in, though entry charter jobs can be pretty brutal.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#862
post #513

I have a few options/dreams. 1. Become a musician. I love all kinds of music and drums/percussion in particular. On the side, I'm working my way to being able to play drums+timbales for Cuban timba music. I've only been doing this for about a year and think I have a talent for it. 2. Go into criminology and/or politics. Crime is one of the biggest problems in Venezuela, with murder and kidnappings at all time highs,…

i'd recommend "surely you're joking Mr Feynman" - Richard Feynman's autobiography (my favourite book so I'll take the stretch to recommend it) - he goes on sabbatical to become a drum player in south america.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always whittled as a fun side hobby. My desire to do anything bigger is limited by a fear of the table saw. As a lefty, nothing in the shop plays nice with me. I'm too worried about losing a finger which would impact my income stream as well as my other hobby, piano. But, I still spend more time looking at joinery than I do on HN.

Consider hand tools. It's a bit more labor, but if you're not building for profit anyway, you may enjoy it more. I have some thoughts on this on my blog, see my profile.

+1 I got into handtool-only woodworking several years ago. I find it very relaxing building things by hand. I am starting on a 6' tall bookcase this week

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider hand tools. It's a bit more labor, but if you're not building for profit anyway, you may enjoy it more. I have some thoughts on this on my blog, see my profile.

+1 to this! I got into woodworking with the goal of just using hand tools. As mentioned there is quite a bit more labor but you can also do things like setup a bench in your basement and work while your kids sleep upstairs. I'd highly suggest taking a look at some of the videos from Paul Sellers: https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulSellersWoodwork . My first real project was building his simple (but very functional) wor…

What I like about Sellers is that he doesn't try to sell you tools. He pushes the same dozen or so tools for every project and proves that you don't have to buy specialized tools for a job.

Unlike Schwarz who I feel like is always trying to get me to buy something else :/

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#865

I am tempted to partially abandon my career in cloud computing to start a business that... well, has the aim to build better (new) cities. I wouldn't start with a city, though (disclaimer: I'm not a multi-billionaire), but probably with the individual building. I want to dramatically change the "footprint" of the building in terms of : ecology/sustainability, cost, value for the people investing in the real estate pr…

I'm curious if you've thought thru actual locations for building said city (especially if site is in US). I just finished "Triumph of the City" and it really echoed this.

I definitely think it's possible.

Have you been keeping up with Sidewalk Labs, YC Research and their attempts to reshape cities?

Also, would look at Tom Currier's stuff (although he is no longer actively working on this) https://medium.com/@tomcurrier/build-something-people-want-1...

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#866
I notice that many of the "entreprenurial" dreams in here would work better if individuals banded together. Of course there are downsides, such as handling unequal investment of money and time.

But take the dream of a brewpub. At first glance, it takes a lot of capital, and you don't want to run an undercapitalized business - very stressful. You need runway for some beginner mistakes. And if you've never run a bar or restaurant, you'll make lots of mistakes.

But imagine five engineers teaming up to open that brewpub. Now we have 5X the capital and a bigger "brain trust" to bounce ideas off of. It's harder for the staff to steal with 10 eyes watching them. Problems which a single owner might overlook (cleanliness, service, pricing, competition) will get addresssed. The chance of failure seems much lower. Of course the return per person is also much lower - but the partners could open a second pub if successful. You have the luxury of putting a lot of brainpower on each major business problem.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#867
post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meditation teacher is my FI goal, I'll probably get yoga certified because I'm sure those businesses will be tightly coupled.

Do you think we need to be in specific kind of cities (smaller vs bigger) to earn a living doing such a job? Or do you think doing solely this is not enough to earn a living?

Location matters, but I also think it depends a lot on how you market yourself. A small mountain town won't have enough clients interested with the means to pay for those services. A resort destination (Hawaii?) could be really good. I think that is why I want financial independence though, so I can worry a little less about how much I can earn.

From reading it sounds like yoga teachers are plentiful since a lot of people practicing naturally progress to getting certified. Starting wages can be very poor because of this. That's where I think marketing can be the differentiating factor. Travel around India learning, maybe write a book or blog about yourself. Get on reality TV and become a minor celebrity. Have a very well respected lineage. Just some ideas to bring in more clients.

Big cities are definitely the safest.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#868
post #76

Physicist. I love applied math. I love to explore and understand how everyday things work. And I love Richard Feynman.

I went in the opposite direction mostly because the academic job market sucks. I would love to get back into scientific computing in some sense. I miss all the math.

Neuroscience PhD student here, looking at how to transition out of academia and chuckling to myself about all of the people who want to "study the body" here....

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#869
post #252
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have fond memories of programming a "guess the number" game in basic as a kid. Let's become a professional software developer!

Come on, giving educational tours to children isn't anywhere near as rigorous as being a software developer. What point are you trying to make?

It's not a matter of rigor, but rather a matter of doing it for fun on your spare time vs doing it 40 hours a week.

It might very well kill the fun out of it.

Disclaimer: I've never done educational park activities.

Re: Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

#870
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have fond memories of programming a "guess the number" game in basic as a kid. Let's become a professional software developer!

My first VB app was a lottery numbers generator. That immediately got me interested in writing software, and I've been writing code professionally for the past 20 years. A small start is more than enough to spark a life long career.

That's what I and most of us did, I guess.

But isn't the professional stuff totally different from that initial first glimpse?

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