This may be childish. Still I am curious

[enfield]

See that is what I am wondering. Is contentment reachable? Plus is it really a good thing? Shouldn't you always strive to be better and for more? How do you turn that switch off?

Yes, pretty much so from personal experience. It's a state of mind that seemed to come easier with age. That striving for more achievement, recognition and toys is the Rat Race that almost everyone gets tired of.

"Blessed are the easily pleased, for they shall enjoy heaven on earth."

[Jonnin]

I am satisfied. I could become one of "those" with a cell phone glued to my head, never out of touch with work, and spend an unholy amount of time and energy trying to keep up with an ever changing and already huge field, move to some ghetto like atlanta or even worse, california, and make more money. But that is where being satisfied comes in. With no kids, my middle class income is sufficient to not only live, but to live well --- its designed for a family of 4-5 and the wife and I are simple folks, so it goes a long, long way. Long enough that she does not have to work (she does, but we could manage without it). Letting my whole life be ruled by work and spending 15 hours a day trying to do more and more and more isnt for me. I like being able to shoot a couple of times a week, to waste half a day (like today!) on computer games, to have a fairly low stress job (which I also enjoy to boot).

When is enough enough? When you do not have to worry about money and can afford to have reasonable amounts of fun (a dinner out isnt a concern as to whether you can pay your electric bill if you decide to eat a steak for example). When you can not only afford the things you need and want (again, keeping the wants within reason) but on top of that, have the time to enjoy those things.

It is wise to consider what you can do with your degree when you graduate. Look at where you might work and how much you might earn. Look at how much that is in real terms (what kind of house, car, kids, guns, fun, etc can you afford) and think on how such a life might be. If you think you need more money, change degrees or plan for a masters or advanced degree. What I am saying is that even if you love history (for example) the odds of scoring a good paying job off a history degree specialized in the doings of ancient natives from cambodia or something is low. While you may be half decent at math (but not love it), and find that a career as an actuary is well paying, if dull. ..... Spend a lot of time on it if you need to. Its the rest of your life, unless you spend even more years getting another degree to do-over.

[Smith]

If you want to work for the FBI you need an accounting degree. That is about the only degree that means anything to them. If you are wanting to work in any other law enforcement just about any other degree (besides CJ) is fine. Plus it gives you somewhere else to go if you burn out of LE. MANY LE leave to do something else before they become cynical, divorced, and crazy. You are correct that Parks, Wildlife officers etc. usually need a biology degree of some sort.

Learn to be content instead of "satisfied". "Satisfied" usually equals complacency and that will eventually catch up with you and hurt you. Here's a good quote: " Contentment is being happy where you are, while you work towards where you want to be." Never stop aspiring to be better. If even if you stay in the same field for 50 yrs. always strive to be the best.

[zmtd8]

Thanks for all of the advice everyone. .

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Dang, did it again. Wrote a long boring meandering forum post. Oh well.

Shortly after the invention of fire when I was in college, an oft-repeated truism- "The purpose of school is not to make you educated. School is to teach you how to educate yourself for the rest of your life." Or something like that. Dunno if education lived up to its billing then or now but a fella who can learn on his own usually has an advantage.

Had worked physical labor in high school and so it sounded like a good idea to get edumacated and do something easier than digging post holes, but didn't have the foggiest idea what I wanted to do. Majored for two years in the favorite high school subject. Got discouraged and disinterested so went to the "free counseling" at the university and they administered a couple days aptitude and interest tests, then told me I had about equal interest in everything and I probably had the ability to pass about any major I wanted to persue. That didn't help much so I dropped out and worked menial jobs awhile. Then thought I'd decided on something interesting and went back to school again but was wrong again and went back to the menial jobs. So after a couple more years decided I just needed a paper saying I could belong to the club of the edumacated regardless of the major, and went back and did 21 hours per quarter for four quarters consecutive and got the silly piece of paper. Then worked in fields related to the piece of paper about 5 years before getting sick of it.

A part of the "20th century american dream"-- Get a good job and work one company til retirement then collect a generous company pension. That was actually feasible at one time. Old dad pulled it off, though he was certainly fried crispy and unhappy with the company after he had finally put in enough years to complete his sentence. But dang he got a good pension. Lots of other folks lost the roulette game when idiot managers stole or lost the retirement funds from their life-long employing corporations. But it did work out for some of em.

Witnessing dad's experience, that part of the american dream it didn't look so attractive though it was the prevailing wisdom of the time. Even by 1970-ish such as Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" predicted that things will change so quickly that lifetime jobs will become obsolete, and the typical person would work numerous "careers" in a lifetime. On average Toffler wasn't any better a prophet than any other random idiot pretending to know, but he nailed that part anyway.

I didn't have any strategy whatsoever. Would get interested in something and start studying up on it, then start making a little hobby money on it, then start making a little better than hobby money on it, then start getting bored and get interested in something else and do the same thing all over again. Was afeared of going into debt on a biz, and wouldn't run anything at a loss, though sometimes I wasn't paying myself as much as burger flipping at macdonalds but it was always interesting and "seemed like a good idea at the time", though after awhile maybe it wasn't interesting any more and didn't look like a good idea at all. And after doing that for a couple of decades, in the last 15 years actually made a little bit of money, entirely by accident and with no plan at all. Not a lot of money, but at least a little.

