Currently working at a military surplus store to pay the bills while I work/volunteer part-time with a indie game development house. We're working on an Unreal-Engine game, but with only the tiny bits of scrap we can muster out of our paychecks, funding is rough :(

Un-employed layabout leeching off family is my current job ever since the place I used to work at got shut down a few weeks back. Before I was shit canned however, I was a technical support agent for an ISP that sold business DSL/T1/EOC lines to small/large businesses and a few legacy home users that were too stupid to get another ISP. It was a terrible company that over charged for everything, was full of incompetent teachers/management that were incapable of doing their jobs 95% of the time, and they seemed to go out of their way to screw over their customers and employees about every chance they could. Though to be fair, the screwing over the employees part was the call centre I worked for and not the ISP that contracted them to do the job.

Currently I work at my grandfathers produce company while saving to move up to Seattle. I want to finish college up there because another year at TMCC or UNR is going to make me burn this city down to the ground.

@Brewmaster_Andy:

Hey Andy, I'm actually studying in a masters program to be a high school English teacher. Student teaching come January. Any experiences you want to relate about how being a game enthusiast has changed your experience? Thanks for sharing your story!

@Wrighteous86: A lot of it depends on your state's licensing requirements. Here in MA, we have three license levels: preliminary, initial, and professional. To obtain a preliminary license in a subject like English, you have to have a bachelor's degree and pass the state teaching exams, including the one for your subject. Initial and professional licensure require more education. I spent about $10,000 on an accelerated masters in education program that also fulfilled requirements for my initial license. It's a bit more difficult to get hired without your masters, but worth pursuing if only for the interview experience.

When I started teaching with my preliminary license, I made about 38k a year. I am now in my fourth year teaching full-time and I make 53k a year. Really, the money is not as bad as people make it out to be as long as you are willing to continue your education.

@brodywb: I am in my fourth year as a full-time classroom teacher, and my sixth year working in education. I couldn't ask for a better job.

English major/writing minor.

Dunno what I am going to do yet.

I like to write poetry, albeit, it is not very technically sound.

I am working on improving that, have to take a run to the bookstore and buy some books.

I wouldn't call myself a writer by any stretch, I would call myself one who likes to write and attempts to do my best at it.

I am always trying to improve and hone my skills.

This sounds like a resume.

@Sjosz: Haha, well I am a writer, and I'd love to write for video games, but it seems a bit tough to break into. I was being genuine, although I was also poking fun at recent controversies.

@Brewmaster_Andy: What grades/subjects do you teach? Any funny stories?

@Wrighteous86: I teach freshman, sophomore, and junior classes. I'll be teaching senior film studies next year, though! I have way too many funny stories, but I'll share one of my favorites. I was finishing up teaching A Raisin in the Sun with my freshman class, and I usually wrap up the unit with a lesson on character archetypes. We go over a selection of ten or twelve different archetypes - the mother figure, the scapegoat, the faust, etc. The assignment is to choose one of the four main characters from the play, and choose two archetypes that the character could be represented by. Instead of choosing one of the provided archetypes, one of my students explained in his essay that the character of Ruth was best represented by the "Angry Ghetto Mother" archetype and the "Nagging Type of Lady" archetype.

@Kierkegaard: Being a video game nerd helps foster a better connection with students, for sure. It's a lot easier to break through that social barrier when you share a common ground. And realistically, once the kids thing you're "cool" then teaching them becomes much easier.

@Wrighteous86: It is a tough gig to break into because not a lot of studios have really adopted writing positions as a separate thing from design (hence most of videogame writing is still non-existent). Writers here have very varied backgrounds, some wrote/write novels outside of work, others come from the movie industry. Get yourself some experience writing in any field and odds you'd be taken seriously increase by quite a bit.

I am writing for a major Norwegian video game website. It's a great job, and I get important experience, which is mostly the only way to get a job in Journalism these days.

I'm turning 21 next week, and I'll begin my B.Journ. in August.

High School student in my last year, hoping to become a game designer/writer at some point. Yeah, it's a ridiculous dream but fuck it, I have little to no motivation for anything else.

I'm a Public Relations consultant with a focus on government affairs - people pay me (and my company) to help them get news coverage that sets the tone of discussion among legislators.

