Accelerated Degree Diary 1 – Intro
Transcript located below video if available
Transcription below video if available
Hi. My name is Nathan Young.
I was gonna keep a diary of this for myself, but I figured I’d just put the videos up on Youtube, and maybe it would help someone.
I have a small business background; I grew up in small business. And when I got old enough to go to college, I started doing business consulting at the same time. One of those things paid the bills, so I gave up school.
I’ve been doing small business consulting for about 5 years, and I’ve been working for a long time. I actually started working in the family business when I was about 8 years old, and I’m 28 as of 2016. But if I tell someone that I’ve been working for 20 years they laugh at me. So, that being said I started my own consulting gig, and I was doing fine. I was working long hours but I really enjoyed the work that I did and I helped small businesses grow.
I got married a couple years ago, and then had my first kid, a daughter. I’m really excited about that, and I love her a lot. Since then, I’ve discovered that my threshold for risk has gotten a lot lower. I’ve really struggled with the idea of looking for jobs, and considering something that is more stable, at least for a time, and jumping into the workplace.
I started looking for jobs that would meet my salary and stability needs, in positions I would find interesting based on my background and having experience a lot of things already. I discovered that I was having a really hard time getting conversations at all with people who would be in charge of considering me as a candidate.
So I’ve hustled for about a year, and I’ve gotten a couple of really good positions that I’ve done well in and transitioned out of. I’m in one right now that I’m saying ok, well, I think I’m gonna put this on the back burner and I’m gonna go do something else. So, this is the moment where I’ve said I’m going to go back to school and I’m gonna get my degree. But, I have a wife, and I have a child, and I want to get this done as fast as possible because four years isn’t gonna cut it; we want to have more kids. Our plans for us personally taking 3 ½ years which is roughly what I would need, isn’t gonna cut the mustard, and so, I need to get this done asap.
SO, I am taking my entire bachelor’s degree and attempting to stuff it into one year. This is my journey, and video diary of that experience. A major part of the reason I’m struggling to get in front of people is just that I don’t have the fleece, right? Once I get conversations with people, it’s honestly not that hard to showcase myself and my skills. I have a lot of background experience doing many different thing, but I don’t have the door opener. It’s really tough and honestly, it’s still a situation where in companies that I really want to work for like Blizzard, Amazon, Google, Best Buy, and Lego. Just getting in front of people, Blizzard is a little more relaxed on this, but just getting in front of people to have a conversation about the skill set that I might be able to bring, is almost impossible without the degree.
So this is my journey! One year, and we’re gonna see how it goes!
That’s it, that’s all I’ve got. Thanks.