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Advice neededTips on pursuing a STEM career?
I'm not exactly sure what career I want. I wanted to work in neuroscience and now I don't. I wanted to go into filmmaking but it's not a very stable career field. I'm now thinking about majoring in engineering or computer science. I think it would be interesting to pursue a career that combines film, math, and colors/art. I think working on technology used in film like cameras or color grading software or displaying images might be interesting. If that doesn't work out, I think statistics/working with data is also interesting. I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts or experiences in this?
I think working on technology used in film like cameras or color grading software or displaying images might be interesting.
Maybe image processing might interest you, which is a specialization of computer science. It's important in medical technology for example, and this STEM field also happens to not be dominated by men. Statistics and neuroscience (in the form of AI) factor into image processing as well.
I got my degree in Computer Science in 2020. Tech industry has its pros and cons. I work remote and earn a comfortable salary which supports a nice life outside of work. The negative is that it is populated by mostly men, lower social skills than average, and the salary for regular software engineers is being pushed down by foreign labor. I describe what I do as “software plumbing.” If you are serious about specializing in visual computing and succeed through the significant additional (more than just CS bachelors) studies in math to do it- you will have many opportunities. There is a conference called SIGGRAPH which may pique your interest. If you are able to get some research experience in undergrad in this specialty, I speculate that funded grad school or roles at Nvidia, Disney/Pixar would be open to you.
Conferences are a great way to get a feeling for any field especially if you have prior knowledge related to it. As someone who has a degree in CS, the Grace Hopper conference was great back in my day. It was specifically only for women. I’m not sure if it still is anything like it was 9 years ago though.
Good luck in whatever you choose though! :)
If you're still interested in arts and CS, animation is a career worth thinking about, especially rigging and rendering is all about calculations. But honestly tech definitely has its ups and downs.
I did CS. You can use CS to make cool art. Or anything. It also pays the bills. It is so important to be able to pay your bills as a woman. My tip: sign up for CS and hold on for dear life. If you’re not good at it you might feel like you could fail but I made it through by the skin of my teeth and have an amazing career now. It was all worth it. If I could make it, you definitely can, because I am not cut out for STEM