@littlehippie said:

Is the actual English of High School students as atrocious as their Facebook statuses and text messages would have you believe?

Anyway, I'm personally in my Sophomore year of college. I hope to start a major in Business soon and then go for a Master's in Computer Science somewhere else. My job, currently, is as a student worker in the IT Help Desk, a position for which I am eternally grateful. I don't have to slave over greasy food or pound a hard floor all day! But I still have to help assholes who believe that their computer problem is also my computer problem. It's not entirely untrue but you must understand that there could be four or five assholes at any given time who need computer help and I'm only one lowly student worker. Yes, I have bosses, but they generally help with the bigger problems (and have another two things for me to work on). Still, this isn't a constant thing - I usually get some time to sit back and get on Giant Bomb for a half hour or so, or some days nothing goes wrong and I can just leisurely surf the internet while keeping a keen eye on the phone. There's also another co-worker in there sometimes. The biggest plus, though, is that I get to work full time over the summer. I don't know the pay rate yet but last time it was 9.50/hour, a fortune for someone my age who still lives at home.

@believer258 said:

Holy shit. You're me, or I'm you, if you'd prefer. Replace the majors with things far less useful, and that's almost my exact (academic parts, at least) college experience.

(Careful, that's some fairly hard stuff)

@Wrighteous86 said:

@Sjosz: Haha, well I am a writer, and I'd love to write for video games, but it seems a bit tough to break into. I was being genuine, although I was also poking fun at recent controversies.

@Brewmaster_Andy: What grades/subjects do you teach? Any funny stories?

With how the endings of ME3 are and how some writers may actually get fired due to this debacle, your chances of getting in are incredibly high.

@Sjosz said:

@Wrighteous86: It is a tough gig to break into because not a lot of studios have really adopted writing positions as a separate thing from design (hence most of videogame writing is still non-existent). Writers here have very varied backgrounds, some wrote/write novels outside of work, others come from the movie industry. Get yourself some experience writing in any field and odds you'd be taken seriously increase by quite a bit.

Hm... interesting... How rewarding is your Job in the Bioware studios? Also, how large is EA's influence if you don't mind me asking?

I can't talk much about it, but I do PR for a large organization.

@Jay444111 said:

@Enigma777 said:

I can't talk much about it, but I do PR for a large organization.

Which one? I doubt it's that important since you have a hitler pikachu for an avatar pic...

What?

@Enigma777 said:

@Jay444111 said:

@Enigma777 said:

I can't talk much about it, but I do PR for a large organization.

Which one? I doubt it's that important since you have a hitler pikachu for an avatar pic...

What?

Erm... NOTHING... *walks away, then runs away very very fast.*

@Brewmaster_Andy: I was reading your post on my phone earlier today as I prepared to teach a class, and was almost giggling at some of the responses as students began to file in early and I ditched my phone.

I am a High School Social Studies teacher. Love working with young people, despite the occasional frustration, because they so often say or do something that I never expected. Had to be away from teaching for a while due to a situation out of my control and being back at it has been rewarding and fun.

I'm thinking I might have to touch base with you, Andy. I'm hopefully interviewing at a MA technical high school in the next week or so for a position, and could maybe use some input. Also, the beer looks appetizing.

I'm a wizard.

@Brewmaster_Andy: I read Three Day Road while in high school. It's a really impressive book by a Canadian author, and I'm glad that I had done it as a novel study. It does have some amture content, but I think it would be ok for your junior class.

Recommended read at any rate.

OUTSIDE of that, I (previously) wrote code for a security firm on in-house projects. In between projects right now, so not much cash flow.

I have one thing for you, and all people who work at that brainwashing facility people lovingly call school. Do a better job. Stop making stupid humans.

@Ghostface318: Shoot me a PM and we'll chat!

@BigChickenDinner: Thank you for your constructive criticism. Let's put it this way - if you wanted me to create a delicious dinner, but you only allowed me to use a pile of shit as my main ingredient, how well do you think that feast would turn out? Take that sort of comment elsewhere, duder.

