Introduction

This essay is about my thoughts on the jobs and professions below, and whether I think they would be a good fit for me based on my personality, preferences, and characteristics. I wrote this because although I’m not even in high school yet, it’s never too late to start thinking about your future. It may seem like you have time galore when you’re in middle school, but if you goof off and don’t put in some thought, you might find yourself in high school, unsure of which college you want to get in and which courses you should take. So without further ado, let’s first look at some of my personality traits, preferences, and characteristics, and see how well they match up with various jobs.

My Characteristics

I enjoy creative work the most, the ones where I don’t have to follow a strict set of rules and execute a sequence of predetermined actions. I don’t like any work that requires anything boring, repetitive, or just uninteresting. I especially like debating about topics of my interest, such as climate change. I like playing video games, and I also like roleplaying and making the stats, plot, and numbers of a fantasy fiction world, especially a theoretical video game. I also don’t like to feel forced or rushed, and I prefer to set my own due dates and work times, but of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll NEVER do it or that I’ll work out an elaborate schedule on the spot and stick to it no matter how many unforeseen events happen. When writing or creating, I don’t like to be given specific topics or ideas, as they may be uninteresting or boring. I also feel as if I should be able to change my mind about things and have my opinions heard.

Job Options

A video game designer/Developer:

A video game designer is a broad term when you think about it. There are tons of different elements in even the simplest video games. In general, a game designer usually develops one or more of the following parts of a video game:

Plot (Introduction, main conflict, characters, events, ending, etc)
Mechanics (Statistics of protagonists and enemies [HP, ATK, DEF, range, speed, luck, etc], physics, battle mechanics, character movements, etc)
Music (Sound effects, soundtrack)
Code
Art (Landscape, characters, sprites, etc)
Lawyer

Several years of law school are required before one can become a lawyer (a successful one anyways). Law school involves:

Progressively difficult schoolwork
Very high expectations
Ridiculously complicated theories and concepts
A massive amount of homework
Reading, memorizing and analyzing large parts of the constitution
After you graduate and get your law school diploma, being a lawyer mostly involves dealing with a huge pile of paperwork that grows week by week. When you actually take a case, though. You have to:

Study many previous court cases that might have created laws or set precedents related to your case
Researching every single detail about the case you’re taking (Interviews with witnesses, people who could have been bribed and/or blackmailed, your client’s criminal record, etc)
Drafting countless speeches to give to the judges/jury, to maximize the chances of them being convinced by you
Despite the stress and intensity of law school and the possibility of overwork-related medical conditions, lawyers still have many benefits:

The freedom of choosing the cases he wants to take and the clients he wants to support
The moral satisfaction of helping enforce justice
Very high pay-over $148,000 per year on average according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Author/Screenwriter

As many people become authors and screenwriters by themselves at first (as opposed to being hired by a specific company), there is generally no prior education, special training, degrees, or diplomas required.

When writing a draft for a book or screenplay, you must:

Complete multiple drafts
Fix spelling and grammar mistakes
Avoid using the same adjective/adverb/phrase multiple times in a row
Make sure your story has a proper plot arc, multiple characters, several main characters (each with their own character development arcs), and a simple, not overcomplicated introduction.
Avoid having boring or cliche conflicts, events, or dialogue.
When you’re absolutely sure your final draft is as perfect as you can possibly get it, it’s time for the next step:

Look for a production company/movie director who’s willing to talk with you.
Pitch your book/screenplay perfectly, making sure to summarize the plot and characters (while being extra careful to avoid unrelated topics or making the summary too long), and explain how your story/screenplay is unique and interesting, and why it will sell well.
Be patient, but also never spend too much time trying to win over one specific agent or a company.
Hire a lawyer to make contracts.
Some benefits are:

You get to completely control your schedule.
It’s a relatively fun and relaxing creative outlet.
If your book sells exceptionally well, you’ll become famous to some degree and get offers from various companies (for endorsement deals, to get permission to turn your book into a movie, or to invest in your next book). A famous example is J.K. Rowling.
Accountant

In general, when you get hired by a certain company, you:

Keep track of their current budget.
Record all of a company’s business transactions.
Analyze them.
Come up with a simple, not overcomplicated summary and conclusion and suggest next actions for the company given their current position.
My Thoughts

Being a Video Game Designer/Developer would be a great creative outlet and allow me to take part in projects I would be interested in. I could also make suggestions and small changes to improve the game, all while coming up with new fun ideas and doing what I love. It might be hard to find a company willing to take someone with absolutely no experience, and I don’t want to have to learn how to code and make a game from scratch on my own.

Lawyer: I would have very good pay and a decent amount of freedom in the cases I choose to take. I would also feel like I was helping people and fulfilling my role in humanity, it would be very morally rewarding. It sounds real hard, though, and I might collapse under all the stress, tension, and overwork.

Author/Screenwriter: It would be a great creative outlet, and I would get to share my entertaining stories, ideas, and concepts with other people, which would be very rewarding and satisfying. Getting a printing/production company or a movie director to actually make my dream into a reality would be really tough though.

Accountant: The pay is decent and the work doesn’t sound too hard, but after a while, it might get too boring, stressful, repetitive, or all three.

To Get My Dream Job, I Should…

Overall, I think being a video game designer/developer would be great for me. I love creating fictional worlds and theoretical video games anyway, and getting to take part in the making of an actual, original game would stretch my creativity and make my job feel fun and fulfilling. It’s the perfect job for me. Now, to get the position of “video game developer” at a video game studio or company, you usually need at least a bachelor’s degree in graphic design, multimedia design, or a similar field. Some universities, however, offer degrees specifically for video game design. You also probably need a few more degrees, depending on what part of the video game you want to develop. Video game engineers (i.e. the ones who code it) usually need a bachelor’s degree or higher in courses such as programming languages and (if they’re also coding the movement of objects and characters) 2D and 3D animation. For people like me who want to design the plot, gameplay mechanics, levels, or how the physics of the game works, a list of creative works (such as articles, homemade movies, and short stories) can help, as video games need to be creative, unique, and innovative.

For example, imagine Nintendo is making a brand new Paper Mario game, and since the last three have been such a disappointment to fans of the classics, they want their new game to have similar RPG-style mechanics. However, they also want to make the gameplay different and unique, and also add a few changes to the battle mechanics. To do this, they start to hire new people for their developer team. They immediately spot a young man fresh from college. He’s received a bachelor’s degree in game design and looking at his resume, he’s published many creative works. “His seeming simple homemade games are filled with interesting and unique mechanics! He’ll be perfect at coming up with new, fun gimmicks for our game!” “Oh! What about his short novels? The fantasy worlds he describes in them have all sorts of unique areas and creative challenges! They’ll be perfect starting points for our new worlds!”

Conclusion

So, now I’ve put together my plans for the future. Get good grades in high school, publish my own original creative works in my free time, and apply to a college that offers degrees in video game design. Study hard and get a bachelor’s degree, then try to get noticed by a video game studio/game production company. Of course, in the real world, if you have a plan, it tends to go wrong no matter how foolproof you try to make it. So I like to think of these as goals. Doing the best you can and getting 80% is better than deciding that it’s too hard and giving up. So, there it is. That is my goal for the future. And if I try hard enough, maybe, just maybe it can become reality.