noremedy

Right now I live in Roanoke virginia. I work for my families ashpalt company and I am just tired of working my ass off and getting no where. I want to move a bigger city. I just dont know what I would do for a living or even where a good place to go would be. any help would be awesome. I never really did the school thing as I knew I would do the paving thing and now I am not so sure thats what I want to do for the rest of my life. I know this is a weird place to ask, but for some reason I like you people, so help me out. thanks...

deathhare

go to school somewhere, if possible.

Boss Moniker

Hop on your fixie and ride North. Stop in every little town along the way, and look for places where it'd be fun to work. You'll find one eventually.

noremedy

School, seems like alot of work. I ll be 25 in october and starting all over again seems ruff, but maybe doable. I wouldnt mind doing something in graphic arts.

Cynikal 

I went back to school at 30. Wouldn't change that for anything.

deathhare

Man 25 is nothing. Of course its work but if you want something to change you gotta make it work. Otherwise, keep paving.
Youre not too old...I'm 34 and about to go to grad school.

gfrance

I've been in the work force now since the mid '80s. I keep wishing my family (or wife's) had some business that I could now get involved in. But, not to be.

I'd say look to school at nights, and weekends, but keep the job for a while. If you leave, your chances of falling thru the cracks, and into minimum wage work is very high. Stick it out. It may be 'yours' at some point.

Revolution Smmr

My wife graduated as a business major and is now about to start grad school at 26 to become a math teacher (meanwhile taking all of her undergrad math credits at the same time as her grad school teaching courses). 25 definitely isn't too late

666pack

move to the big city and be a messenger.

delicious

Do you have any savings? Can you fall back on the family job if you leave for the city?

noremedy

Thanks for the kind words. My last bit of schooling was for computer networking, but then I got asked to help out with the family thing. Might look into the night thing. I think I was hoping of just getting out of all of this and starting over somewhere. I was at a graphic art design place the other showing the lady a business card that I had designed and told me I should quit paving and start doing graphic designs and I really dont think she was kidding, but who knows.

noremedy

I am in the process of selling my car and that will leave with enough money to survive/move and start over and I guess I could always fall back on the whole paving thing.

joshuastar

you could go work for IRO in PA.

tony needs the help, he said.

In Absentia

I went back to school at 25. I'm now 27 and glad I did because I had nothing going for me back then. Better late than never, man. If you're interested in art, you might try taking a couple classes at a free university (if you have one) or community college to see if you're really interested first. Whatever you do, good luck. Education is important.

noremedy

Just want to make sure with whatever I do I can survive at it. I have great problem solving skills and have developed into quite the salesman, as you have to be in order to sell someone ten grand worth of rock and tar.

dirtyphotons

even more so to sell them a grand worth and charge them ten

kidding, i know nothing of the paving business. can you make a website? do you have any examples you could use as your portfolio? freelance web work is a sweet gig and not that hard to get, you just have to have something concrete to show people. plus you can keep your day job while you get started. and you aren't limited geographically. learn php and flash and you can work for companies all over the world from your home pc.

dcdude

come to richmond, where at least being a minimum wage slave is accepted if you make enough to buy pbr and ride a track bike

jonnyle

i'm 24, just went back to school and i got another 3 years to go (and i dont wanna bring race into this, but i'm chinese, i should be in med school by now!!). yea its hard but you gotta realize youre still young as hell. it took me awhile to realize this too but it'll come around.

Oakland Q

I think going back to school is excellent advice. The truth is, if you want to change careers, there's very little you can do these days that will pay a living wage without specialized training.

I started at a community college and I can't recommend that route highly enough. Classes are usually small, so you get attention from the instructors, the course schedule is flexible to accomodate the many adult students, and the good cc's offer a very wide range of subjects, so you can explore a few different things before deciding what you ultimately want to concentrate on.

I transfered from community college, got a BA and ended up going to grad school and getting a masters, but I have many friends/family who didn't go to college. I'm still paying off my student loan many years later, but my salary is approximately twice what my friends with no college experience make. Getting through school was work, but it was well worth it.

Whatever you choose, best of luck to you.

skinnyland

And CSS. Mmmmmm.....

jamey

zing!

dirtyphotons

oh wow, can't believe i didn't catch that one

Jerseysbest

24 turning 25 soon. I got my 4 year degree and am making pretty decent money, even for NJ, doing what I love, but I'm considering going back to school, either for a BA in finance or a MA in planning.

If you're gonna do it, do it now, the longer the wait the more you'll regret it.

entukay

teach yourself the stock market

mikerapp

Go to school!
There should be some financial aid for you around somewhere (federal FAFSA) since you are 25.
Doing freelance design is great.
Doing freelance design over the internet is terrible.
Everyone just bid wars over a project and eventually if you win the bid war you'll get 10$-50$ to do something that takes a long time(corporate identity) and under non-internet circumstances would usually cost around a grand. You usually end up with something that wouldn't really have a place in your portfolio.
If you want to go to design school University of Cincinnati DAAP is great, not super expensive, has an excellent foundations program. It's kind of hard to get into, but check it out.