Academic (or other) backgrounds of AH denizens

[HopelessDreams]

B.S. in Cognitive Science.

 

[Jmanchu]

Studying software engineering and hopefully will get bachelor's in a few years. Meanwhile I've also got a small mushroom farm with lab equipment(some homemade) in my basement. I did consider English or something about learning to write stories on a professional level since I've always loved to write. But writing fiction professionally seemed like a very competitive and oversaturated field to get into and the pay looks like it sucks, unless you're absolutely lucky and get really famous. So I'm content with being just hobbyist writer, since my passion there was never really about the money anyways.

 

[HordHolm]

Studied War Studies, so humanities but not English. I do teach English, though...

 

[Cali_Love]

I'll just play it safe and say I have many, many patents. Filed in the US and abroad. I've been copied and then deposed over some. Let me tell you, it feels exactly the same as when my stories were copied and sold on Amazon, which many authors here have experienced. BTW - thank you kind readers who clued me in.

 

[AnnieLit]

I'll just play it safe and say I have many, many patents. Filed in the US and abroad. I've been copied and then deposed over some. Let me tell you, it feels exactly the same as when my stories were copied and sold on Amazon, which many authors here have experienced. BTW - thank you kind readers who clued me in.

Most here write just for fun, so when our texts are stollen it doesn't really matter that much. Or at least I look at it this way.
But with patents it's a very different story if they are supposed to bring a big part of your income.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

Currently double majoring in animation and creative writing. Though I've got a long history as an illustrator and was a very STEM oriented kid growing up.

 

[Trinique_Fire]

I was a creative writing major (with a concentration in fiction) for a long time, but eventually dropped it. I lost my lifelong love of storytelling as soon as it started to feel like something I was chasing based on other people's expectations. Now I'm focused on human services, crisis counseling, and victim advocacy.

 

[Trinique_Fire]

I didn’t make it to college. My mother had copious amounts of physical and mental illness, so at sixteen I went straight into the workforce and was essentially paying all of our bills until I turned twenty, and moved away. My siblings all followed me because I’ve essentially been “mother” in our family. I did do relatively well through school, with Reading and English as my strongest points.

I eventually dropped out, in part because working full time and school were an impossible combination, but primarily because my mentality just wasn’t there… I got my equivalency diploma a year after I would have graduated and scored in the 98th percentile for English and Reading Comp.

Today, I’m a sushi chef. I spent a lot of my younger years in the restaurant/hospitality industry before I finally settled into the career. It pays decent, but I do often feel under-appreciated—like most kitchen positions in the culinary world, it is a very male dominated field. I actually intend on establishing my own business based around sushi, in the future, and eventually taking college courses for Psychology—my field of interest before life kind of had its way with me.

As someone who also didn't follow the conventional path, I low-key love this. *waves to you from the ATL suburbs*

 

[SeraphNocturne]

As someone who also didn't follow the conventional path, I low-key love this. *waves to you from the ATL suburbs*

Thank you, ever so kindly... and hello lovely neighbor. :3

 

[AchtungNight]

Bachelor degree in History here. Didn’t really plan college well beyond going, wasn’t sure what I wanted to do until third year and by then it was too late to get into anything else. I either wanted to do teaching or law enforcement and picked the latter because I thought it’d be more interesting. I decided to work private security a while to get appropriate job experience, and my second company ended up having a lot of ex military personnel. I was not sure about getting into that myself- bad media images of boot camp turned me off in the end and I decided to go to a private civilian police academy the company owners had attended instead, see if I could succeed. Some people in my class had jobs with law enforcement agencies lined up for when they graduated, I and a few others didn’t but were rolling the dice and paying their own way. I graduated salutatorian, overcoming rough standards in many areas (the place was up front about its high standards and no refunds, I dealt with it).

I stutter when nervous however (my alternate reality self-based MMC can use an accent to fix his stutter, I lack such skill) and that coupled with some asshat security co-workers who claimed I lack common sense without ever defining to me exactly what they meant combined to deny me a police career. Or maybe there were better candidates in play since there are a lot of aspiring police officers out there. I applied with several departments, never got a positive response, most of the class with whom I stayed in touch did. After a year of it I decided to work private security till I found something else better. My last job in that area was at a computer chip factory where multiple people had moved from security to contractor apprenticeship. I joined their ranks, passed the training, still at the factory almost twenty years later. I did some substitute teaching part time in 2008, thinking about switching careers if I liked it- I didn’t mostly due to kids and principals with clashing expectations of me.

Doug Ramsay in my stories is an alternate universe version of me who has his plans a bit more together. Combined with serious martial arts skills and an Illuminati style secret society backing him, he achieved the police career he wanted for a while but quit doing it because he didn’t like the job (this also became true of me over time). He instead became a bestselling author of thriller fiction (I’ve never gotten outside the internet irl, I’m not that great) slash nightlife entertainment mogul- he’s owner of a popular dance club slash love hotel that operates out of London and later Lake Tahoe, I will never have the money for this in real life but it’s a recurring lifestyle dream). Various celebrities and other beautiful women frequent his life and his bed. I’m not quite as lucky. I’ve recently decided to add successful lottery gambling to the book success for how he built his fortune.

The international diplomatic background of his parents is pretty much true of me, I just changed the names of my parents and other key players plus some other details for the alternative reality. This was done with permission of the people I actually know on whom I’m basing characters in all cases. Mom is a fan of my writing whatever its content, my other close relatives shrugged and have not asked for details, my ex wife said she did not mind, and everyone else gets a name change and background so different from the character inspiration there’s no legal basis for defamation. I do know criminal and civil law pretty well, I’m just not into lawyer as a career. Negative stereotypes mostly. I’m keeping hardcore erotic stuff, incest beyond my generation, and unsanitary kinks out of my story per personal preference also. That probably helps.

I don’t actually know any famous people as more than a fan. Cat Osterman and I have the same alma mater but we’ve never met. Alicia Witt gave me a free vip pass to one of her smaller concerts once, but that was in the early days of the Covid pandemic and I was among several fans who bought tickets to a larger event that got canceled so it could have been random charity. She was swarmed by too many other people at the meet and greet afterwards and I didn’t want to wait around to ask her exact motives. Every communication was a form letter, so it was probably just a random charity thing. Fandom and internet research are the basis of my celebrity relationships otherwise. Lisa Coleman is an ideal fantasy girlfriend character from my imagination, like most of the other women in Doug Ramsay’s life.

Time to get up and write more now.

 

[PandorasBachs]

Barely went to high school - got passing grades for being on a winning sports team and the district didn't have an attendance policy until I was a senior.

Flunked out of undergrad twice (0.3 GPA my first semester) and finally finished my BS 14 years after I started. MEd in online learning after that. Finishing my PhD in Learning, Design, & Technology most likely this coming fall. Might go for a second doctorate after that.