@Brewmaster_Andy said:

@BigChickenDinner: Thank you for your constructive criticism. Let's put it this way - if you wanted me to create a delicious dinner, but you only allowed me to use a pile of shit as my main ingredient, how well do you think that feast would turn out? Take that sort of comment elsewhere, duder.

In your words a pile of shit = your students. Brilliant.

@BigChickenDinner: Actually, pile of shit would be referring to the mandated textbooks and materials to be used to teach his students.

@BigChickenDinner: People like you love to blame the idea of general stupidity on teachers - as if we are entirely responsible for the way students turn out. We can only work with what we are given. Although my metaphor was crude, it addressed the core problem - that we are not miracle workers. I can't take a student with zero motivation and no parental support and turn him into the guy that cures cancer - it just doesn't work that way. Likewise, it isn't my fault that the stupidest people seem to have the loudest voices - as you are doing a brilliant job of helping me prove. Rather than mention anything constructive or specific, you simply claim that school is a "brainwashing facility" and that teachers do a terrible job.

What a coincidence! I'm currently in college to be a high school English teacher. I have a little less than a year of coursework left and then student teaching, and then finding my way in this crazy developing field. My current biggest worry has to do with coming up with ways to keep students interested. I have to trust that that ability will come with time, but I'm completely lack confidence at this point.

@BigChickenDinner said:

@Brewmaster_Andy said:

@BigChickenDinner: Thank you for your constructive criticism. Let's put it this way - if you wanted me to create a delicious dinner, but you only allowed me to use a pile of shit as my main ingredient, how well do you think that feast would turn out? Take that sort of comment elsewhere, duder.

In your words a pile of shit = your students. Brilliant.

Stop trying to talk about things you know nothing about. In this case, I'm willing to bet that "a pile of shit" is meant to represent the standardized testing-based view of school that is still quite popular, and that restricts curriculum.

@Sjosz: Really it was just about taking something that you cannot physically make delicious and making it delicious. Given that he thinks that teachers only exist to brainwash students, I am not surprised that he twisted it the way he did.

@Brewmaster_Andy said:

@BigChickenDinner: People like you love to blame the idea of general stupidity on teachers - as if we are entirely responsible for the way students turn out. We can only work with what we are given. Although my metaphor was crude, it addressed the core problem - that we are not miracle workers. I can't take a student with zero motivation and no parental support and turn him into the guy that cures cancer - it just doesn't work that way. Likewise, it isn't my fault that the stupidest people seem to have the loudest voices - as you are doing a brilliant job of helping me prove. Rather than mention anything constructive or specific, you simply claim that school is a "brainwashing facility" and that teachers do a terrible job.

Okay, my ability to figure out what people mean by what they say hasn't exactly proven too accurate. I accept this. You are still right, though--there are so many factors in every kid's life that to blame teachers for some kind of perceived brainwashedness is either pure ignorance or trolling.

@bvilleneuve: One of the best things you can do is adapt curriculum to something that students are familiar with. Using parallel texts and films is a great way to foster connection to the material - for example, I use the film Platoon when I teach the novel The Things They Carried to address thematic elements. Just understand that not everything you do is going to interest every student, and don't go overboard.

@bvilleneuve: You weren't wrong - it's a general metaphor. Education these days is a political quagmire of state requirements and federal requirements. Addressing them all puts an unwarranted burden on teachers that are also dealing with all of the other difficulties that I mentioned. There is a huge array of situations where teachers are forced to take things that do not work together and make them work.

Freshman college student, so I have no real perspective on the world...Though I'm majoring in MIS and have a job/internship this summer working at an IT desk. So there's that.

This might be heading into super duper inside baseball territory, but there's been a lot of talk about RTI in my EDU courses. Have you worked anywhere where that program's been implemented? What's your perspective on it?

Interesting how many people here are in English-related careers or studying English courses.

I am in the second year of university studying 'English and American Literature with Creative Writing' - a suitably long and pretentious title for a subject based largely on assumign your opinion is better than somebody else's.

I also write poetry, but have written TV pilots, prose narrative and a graphic novel script as part of my course.

When I leave university I have no idea what I'm going to actually do, it seems like anyone can write a book these days, and actually writing properly will not sell, unless your subject matter is depressing life stories/sex/violence/celebrity gossip.

