
Ask HN: Should I pursue an ML career with good pay or a dream to teach abroad? - takeachance
Alright, so here&#x27;s the low-down. (25M) I&#x27;m currently a first year phd student in the sciences (programming-oriented) at an R1 university, but I&#x27;m leaving at the end of summer because a PhD was not the right track for me. In the meantime, I&#x27;m working on boosting my programming skills, since I have a connection that&#x27;s getting me a foot-in-the-door over at an alexa top 10 website for a junior ML position. Basically, if I go for this, I stand a good chance at getting a position with a base salary of ~70k+<p>That&#x27;s option one.<p>Option two is I pursue a dream Ive had for about a decade to go live in Japan for 1-2 years or so. Probably would start off just teaching English, since I dont think my Japanese is good enough yet for me to be able to compete for jobs I&#x27;m more qualified for.
My current financial situation is pretty much in the shitter, and I have loan payments and bills that make it effectively impossible to save anything.<p>Here&#x27;s the thing though. I&#x27;m young now. and I know that that won&#x27;t last forever. If I go for the career opportunity, yeah, sure I&#x27;ll almost certainly be financially stable, but it will almost certainly also lock me into a particular location for years. And realistically speaking, life will happen, and the chances that I&#x27;ll ever actually pursue the dream of living abroad will diminish greatly. On the other hand, if I go, I most likely will not be very financially stable, but I will be pursuing exactly what I want to do. I already know that I love teaching, since from my PhD program, I&#x27;ve been doing it for a year now, and it&#x27;s literally the best part of my day.<p>So, if I go, I would be liquidating the vast majority of my personal belongings in order to afford the move. And of course theres also the logistics of getting a job&#x2F;housing&#x2F;etc.
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yen223
> My current financial situation is pretty much in the shitter, and I have
> loan payments and bills that make it effectively impossible to save
> anything.

This cements it. Take the paying job. You can always pursue your dreams in the
future, _and_ it's more likely to work out when you are more financially
stable.

~~~
takeachance
Well to be fair, they are both paying jobs, one would just pay significantly
less. As for pursuing dreams, my concern is that by the time I am financially
stable, I will not be willing to drop the entire life I have created at that
point. Whereas right now I'm in a transitory phase in my life, where I am not
particularly tied down.

Does that make sense?

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yen223
You're only 25 years old. Even if you spent 5 years at your ML job, you'd only
be 30. Contrary to popular belief, your life isn't over at 30! If you still
have the desire to teach overseas then, it's not going to be too late. And by
then, you'd probably be in a stronger position financially to make that
switch.

Think about the reverse situation. You go overseas, and you realize things are
not as rosy as you'd hope. What are your options then? Because I can tell you
from first-hand experience, moving to another country is a lot costlier than
you'd think. Especially to a country where you don't even speak the language.

If you want to take a big risk at life, that's great. Don't let a random
Internet stranger stop you. Please just make sure the odds are stacked in your
favour.

~~~
takeachance
I definitely appreciate the input. After all, thats what I came here for. As
for moving expenses, the sort of teaching jobs I'm looking at usually come
with compensation specifically for moving. And I've also studied the language
for about a year and a half, so although I'm a bit rusty right now, I'm pretty
sure I could get some pretty simplistic communication done, even if I didn't
decide to go back to studying it full-force as I almost certainly would.

My concern with waiting is that I will be a different person then, and I'll be
less able to experience it in the way that I want to. That is, if I am even
able to go. For example, if I am in a relationship at that point, most people
dont take well to their partner up and telling them that they want to go live
on the other side of the world for a year or two.

All that said, I really am taking all of this advice to heart. I'm just
arguing my side because well....I cant get to intimately know the strengths
and weaknesses of both sides unless theres a lively debate. I hope you know
what I mean. I appreciate the input.

~~~
ccarter84
Random internet stranger here

A relationship, a mortgage and even kids happen if you take the job route. As
someone who took the job route and now have a mortgage, I vote Japan, though
you prolly wanna talk with some folks who have done it first just for
confirmation...or have a backup plan if for some reason it actually did suck.

On the flip side my girlfriend would be stoked if I said I wanted to move to
Japan, so you never know who you might end up with if you stick around and pay
down some debt.

Routines and inertia are hard to fight tho once you get on a path.

Edit-spelling

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yodsanklai
You'll always be able to teach oversea. I assume age isn't a factor for this
type of job. On the other hand, you probably won't be able to earn money in
software engineering 10 years from now if you leave this path. Without skills
in 10 years, it's likely to be much harder to make money than now. It's always
good to have a safety net.

But you can also be a gambler and listen to your heart and leave tomorrow!

Now that I think about it, right after I graduated (from a top school in my
country), I had several options to earn a very good salary. 20 years later,
those options simply aren't there anymore! I'm too old for a beginner
position, and don't have the experience for a more qualified job.

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takeachance
As for support, I do have some from my family in case of an emergency, but its
certainly not infinite. I feel like in life, I've consistently taken the safe
route. Now, I'm really tempted to take a huge chance. I know that taking a
year or two off to teach English would generally detract from my career, but I
also am very self-motivated, and I would probably spend a good amount of that
time building my programming skills even more.

tl;dr: Should I take a mid-pay job with high potential for future salary, but
be locked into a particular location, or pursue a life-long dream and teach
abroad for a low salary with low potential for future salary?

~~~
atsaloli
Do you want to be happy? Don't settle, pursue your goals. Just don't fuck up
your life.

~~~
takeachance
Of course, who doesn't. But I suppose the question here is whether pursuing my
goals would indeed fuck up my life or not.

There's also the option of trying to find a similar such ML position in japan
also, but i still need to look into that.

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andyakb
Would your earnings teaching English in Japan cover living expenses and debt?
If it would, the go for it. If it wouldn't, figure something else out.

If you do go for it, and don't want to make this a permanent change, make sure
to stay current with technology. Build a public portfolio showing that even
though you aren't working in tech, you are still working with it.

Another option would be to slowly transition away from teaching English to
becoming a freelancer so that you could travel while still earning mid-high
pay.

~~~
takeachance
yes, they almost certainly would cover living expenses and debt, and id
probably be able to save on top of that. I've already done some number
crunching along those lines.

Yeah, honestly I was already thinking about teaching english as a means of
full-time pay, and then doing ML freelance work to build my skills and
portfolio

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FlopV
The skills and money you get in the ML career could enable you to pursue your
dreams with a clear head once your debts have been settled. And maybe you
could find a similar role out there?

If you are comfortable in the ML career and want to stay there, then I don't
think you'll kick yourself for not leaving, as you might be happy there. You
can always go once your in a more settling situation financially, and if you
still have the itch, you can scratch it.

~~~
takeachance
I understand what you mean. But my concern is that by the time its perfectly
comfortable for me to pursue this dream, I'll already be in a position where I
cant live the dream. If that makes any sense.

Like yes, I could wait another 5 years until I am settled and have decent
savings. But then I'll be settled, and just be left to wonder at what could
have been.

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mathetic
I think your post gives away the answer and you're only looking for
confirmation.

Honestly, I can't give you advice financially as I am roughly your age, but if
I were in your position I would follow my dream without any hesitation.

Perhaps considering lacking which of the pursuits would hurt you the most in
10 years can make your decision easier.

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namenotrequired
This is where I turn for any career advice. It serves me well so far.

[https://sivers.org/scares-excites-do-it](https://sivers.org/scares-excites-
do-it)

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chrisyang66660
maybe you can get a bachelor degree from diplomascenters.com. so as to get a
good start for your career.