It might have been smarter to have sat down in 1967 and made a detailed plan to rule the world, got exactly the right edumacation, then hung in teeth and toenails at one company or one high-paid obscure specialty for 40+ years, but if I'd done that, would have been ready for the nuthouse long ago. But in theory a "master plan" might be the "smart" way to go about it, if somebody happened to be smart.

Some of the richest folk made their stack with no degree at all, though it is likely that those guys require fancy degrees of their peons. A "self-trained" entrepreneur ain't likely gonna hire a non-degreed feller for comptroller, some random guy who learned accounting by reading a few books in his spare time. He won't go to a "self-trained" non-degreed physician and his private jet pilot won't be some good-old-boy who read a few books on airplanes. Even some feller who read every book ever written on airplanes won't get the job unless the feller has a piece of paper proving he am smart enough to do it.

Some topics are hard to learn outside of school, and school keeps getting more expensive, and in addition when attending school you are not working full-time, so you are bleeding two places at once. So its a good idea to be thrifty and only pay for learnin that you can't easily acquire "all by your lonesome" later on.

A chiropractor lady doctor told me that regrets are bad for your health, but AFAIK it is only a theory. Anyway regrets don't fix anything. It varies for each person. I don't "deeply regret" but do wish I'd paid more attention in math class and taken more math courses. Numerous topics are near-impossible to learn, self-taught or not, without proper math skills, and it is difficult to have discipline to learn "everything you need to know" on math self-taught, because self-taught it is too easy to concentrate on the interesting parts and ignore the dull parts which you also need to know. This GOLDEN NUGGET of advice is worthless given to a young person, because they always blow it off. Offered the advice, "pay more attention in math class" to daughter and neices and nephews. None of them took the advice though now that they are out of college in the real world, they agree that it was good advice.

Though possibly achingly dull, maybe it is near-impossible to go wrong with at least one year of "general accounting" or whatever they call it. A fella can learn that on his own or pay a perfessional. If a lot of money is involved you need to pay a perfessional anyway. But it sure is useful to know the basics and am glad at least had enough sense to take some accounting courses.

Unless you plan to work for somebody your whole life, it is also difficult not to benefit from a few management courses, even if you end up only managing yourself. As a plus, the accounting and management courses are scholastically easy in addition to providing useful information. Maybe it is different nowadays, but for instance in the past I've seen perfectly bright persons with a PhD in nursing, spending 90 percent of their work-time MANAGING hundreds of hospital personnel, who in all 8 years of study never took ONE management course! And boy was it obvious they could have benefitted from a few management courses. Or consider a doctor, lawyer, or engineer who ends up with a handful of employees and no clue how to manage the employees or the biz.

Assuming a guy has the personality to perservere in one career long enough to justify long years dedicated study, there will always be need for doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, engineers and all kinds of folks who learn obscure but useful specialties boring enough to drive most folks stark raving mad. So maybe there is some education worth every penny. In addition I can't see plumbers, electricians, carpenters or chefs going obsolete any time soon. Maybe there will always be high-income salesmen, which might not require much schooling assuming a fella has a "knack" for sales. Everybody at the company is out of a job if the salesman can't move product. The salesman is an important guy who goes out and gets the cash for everybody's paycheck.

Folks can go for interesting stuff but shouldn't be spoiled brats and complain they ain't paid what they are worth. If you are picky about having "just the right job that is mostly fun" then you can't also be picky about the pay. Some kids nowadays complain they can't get rich with that PhD in underwater basketweaving. Nothing wrong with underwater basketweaving and things I've done are about as silly, but you get paid what the market will bear. Supply and demand. Everybody wants the easy and fun jobs.

Alternately, pick the most incredibly mind-numbing-boring obscure specialty you can find which also has utility in the real world. Your skill will be valuable because few other students are masochistic enough to learn that crap. Then you can make lots of money being bored to tears 8 hours per day, and you can spend that money on any kind of expensive hobby that might strike yer fancy. Trade every 8 hours of boredom for another 8 hours of having enough money to do about anything you like re extracurricular interests.

On the other hand if you pick something real interesting with real low pay, you dam well better enjoy that 8 hours at work because you'll be too broke to do much after you get home after work.

Numerous strategies in the game of life.

[Parrothead]

I'm late to the party. It's my understanding that the TWRA requires a Bio degree. However, Va has two departments in the wildlife management division. You can be a wildlife biologist or conservation officer (basically a Police officer of State property). Don't take this as the God's honest truth but i researched the same topic a few years ago....

[Guest bkelm18]

http://www.tn.gov/twra/employment.html

For an entry level Wildlife Officer:

Education and Experience Required: Graduation from an accredited college or university with a bachelor's degree in Wildlife or Fisheries Management, Wildlife Biology, or other related acceptable field. Related acceptable fields include: General Biology, Zoology, Forestry, Ecology, and Agricultural or Animal Sciences; provided the applicant has an additional twenty semester hours of Wildlife related subjects.

[JKGlock17]

I make a decent living for my family and I and my wife knows I wanna be a cop more than anything and says that even if we have to take a substantial pay cut for me to follow my dreams she will stand with me. It is not what ya have but what you do with what you have that makes you happy. All you have is today, if you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow you will piss all over today. Don't hurry along and miss all the beautiful scenery bro.