Arivall’s and Departures

For my English midterm we had to write two potential colleges, two potential careers, or one of each. I went with the latter, this is just a copy/paste of the work that I  did on it, I should have a blog proper incoming by the end of the week, if not by the next; it’s midterm week.

With senior year fast approaching it would be beneficial to make myself aware of what my future may possibly hold, this includes looking into potential schools to further extend my education in hopes of attaining something that is worthy of being called a career.

Being the realist that I am, I know I’m not going to be eligible for some big university that would be my first choice like UF, USC, or UC Berkeley. To be honest, chances are that I’m going to end up at Miami-Dade College – most likely the Kendall campus since, according to MapQuest, it’s only 22 miles away from home. The main reason I’m being realistic with this is the cost; if I were to choose UF, it’d cost around $15,740 as opposed to Miami-Dade’s $725. Not to mention my grades, they’re not the worst ever, but I don’t believe that they’re up to par with an average big-name university’s standards, it probably doesn’t help that I’m the complete opposite of an athlete either.

While attending whatever school I end up at, I’m fairly certain I’m going to major in either literature or journalism. I have reasons for wanting to do both, and wanting to pick neither — I know I’m going into a specific form of journalism, which I’ll bring up later, and it would benefit me to have a strong base of literature, that way while writing I have a variety of words and phrases I can pick and choose from with relative ease – but knowing myself, I’d hate the class because I don’t enjoy reading novels unless I vest enough interest in them, to make myself do it. As for majoring in journalism, it would definitely help as I’d already know how to obtain information, act when necessary, and behave as expected – but they may not be necessary because of the specificity of the field that I’ve chosen.

As far as anything extra-curricular, I don’t really see it happening as I’ll be busy dealing with the rest of life. The main reason I’d want something in California is almost exclusively because of the possibility of an internship at a specific place, but for the mere reason of cost, I don’t believe it’ll end up happening.

The specific form of journalism that I spoke of before is covering video games. It’s something that I’m passionate toward for a multitude of reasons that vary from sentimental to just to the pure love that I have for the medium. I’ve been seriously pursuing it for the past two years or so and it’s recently come to fruition. I am now a regular contributor to Ripten.com, a website that covers video games in a variety of forms – lately, I’ve been the news guy, but because of this whole midterm deal, I had to put that and the review I was writing up, on hold. Depending on how it all works out, by the end of this month I may begin to receive pay for the work that I’m doing. By and large, the significance of my career won’t have an effect on many people’s daily lives, unless they are gamers.

Eventually, if everything goes as planned, I’ll be an editor in some form or fashion of a print magazine or a website. Although a degree isn’t necessary, it’s absolutely beneficial. If it comes down to a person that can write well without a degree, and a person that can’t write well with a degree; they’ll go with the former, rather than the latter. Experience is valued moreso than a degree, but it’s not useless by any means.

Obviously, this isn’t a 9-to-5 job, hours aren’t ever set in stone; you write what you need to and have it in by deadline. Print magazines have very firm deadlines that vary from weekly to monthly, while online venues have very small daily deadlines, for example getting a news story up as quickly as possible to beat out the competition.

Although, most offices are in California considering the state of the internet as it is now, it’s perfectly normal and efficient to have different writers and editors in different parts of the world — my editor-in-chief lives in Pennsylvania, while my managing editor lives in California, along with a total of four regular contributors that write out of the UK and send it in.

At first many writers freelance for a multitude of companies, and if they are looking for a more permanent position at a given company they’d talk to the editor-in-chief (or whoever may be in charge) about becoming a more critical part to the effort. At which point, they’d achieve the position of an editor; it’s really situational most times. But common titles are managing editor, executive editor, previews editor, and reviews editor.

Obviously, income differs from position to position – and although I couldn’t find any solid figures for that an average editor would make, it’s nothing amazing, but it’s enough to make a decent living on. Those that choose to freelance exclusively, it makes their future fairly uncertain as the pay relies on the basis of how often you’re needed and the pay usually varies from every article that you write.

Although I am as unsure as a person can be about what life may hold college-wise, I’m very sure as to what I’m going to make a living off of, as I’m determined and will do anything to achieve the aforementioned position of an editor. Even now, as I work with Ripten, if nothing else, I’m building a portfolio that exemplifies what I am capable of as a writer, and I believe it’s enough to carry me to where I need to go.