Advice On Changing Career Path

[mathieu]

I am 23. I have been working as a civil engineer for 2 years. This just month, I have decided to take another change in my life which was changing my career path to Graphic Designing field. Now, these are my worries:

• I have not told my parents nor relatives, just my close friends, about my plan to completely quit civil engineering field. I am worrying if they would not understand, and they would be disappointed about the 5 years of college that my parents have worked hard to let me graduate with a good degree with a nice and stable job. I am sorry for them. But I am not passionate about this job, and I have been hating working as an employee at construction companies. Right now, I am in a city far away from my relatives and friends. I will be completely resigning that 9-to-5 job within a few days and I still have no definite plans.
• I have a sideline working online at a graphic design marketplace, 99designs.com. It was basically full of design contests where designers compete by submitting entries. It was crowdsourcing. I’ve experienced wins and prizes there since before. Although, I worry about my financial situation now. It was not a stable income. What if I run out of money? What if I had no luck for a couple of weeks? What if I lost my focus and creativity and just chase for money because of circumstances like that?
• As a freelance designer (self-taught graphic designer), I also worry about the daily life schedule it would look like. It was a big shift for me, like from working at a company full of employees to working alone at home or somewhere else with my laptop and wifi and other stuff. I saw videos on Youtube about “A day in the life of an artist”, and I saw most of their time were spent on solitude. Well, this fits me since I am an introverted geek, and love to read books. But, I just worry if I could handle that big change in daily routines. Or would I be depressed when alone in my room for a long time?
• I also worry about the place I would be residing in, I am planning to rent a room or a place to stay in a city near my relatives and my girlfriend. I don’t want to live in my parents’ house, I want to be independent. But I was thinking of connecting to them in a regular basis.
• I know that I am an amateur yet in this field but I love this since before. Yes, I want to master my niche. I am thinking of studying college again in the field of Fine Arts, Major in Information Design (the course I want, if I had a lot of money savings), but I am also thinking of choosing informal education instead.

It was Leo’s Life Purpose course that ignited me to do such things. I took it about 2 years ago, and I am still on the process of refining my Life Purpose. I really appreciate any insights or critics about my situation. Thank you so much for the time.

[abgespaced]

@mathieu My advice:

DO NOT quit your day job. This is your foundation for all your plans. Everything will take a big hit if you quit: finances, confidence, energy, independence, to name a few. It might feel good now to think about quitting but it won't when you're struggling to pay for rent, bills, food etc. And this will come across in your art.

It might be shitty for you now to work as an engineer, but it gives you more options than not having a steady job. Instead of looking at the problem in a binary sense, as in, "I can only do one or the other", ask yourself how you can make a smooth transition from one to the other. For example, perhaps you could ask for reduced hours or even part time work while you build a portfolio. If your current employer says no, you can always look around for another job that offers more favourable hours.

See my post here about career risk: 

 

[FreddieWinters]

You have taken a strong decision. Believe in yourself and go ahead, you will definitely achieve your goals. 

[mathieu]

@abgespaced thanks for this. yes, it is really shitty for me to work again in constructions. i was thinking of applying for other jobs related to my new field of interest. but that was my last option, in case i run out of money

[Visitor]

Hello mathieu.

A suggestion.

Some lone entrepreneurs work from home and before actually getting into it they go through the whole routine of going somewhere else to work. They get in their car and go for a short drive and come back home. When they come back they pretend they are at there office. and work 9 to 5 like any other job.

Also, there are other ways of not losing your civil engineering skills to freelance graphic design. You could do graphic civil engineering designs. Or contract yourself to civil engineers which require a graphic image of their plans. I once worked for an architectural rendering company. My job was to convert the plans for some skyscraper, etc, into a perspective drawing of about 3 foot square, them traced that onto a bainbridge board for the artist to colour it in. It was an illustration of what the building would look like when constructed.

Alexander Calder was a mechanical engineer who turned his knowledge into constructing those beautifully large steel sculptures.

Another idea is to specialize in large graphic design artworks for new civil engineering office spaces. I am sure they would pay big money for artworks that depict civil engineering, even abstractly, for hanging on their office walls.

Try to marry both the engineering side to graphic design. It could be a unique niche for freelancing, and something you may enjoy doing.