00:08
Catherine
Hello there. My name is Catherine and I am 23 years old, working as a full time freelancer in the media entertainment industry and welcome to the How I Diaries podcast. This podcast is a diary of how I'm currently going about my life and career. If you are someone who has a passion for media and entertainment or find yourself wondering how people end up working on set and land, all the other jobs in this industry and the freelance lifestyle appeals to you, then this is your one stop shop for everything you need to know about breaking into it all.
00:36
These episodes are all about sharing everything. I wish that I knew all the things I'm continuing to learn and as well as my personal stories along the way, to help you get on your way to. All right. Please, please, please don't come for my neck in this episode. I am aware that I went to college and was able to get into my career field very early on.
00:55
This is not me trying to negate all the pros of college, etc. I just I honestly feel like any route can lead to success. I don't judge anyone in their specific paths but my main motivation for this thought I recently had and want to make this episode is because of how different the cost of both of these routes are.
01:13
When they ultimately, with the right mindset, lead to the same outcome. I am also the type of person who believes in the hole you live in. You learn. Life goes on, and I wish I had somebody tell me this stuff earlier. But all things considered, I am happy with my life now and I just want to share this information in case it saves someone $100,000 in debt, or at least eases anxiety of someone who thinks less of themselves.
01:35
And so they didn't go to college. If I was exposed to the reality of freelancing as a career in high school, I probably would have never gone to college. Q My rant about how our society brainwashes us to believe we need to go to college and being incredible amounts of debt to get anywhere in life. But then you can also cue my rant about how the education system also contributes to that.
01:56
Anyway, let's start off by listing the pros of my college experience just to get out of the way. I did get to experience independence, and it gave me a safe place to wiggle into the crippling responsibilities of adulthood, which sometimes you don't get when you don't go to college or you know you're living at home and yada, yada, yada.
02:12
I did also get to socialize and network and then just the college campus resources like mental health counseling and career centers, scholarships, yada, yada, yada. But that's literally it. And one of those socializing and networking, you can do anywhere. So it's really only those two things, you know, wiggle room to get used to being an adult. I shouldn't have to pay money to do that.
02:32
I can you can do that in other ways, too. As someone who got those quote unquote benefits from it and was not going there for free and barely even experienced the stereotypical college experience, it was not worth it to me. Full disclosure. Anyone who listened to this who I met in college, please take no offense. This is literally this literally has nothing to do with personal relationships.
02:51
Friendships are all relative and we make choices every day that involve meeting people who are completely missing out on meeting people. So I'm just talking as far as college goes in terms of the actual things I've learned there and just the overall cost of the experience that I had, I do not think it was worth it. I wish I would have known that I could take a certification course for $2,000 for my, you know, degree with an industry professional and literally end up in the same spot I am now or very similar.
03:18
What sprung me into this thought was that the owner of the place that I interned at and worked for now just started his own master class course that you can take and get all the same literature and hands on experience that I did at my internship. And what did I do? I spent $30,000 a year to talk with a professor that gave me his email that was on his website.
03:37
That is public information. So I don't know, that would make me regret a lot of things. So sorry if I put you into your own spiral of regretting, but and this was all around the time that the loan payments hadn't been extended, so I had just budgeted in how much I needed to put towards loan payments every month.
03:57
So it was just about it was all in alignment of thoughts, you know, but success can be measured in so many ways. And I know there are certain fields that make a lot of sense as to why you need extra schooling after high school. But who made the rule that it needed to be so expensive to do so?
04:12
You know, that's what I'm saying. I know knowing the kind of person and hard worker I am, if I simply just had a seed planted in my brain about freelancing and the nature of this, it's not what you know, it's who you know in the industry, in high school or before college or even in college, I would have taken an entirely different path.
04:29
There are so many resources accessible to us nowadays. That with a simple Internet search on how to make money and how to further educate yourself, you can do anything really. Not to mention courses and master classes are also way less time consuming. I am also aware that I am putting a lot of importance on the cost of these things, but that is what society has us doing.
04:48
For anyone out there who has an intense desire to make a lot of money, I would dove deeply into why you have that wish of yours. I can guarantee almost every time you will find it is an act of brainwashing and otherwise a result of a society that tells us we need to make a lot of money in order to justify greed and the inhumane costs of things that should literally be a human right and completely accessible to anyone.
05:11
But anyway, I also don't want to come off as ungrateful and very fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to go to college. I really am just trying to give a perspective as someone who lives in a country and society and world that put so much importance on going to college. That ultimately leaves students all over in crippling debt and that forces them into miserable, high paying, time consuming jobs and to live unfulfilled, depressed lives.
05:36
You know, like to me, college is literally just another thing. Capitalism is using to poison and brainwash us. You know, I often think about how people learned for college was a thing before high school was a thing before we had any sort of mandated education system. Sorry to get a little philosophical. There are pros to education. I'm not saying there isn't.
05:57
Just the framework we have around it is just bizarre. To me. Everybody has the right to education. Everybody should be educated, yadda, yadda, yadda. On a lighter note, don't let this depress you or give you anxiety. It's never too late. To switch your narrative and educate yourself on all the alternate ways of living and working. Go down the YouTube wormhole of Side Hustles and freelance.
06:18
Listen to other episodes of this podcast. And talk about it with other people. I'm going to do an episode in the future about manifestation and goal setting, which is the number one thing I attribute to anything that has happened in my life. So that is it for this episode. Feel free to take a listen to my other episodes and topics.
06:34
And if this reaches you and you have any questions or, you know, stories we want to talk about. DM Me, I'd be happy to chat. You can follow this account on Instagram. It's How I Diaries Shoe Medium. I'm always available and happy to talk with other people. And while you're at it, if you could consider describing liking writing or sharing this show, I post five new episodes at the end of each month, so keep an eye out for those and until next time. Thank you for listening