• 2 posts
  • 14 comments
Joined 3 months ago
Cake day: August 22nd, 2026
  • Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•I need to change careers but I’m scared. If you ever did this, how did you power through and didn’t feel like a loser for wasting time?bybluestable351@programming.dev
    13 days

    Life is too short to not pursue your passion.

    even if I’m in my 40s? I’d still have to prepare my retirement, keep investing in ETFs…

    I’ve had 4 major careers and started at the bottom at each one. It does get harder (on the ego at least) to do that as you get older but it can be done.

    how can you make it sound so easy? I was raised to aim for one job and to do it for the rest of my life. This is for me so difficult to imagine.

    Think about the probable last 10 or 15 years of your life. If you suspect that you might look back and greatly regret not pursuing your passion for music, then you know what you need to do now.

    I should, but I’m still so petrified with angst.

    So, the lesson here is that staying in one position in life guarantees that you will most likely continue to get what you got. And that’s fine, especially if it’s where you want to be. But by taking a few risks, not all of which will work out- that’s always a possibility, greater things are possible.

    this is a very good lesson. Thank you.

  • No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•I need to change careers but I’m scared. If you ever did this, how did you power through and didn’t feel like a loser for wasting time?bybluestable351@programming.dev
    13 days

    Gut, so du hast ein künstlerisches Studium im Fach Classische Gitarre und E-Gitarre absolviert und hast ein B.A., richtig?

    Würdest du sagen, auch gerne per privater Nachricht, warum du nicht bei einer öffentlichen Musikschule oder Volkshochschule angestellt bist? Ist die Konkurrenz wirklich so krass? Das ist nicht, was der Gitarren-Professor mir sagte, er zeichnete ein positives Bild der Arbeitsmarktsituation.

    Ich habe andere Fragen: Wie viele Stunden übst du pro Tag? Muss du einmal pro Semester Material für ein Konzert vorbereiten? Pianisten an Hochschulen für Musik (also M.A.) müssen das machen.

    Weiß du, wie viele Schüler Gitarristen haben, die an öffentlichen Musikschule oder Volkshochschule angestellt sind?

    Müssen sie auch Praxis und Theorie vermitteln? Korrepetition?

    Wie oft feilst du deine Nägel? Und kann man mit Gitarristen-Nägeln Klavier spielen? Weil ich auch Klavier gelernt habe und ab und zu spiele ich das Instrument.

    Es gibt künstliche Nägel, die man auf den natürlichen Nagel klebt, oder solche, die man wie einen Ring anlegt (siehe Bilder). Ist das eine gute Idee?

    Ich bin über 40 Jahre alt. Gibt es auf dem Arbeitsmarkt für Gitarrenlehrer an öffentlichen Schulen Altersdiskriminierung?

  • No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•I need to change careers but I’m scared. If you ever did this, how did you power through and didn’t feel like a loser for wasting time?bybluestable351@programming.dev
    13 days

    The reality is you don’t have enough information to decide yet.

    how do I get more information to make a better decision?

    I never trust anything any teacher or school or college or univiersity says about the lucrative future waiting for graduates.

    would you explain further?

    And if the job market for PA’s is verifiably good, that sounds more secure (and easier to verify), plus your background willl be helpful.

    true

    Assuming you want private students, what’s stopping you from teaching guitar now part-time? Or gigging?

    If I started teaching now I’d be a dilettante. All I know about the instrument I learned on my own, but any student of mine is going to need technique, which I also need, which is the main reason to study this bachelor. Technique to teach, but also to create my own stuff.

    I like playing the guitar but I mostly do it as a hobby with mediocre technique.

    Gigging doesn’t make much sense because you have to find groups that would pay you enough to make the commute and audition worth it. And I have a stable job, a job I’d keep if I study this bachelor.

Ask Lemmy@lemmy.worldbybluestable351@programming.dev
13 days

I need to change careers but I’m scared. If you ever did this, how did you power through and didn’t feel like a loser for wasting time?

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/58416724

I’m a German nurse unhappy with nursing and I’m in my 40s.

I wrote I need because my current job as a nurse is physically extremely demanding and I know I don’t want to do this till I retire. My life cannot be to hope to advance in this field by moving up to a position within the hospital where I don’t actually have to work bedside. In Germany nurses don’t need a bachelor to practice, they only need an apprenticeship (Ausbildung).

Something I always liked as a child is music, either the classical guitar or the piano, so I talked to 2 professors, one for piano, the other one for classical and electric guitar. There is no question that east Asians dominate the piano market, they are insanely good and securing a spot in a piano bachelor would be very difficult, but a bachelor of classical and electric guitar is not as looked after like the piano, which could be my way to do something I enjoy, earn more than now with regular, predictable working hours, small groups of students when I finish the bachelor and stop doing something that’s physically destroying me.

