A little bit of advice needed

So, I'm going to graduate from highschool in the next couple of months. I have a very wide variety of things I can do with my life. I was wondering if anyone here on blueblood would have some suggestions for any of these possible paths.

1. Culinary School
2. Male Fashion and Apparel
3. Music Teacher
4. Linguistics
5. Digital Design

I have training in the culinary arts from my father and grandfather. My father was a chef at Cutters Bay House, a 4* resteraunt in Seattle. he taught me almost everything I know, and I can handle a knife extremely well. If you've seen pro chefs chop up veggies and you think they are going to chop their fingers off it's so fast, that's kinda what it's like.

I have a great eye for Male Fashion, I make cosplay outfits for my friends and have never been able to sew a dress in my life, nor am willing to try. I feel that there are not enough people in the fashion world for male clothing. I spend alot of my time drawing up quite a bit of "blueblood" fashion for men and would like to bring more options for men in clothing stores in general. Even if it means starting my own business.

I've spent four years of my life singing and have won state competitions in washington. I want to bring the joy of vocal music to kids in highschools. I have a chorale teacher who definently is not the best, and is even kind of lazy. I hate that kind of thing and would like to take over his job to inpire youth to start singing much more. I also do vocals for a local band "suicide club", we are an indie group that dabbles into the realm of metal and grunge. we are just a garage band of teenagers that are still in highschool. Yet, we hope to get somewhere with this, even as jjust a temp side thing.

With linguistics, i have taken two years of French, Spanish, Japanese, and I hope to learn a little bit of arabic or even gaelic. I enjoy speaking foreign tounges. Thaty is part of the reason that i like to sing so much. I think that being a translator would pay good money, because Japan and America are the two biggest trade nations on earth. Meaning they are always in need of a good translator. It would also mean that If I became a voice actor that I could potentially do the voiceovers in both japanese and english. Meaning that there is no change in the way the char sounds.

Lastly, Graphic design. I do alot of this because I feel that nothing in my wardrobe is complete without a touch of myself. I make a few extra bucks around the school by doing T-shirt designs with spraypaint and stencils that I design. I usually get about 10$ a shirt to do them and they are requested quite frequently because no two are the same. After I use a stencil once I destroy it so that no two are alike. It's fairly easy.

So if there are anysuggestions for what I should do or what schools i should apply for it would be wonderful if you could post some suggestions.

Well from the sound of it, you say that you're qualified to be a chef but you don't actually mention enjoying it. Do you? If not, I'd cross that off the list.

The vocal thing, you freely admit that you're just a "high school band" but do you think that you can be more than that or do you think you'll stay at your current level?

What I'm trying to get at here is that instead of asking others for advice, you should look a little harder at what you already know to be true. Do you want a take a job that you'll hate because it pays well? Should you strive for a dream even though it might not pan out?

These are questions you can't ask anyone but yourself.

Well... i understand that to a certain extent. It is the fact that I have too many things that I have no I dea where to go with it. I'm in it for something that i enjoy more than anything. Yet, it strikes me as a problem that I enjoy too many things.

just say no to the food industry...

...no one knows what the hell they want to do ultimately once they finish high school.

pick the one that seems to interest you most, and realize that it will probably change later on.

although you might get a decent career out of linguistics. just a thought.

linguistics is good, even if it doesn't make you money it's really handy

The nice thing about linguistics is that it can be of use with any of the other professions you are looking at. Unfortunately I have no head for language and even my first language is a second language so that one has my envy.

That being said, pursuing one does not mean giving up on the others. You already see the graphic design and fashion thing melding. Even if they don't meld, you never drop the things you love entirely. If you go into cooking full time, you still have weekends to do music. Or the other way around if it suits you.

Then again I meandered through life without focusing on one thing and it didn't get me far. But I did have some fun on the way.

Well, as i've come to understand it, the average American can switch professions at least five times in their life time. I know i've certainly got a chequered resume. The thing with you is: you've got plenty to choose from, so, choose what you like to do. We all have dreams, and Discover Card may admire those dreams and accomplishments...but they'll still want their payment each month. The goal is to be paid to do something so much so that it doesn't feel like a job...and you can still live.


Good point was made about mentioning you have the culinary skills, but didn't actually say you 'enjoy' them...

Yeah... The culinary stuff is more something I do to "impress" people. when I have a friend over you can almost see them cringe when I take my eyes away from my hands.

