Hi Guys,
I'm having a bit of a quarter-life crisis, so let me vent a bit. My wife and I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We both like it here; we have a nice house, people are mostly friendly,our family is here, my wife has a great job teaching in an elementary spanish immersion school.
The problem is my job. I'm a software engineer for a defense contractor here. I was hired about a year ago, straight out of college. The job seemed like a great opportunity. Good pay, good benefits, working in a research division... The problem is that it's not really like what I expected. We don't do nearly as much research as I thought we would. Projects are won not based on their quality but by politics. People are jaded and unhappy, and my wife said I never seem happy anymore. I really don't have any friends at work.
I've been thinking a lot about it recently, and there are a couple of things I really want. I want to create something that people use, something that impresses people as much as when they watch the MGS4 trailer, or use Google Earth for the first time. I'd like to work on 3D graphics, be it driver development, writing GIS applications, working on 3D clustering/rendering systems, or videogame design. I'd like to work for a moral company, one that is honest and treats both its employees and its customers with respect. The problem is that even finding one of these criteria is pretty tough around here.
So I've started working on writing a raytracer, and I'm going to try to implement photon mapping, and hopefully at some point work start developing using gpgpu. I'm hoping to get my skill set in better shape so that if an opportunity presents itself I can at least say I gave it a shot. I'm trying to decide if I should try to get a civil service position at the University here and start going to graduate school for a 3D programming emphasis. My wife is also trying to convince me to go back to school for a teaching degree and teach highschool math or physics (it does have some appeal).
Have any of you guys felt this way? What did you do about it?
Nite_Hawk
I'm having a bit of a quarter-life crisis, so let me vent a bit. My wife and I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We both like it here; we have a nice house, people are mostly friendly,our family is here, my wife has a great job teaching in an elementary spanish immersion school.
The problem is my job. I'm a software engineer for a defense contractor here. I was hired about a year ago, straight out of college. The job seemed like a great opportunity. Good pay, good benefits, working in a research division... The problem is that it's not really like what I expected. We don't do nearly as much research as I thought we would. Projects are won not based on their quality but by politics. People are jaded and unhappy, and my wife said I never seem happy anymore. I really don't have any friends at work.
I've been thinking a lot about it recently, and there are a couple of things I really want. I want to create something that people use, something that impresses people as much as when they watch the MGS4 trailer, or use Google Earth for the first time. I'd like to work on 3D graphics, be it driver development, writing GIS applications, working on 3D clustering/rendering systems, or videogame design. I'd like to work for a moral company, one that is honest and treats both its employees and its customers with respect. The problem is that even finding one of these criteria is pretty tough around here.
So I've started working on writing a raytracer, and I'm going to try to implement photon mapping, and hopefully at some point work start developing using gpgpu. I'm hoping to get my skill set in better shape so that if an opportunity presents itself I can at least say I gave it a shot. I'm trying to decide if I should try to get a civil service position at the University here and start going to graduate school for a 3D programming emphasis. My wife is also trying to convince me to go back to school for a teaching degree and teach highschool math or physics (it does have some appeal).
Have any of you guys felt this way? What did you do about it?
Nite_Hawk