@Grimace: I was going to school for journalism as well. Sadly, I saw there was not a lot of work available for individuals after they finish.

I ended up in sales after not pursuing a journalistic degree.

@bvilleneuve: I have used RTI at the middle school and high school levels. Like anything though, it isn't a catchall - which is what a lot of people want you to believe. It can be an effective program for schools that don't already have an effective program - otherwise it becomes burdensome for educators and often SLOWS the time to intervention because of the extra systems in place.

@BigChickenDinner said:

@Brewmaster_Andy said:

@BigChickenDinner: Thank you for your constructive criticism. Let's put it this way - if you wanted me to create a delicious dinner, but you only allowed me to use a pile of shit as my main ingredient, how well do you think that feast would turn out? Take that sort of comment elsewhere, duder.

In your words a pile of shit = your students. Brilliant.

It's just a metaphor. He's not chopping up his students and using them for dinner. Maybe if you actually tried to understand what he was saying...

@Brewmaster_Andy: Huh, is The Kite Runner commonly taught? 11th grade Canadian student here -- we started the year off with it, and I thought it was utter trash; I'd figured it was just my teacher's horrid taste.

Do you ever encounter students who seem to have a genuine talent for writing, or is pretty much everything a highschooler writes terrible? I only ask because I've found myself thinking, "Hey, this is written rather well!" whilst going over some of my own work, and I'm curious as to whether it's just because of some mixture of naivety and narcissism.

@Sweep said:

I'm a hamburger. I want to be inside you.

INCEPTION!

I too am a High School English teacher and also teach History. The difference is that I'm in Australia where as the OP seems to be from the USA.

@Brewmaster_Andy: I think education is a field that requires a lot of trust on all sides. When something like RTI comes around and can be backed up by research and seems to work, it feels to some people like an elixir to cure that need for trust, and to make sure everybody gets what they're supposed to get. But that element of trust is always going to be there.

@Jrad: I can't speak for your teacher, but the reality is that there are going to be books you read in class that you hate. In many cases it's not the teacher's bad taste - but maybe the way the book was taught to you. For me, I teach The Kite Runner because there is a huge cultural gap between what American students think of when they hear "Afghanistan" and what shows up in the novel. That's what I want my kids to get out of the book. I also teach it using a lot of supplemental material including a focus on using Google Earth satellite imagery to have students actually explore a lot of the environments discussed in the novel.

To answer your second question, I've only had one student who blew me away with his ability. The thing that I notice the most, however, is that the students that write very well are also the ones that are reading on their own time. Good writing is a product of being well-read as much as it is a product of knowing the language.

@bvilleneuve: The other piece is that if you have an ineffective administrative team implementing the program, it is bound to fail.

I am in my junior year to get my English Education degree. Small world huh?

@Brewmaster_Andy: And it's hard to maintain an effective administrative team when some federal grant money requires that you fire your principal, particularly when your prior principal had an ingrained and healthy relationship and the new principal, while well-intentioned, doesn't have a realistic idea about what he should be doing to help the school transition.

This is just one particular example I've heard of.

@Jay444111:

My job's pretty rewarding a lot of the time. I'm in a position where I interact and collaborate with most other departments when it comes to building missions, as I'm ultimately the person that brings everyone's work together and makes it work the way we intend it to, and this keeps it varied. There are lesser aspects to my job just like in any job, but it's great being around creative and driven people.

As far as EA's influence, I couldn't honestly tell you. I certainly don't deal with outside influence in my day-to-day work, or at all really.

@Brewmaster_Andy:

Oh I'm aware of it. My own father is a teacher in secondary/post-secondary education so I have some perspective on a teacher's job. It just struck me as immensely disrespectful for no apparent reason, which prompted me to respond. People will say the darnedest things about teachers, but as far as I'm concerned you're doing a job that does not get appreciated enough. Cheers to you, good sir.

I'm an EMC Specialist for an IT mega corp.

@Sjosz: It's appreciated.

I have a bachelors in science in Visual Effects & Motion Graphics. Currently I have a job at a construction company in their creative services department. The bulk of my job is taking photos/video, editing, 3d modeling & animation, powerpoints, dvd production, and a healthy dose of dealing with management.