I'm kind of stuck betwwen Music/Teaching and doing fashion. I could persue Graphic Design part time on either of those. So If I were to do Fashion, does anyone have an Idea where a good school is? I've looked around but I'm wondering if there are some places people would reccomend more than others?

ghad i wish i could chop veggies like that haha... eventually ill end up in cooking school though. thats what i would say go for, but only if you really enjoy it...
half the things on your list actually ive wanted to do myself. if i had it my way, first i would be a tattoo artist, then a clothing/lingerie designer, i would have an actual cool clothing store/skate shop (cause yeah i like skateboards hehe theyre neat as hell), and i would be a baker and a chef. basically i would end up owning my own damn strip mall and yeah i would need like 100 hours in each day... heh i know how you feel bein all undecided :(

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Originally Posted by Synthetic.delusion

Well... i understand that to a certain extent. It is the fact that I have too many things that I have no I dea where to go with it. I'm in it for something that i enjoy more than anything. Yet, it strikes me as a problem that I enjoy too many things.

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A lot of America's best universities prefer applicants who are "well-rounded," but you are dead-on correct that enjoying too many things can be a problem. As someone who has personally kind of refused to pick just one thing, I can definitely tell you that it has pretty big plusses and pretty big minusses. Whatever I do, I always feel like I am harried and working on the wrong thing. Although I think I might have become bored or stagnant focussing on one thing, I also might be much farther along in any one area had I just worked on that one.

One suggestion I have is to pick a couple of things you enjoy which require schooling and get the basic grounding in them. In your case, that sounds like probably culinary school and commercial art. Once you are prepared, you can pick some of your interests to be bread-winners and some to be hobbies and switch those up from time to time.

Keep in mind that this is advice from someone who took the road waaaaaaaaay less travelled and has found both happiness and sorrow in my choices.

Culinary sounds like the safest and most rewarding. You already have experience working with your father. Not only does this give you a one up but also gives you an important contact in he business world. IMHO that is the best option.

With that much langauge I'd travel for a while since your in a position that you could.

Dont sell yourself short, the world needs broom pushers too.

from re-reading your post it seems that you actually have alot of enthusiasm, and excitement for men's fashion...

i'd say at your age go for the one that is most interesting to you right now, but expect things to possibly change later on.

...and only do food service as a last resort, unless you're super passionate about it. you probably have an idea already about what a grind that life can be. sounds like you've already got the skills to fall back on if need be. they always need competent line cooks, and prep chefs, and the like. that'll always be there, and if you need to someone will hire you when you demonstrate your skills. but do something else first...

I've done pretty much every crap job you can imagine, and my advice is to try them all. The sensible approach would be to study linguistics first, it's easier when you're younger, and it will create options for you in terms of choices you can make later down the line - it's a pretty solid start, translators alone are in high demand, and it gives you something to fall back on, and probobly involves opportunities for travel.

The rest of your interests are really all things you can do part time or spare time for fun - don't knock hobbies, you can keep your hand in on something without going out on a limb. Success in all these creative industries, with the exception of music teacher or chef, are as much about timing as skill - being int he right place at the right time, running into the right people, and having the business skills to take advantage. It happens all the time, but and it won't happen if you're not out there, quite often, it isn't somebody who's sat down and decided to be a mogul, it's somebody making stuff for their freinds or themselves, or selling some stuff for some extra cash and get a buzz going.


You should remember, fashion means learning to sew: really well. Graphic design is mostly gruntwork, and very competitive, but it's something you can study in conjunction with fashion, same with digital design basically, except that for that, you should really know your web scripting languages, and that can be a full time occupation to keep up with.

Music teacher is a noble occupation, but an endangered species, unless you have the chops to teach at a school devoted to it - it's another thing you can do on the side for extra money if you need it.

Cooking is something I happen to enjoy, but devoting the same quality and attention you put into a dinner for four, hundreds of times a night, night after night - requires real dedication, and an almost monomaniacal focus. On the plus side, you can work at resorts, i.e., travel, etc.

So really, you could do it all, but untill you do these things, it's hard to know which one of them will really click for you - in the meantime, if you have linguistic skills, it would practically be a crime not to develop them, IMO, and it should leave you time to try these other things, as well as opportunities to hone your skills - i.e., haggling with Dominican seamstresses, or whatever, lol.

if I turn thirty and I still am shifting from shitty apartment to the next, shitty minimum wage job to the next, and I don't really like doing anything but not working, then i'm going to kill myself.

no not really. i'll probably just keep doing the same thing till I die.

but really, if you have an idea of what you want to do that you can turn into a way to make a living, that's great. you should probably try them all or at least a few of them because the chances are that you might be more successful at one than the others, or some might be more easily accessible than others, or you might find that once you actually start doing one of them that you can't stand it in a structured limiting environment.

so really it is best to have a few things to fall back on, rather that just really wanted to do one thing and then finding out the possible things I just mentioned happen all together, and then you're screwed.