Nemesis of oblivion
Strata Poster
I'm in between the two. I love acting but it's also my dream to become the next John Wardley. What would you choose as a career?
Actor or Ride Designer
- Thread starter Nemesis of oblivion
- Start date
SaiyanHajime
CF Legend
You've picked the two hardest careers to enter after astronaut and fine artist. Congrats.
If you're serious, which I doubt, do both. Most people in both fields freelance.
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If you're serious, which I doubt, do both. Most people in both fields freelance.
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ciallkennett
Strata Poster
Give up the ride designer idea. Seriously. The amount of engineers who'd love to actually get into that career and fail because the gap is so narrow is substantial.
Acting, on the other hand, is a very open field. Yes, there are far too many **** actors out there (I would know, I've had to audition them for films before...) but then again there are many fantastic actors who will hopefully one day break through. There's plenty of work out there, you just have to dedicate yourself to it and find it.
It's not something that'll pay your bills, so if you choose to go into acting, you'll probably need to hold down a full-time job too. But it's more realistic a career to enter than ride engineer/designer.
Acting, on the other hand, is a very open field. Yes, there are far too many **** actors out there (I would know, I've had to audition them for films before...) but then again there are many fantastic actors who will hopefully one day break through. There's plenty of work out there, you just have to dedicate yourself to it and find it.
It's not something that'll pay your bills, so if you choose to go into acting, you'll probably need to hold down a full-time job too. But it's more realistic a career to enter than ride engineer/designer.
SaiyanHajime
CF Legend
Who said anything about engineering, Seal?
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caffeine_demon
Strata Poster
combine the two - find out if anyones making a film about John Wardley!!
SaiyanHajime
CF Legend
Nic's just jelly because her job is boring.
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Mysterious Sue
Strata Poster
Yeah you should get a real job like being an artist ;p
SaiyanHajime
CF Legend
Both things he wants to do are "artists". 
Plus I already said he could have only gone worse with fine artist... lulz
#onestepbehind
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Plus I already said he could have only gone worse with fine artist...
lulz#onestepbehind
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Casio
Mega Poster
It depends what you mean by Ride Designer. You could either mean a creative designer, or an engineer. I don't really know of any roles in serious attraction design that would be purely creative other than theming and marketing, like Candy Holland does; it seems that all 'creative designer' roles have an element of engineering in them, as with Disney Imagineers or John Wardley. Having said that I've never looked into the purely artistic side, I may be completely wrong.
Whilst both sides are obviously very hard to get into, I'd imagine the engineering side gives a better range of options if the plans fall through. I'm doing an engineering degree, originally having been inspired by parks and coasters at the age of 10, and although it's still my dream to design them, I fully appreciate that even with a hypothetical really good degree there's a 99% chance I won't get to do it just because the industry is so small. But I know that there are plenty of other fields in engineering; energy, transport etc. that I'd love to work in. Plus banks/investment companies apparently like engineers because of the obvious numeracy involved, although I've never really looked into that either. But even if you mean purely artistic I'm sure there's a good range of options like product design and that kind of thing.
Acting seems much tougher in terms of options; of course there are many different mediums (Film, TV, theatre) and many tiers within those media, but still you're doing the same thing in every option, and as the competition in all of them is insane it would be hard to fall back on anything else. Obviously drama teaching is a possibilty, and I don't know what kind of demand there is for teachers.
I'd say ride designer, mainly because I'm biased and that's more the kind of thing I'm hoping to do, but try to keep both options open as long as possible; it should be doable to keep both going (maybe not doing degrees in both, but then again even that can be done) especially if you're genuinely interested in both of them.
Whilst both sides are obviously very hard to get into, I'd imagine the engineering side gives a better range of options if the plans fall through. I'm doing an engineering degree, originally having been inspired by parks and coasters at the age of 10, and although it's still my dream to design them, I fully appreciate that even with a hypothetical really good degree there's a 99% chance I won't get to do it just because the industry is so small. But I know that there are plenty of other fields in engineering; energy, transport etc. that I'd love to work in. Plus banks/investment companies apparently like engineers because of the obvious numeracy involved, although I've never really looked into that either. But even if you mean purely artistic I'm sure there's a good range of options like product design and that kind of thing.
Acting seems much tougher in terms of options; of course there are many different mediums (Film, TV, theatre) and many tiers within those media, but still you're doing the same thing in every option, and as the competition in all of them is insane it would be hard to fall back on anything else. Obviously drama teaching is a possibilty, and I don't know what kind of demand there is for teachers.
I'd say ride designer, mainly because I'm biased and that's more the kind of thing I'm hoping to do, but try to keep both options open as long as possible; it should be doable to keep both going (maybe not doing degrees in both, but then again even that can be done) especially if you're genuinely interested in both of them.
Nemesis of oblivion
Strata Poster
Well, thanks for the suggestions guys! Totally forgot about this topic though :/ Still thinking of which to fully focus on but some of these suggestions have been really useful, so thank you!
MagnesiumPC
Roller Poster
YUNG_CHOPPA
Mega Poster
I would be an actor because I don't think you realize how hard it is to be a ride engineer. You don't want to go to college for something that you probably won't do. Actin get you more money too
I don't think you realise how hard it is to be a successful actor. The 0.5% most successful actors make a lot of money for sure, but many struggle to survive day to day while trying to get their big break. Similarly maybe 0.5% of engineers design rides, but the rest of those who dreamed of designing rides have a strong qualification and good career opportunities to fall back on. The median wage of an engineer will be higher than an actors.
Zek_Teh_Kek
Hyper Poster
BY FAR Coaster Designer.
It just seems like so much fun.
That and I like physics and math and that kind of shtuff.
It just seems like so much fun.
That and I like physics and math and that kind of shtuff.