About job options after I finish the bachelor, the professor I talked to, a classical guitarist with several prizes I’m not naming said that nowadays all kinds of music teachers are retiring and he constantly gets calls asking for new guitar teachers, that all his students who finish the bachelor have contracts even before finishing the bachelor and the figures he offered regarding salaries are higher than what I earn now, because I’d have a bachelor.

Now I don’t know if this professor is overselling his program, but this is a renowned music school in a city next to mine, which means its close, I wouldn’t have to move and the bachelor would cost me nothing but 100 Euros per semester, provided I prepare for a year for the admission exam, checking my progress every 3 months with this professor, something this musical school offers free of charge and actually passing the exam.

I don’t believe this professor was lying: salary figures I checked match what he said and he proposed I prepare for the exam, check with him my progress and if I get admitted, study for a year to see if I like it, because I can always use my apprenticeship as a nurse to work nursing, radiology instead of bedside nursing or work for a healthcare insurance company. If I do this I’d work part time during the bachelor.

I’ve been playing the classical guitar for the last 8 years if that helps and I learned musical theory and piano as a child.

The other option would be to study a bachelor of science and become a physician assistant, but to do this on a respectable public university and not with a private, online diploma mill that only wants my money I’d have to relocate, which is something very risky (new city, new hospital, no social contacts), or pay for a second flat for 4 years, which would be expensive. The medical side of nursing has always interested me and I enjoy explaining organs to patients, and I’m not ready to simply ignore the last 7 years of my life, the time I’ve been working as a nurse, but bedside, as said, is killing me, but relocating 3 hours away for 4 years…

I’m split. Both paths offer a way out of my current situation. I wouldn’t mind working as a guitar teacher for the rest of my life, nor would I mind working as a physician assistant.

ETA: thanks to all of you for your input, including those post I didn’t comment on.

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    No Stupid Questions@lemmy.worldbybluestable351@programming.dev
    13 days

    I need to change careers but I’m scared. If you ever did this, how did you power through and didn’t feel like a loser for wasting time?

    I’m a German nurse unhappy with nursing and I’m in my 40s.

    I wrote I need because my current job as a nurse is physically extremely demanding and I know I don’t want to do this till I retire. My life cannot be to hope to advance in this field by moving up to a position within the hospital where I don’t actually have to work bedside. In Germany nurses don’t need a bachelor to practice, they only need an apprenticeship (Ausbildung).

    Something I always liked as a child is music, either the classical guitar or the piano, so I talked to 2 professors, one for piano, the other one for classical and electric guitar. There is no question that east Asians dominate the piano market, they are insanely good and securing a spot in a piano bachelor would be very difficult, but a bachelor of classical and electric guitar is not as looked after like the piano, which could be my way to do something I enjoy, earn more than now with regular, predictable working hours, small groups of students when I finish the bachelor and stop doing something that’s physically destroying me.

    About job options after I finish the bachelor, the professor I talked to, a classical guitarist with several prizes I’m not naming said that nowadays all kinds of music teachers are retiring and he constantly gets calls asking for new guitar teachers, that all his students who finish the bachelor have contracts even before finishing the bachelor and the figures he offered regarding salaries are higher than what I earn now, because I’d have a bachelor.

    Now I don’t know if this professor is overselling his program, but this is a renowned music school in a city next to mine, which means its close, I wouldn’t have to move and the bachelor would cost me nothing but 100 Euros per semester, provided I prepare for a year for the admission exam, checking my progress every 3 months with this professor, something this musical school offers free of charge and actually passing the exam.

    I don’t believe this professor was lying: salary figures I checked match what he said and he proposed I prepare for the exam, check with him my progress and if I get admitted, study for a year to see if I like it, because I can always use my apprenticeship as a nurse to work nursing, radiology instead of bedside nursing or work for a healthcare insurance company. If I do this I’d work part time during the bachelor.

    I’ve been playing the classical guitar for the last 8 years if that helps and I learned musical theory and piano as a child.

    The other option would be to study a bachelor of science and become a physician assistant, but to do this on a respectable public university and not with a private, online diploma mill that only wants my money I’d have to relocate, which is something very risky (new city, new hospital, no social contacts), or pay for a second flat for 4 years, which would be expensive. The medical side of nursing has always interested me and I enjoy explaining organs to patients, and I’m not ready to simply ignore the last 7 years of my life, the time I’ve been working as a nurse, but bedside, as said, is killing me, but relocating 3 hours away for 4 years…

    I’m split. Both paths offer a way out of my current situation. I wouldn’t mind working as a guitar teacher for the rest of my life, nor would I mind working as a physician assistant.

    ETA: thanks to all of you for your input, including those post I didn’t comment on.

    23