At the moment I'm studying chemistry at university. I'm going for a Diplom (that's German, the US equivalent would be something like "master of science"). After I'm done with that, I'll probably go for a Dr. rer. nat. ( I don't know the US equivalent, maybe PhD?) and I'll be around 30 yrs old when I'm done with this, so it's still quite a long way to go. It's a really tough study, when I started in 2007, 1000 people signed in for it. 500 came to the 1st lecture, and after some weeks, around 200 were left (the rest obviously found out it was "nothing for them"). After the first test in that semester, around 100 were left. And by the end of the semester, after around 8 tests, there were exactly 43 people left, me being one of them (but below-average). I'm not even sure if I will make it, but I surely want to, it's just extremely tough... Getting the Diplom usually takes ~15 semesters (10 "official" semesters, but there's a lot of tests you just
won't pass the first time (unless your IQ is >140 or so) and therefore have to repeat a semster), and acquiring the doctor degree will take another 2-3 years.
Currently we have semester holidays and I'm doing a very flexible office part-time ("hour-based") job at a big international chemical company (I can practically do as many hours/wk as I want to, ATM I'm working 3 days ~ 25 hrs/wk and when the semester starts I'll cut it down to ~1 day/wk) where I'm basically creating a database of all chemicals used on the site and classify them for their hazards. The pay is quite OK for an unexperienced student part-time worker: ~13$/hr (note that I'm still living at "hotel mama" and life is usually cheaper here than in the US, except for gasoline prices - stupid "global warming disciples" in our gvmt :X).
In the future, of course I wish to have a nice job in the chemistry field - and I want to move to another developed country where taxes aren't as ridiculously high as they're here (if you're earning well you have to pay 42% income tax, which the commies who'll probably get in charge after the next elections even want to raise beyond 50% plus there are numerous mandatory and highly inefficiently working income-percentage based insurances which'll drain your income even more - maybe down to 20%?) and - after all - where it's WARMER than here! I really hate winter and snow, and even though I'm living in one of the driest and warmest regions of Germany where snowless winters are common, it's still too cold for me. Especially the last two winters were terrible, several weeks of temperatures below freezing point and we even had a 2 months lasting snow cover last winter - ugh! It horribly slows down driving, which sucks. And this year's summer was extremely bad too: Only 3 weeks with temperatures around 35°C, the rest was either cold and rainy or rainy and cold :/. I've been thinking about different places to emigrate to if things go right:
- Southern Switzerland: Weather is OK there, taxation is quite low and it's not too far away from home but Swiss immigration laws are very strict plus they have a strong anti-German attitude there.
- Texas: Weather is perfect for me there, but (no offense!) from what I've heard a high percentage of the population runs around with (machine?) guns there (I don't think I could fall asleep there, especially if I should ever have children) and from my European POV it's too religious and conservative there, even if some of my political attitudes can be considered "conservative" from a European POV too.
- Southern Japan (Okinawa): The weather is fine there and the general political attitude is too but from what I've heard prices are extremely high, immigration rules are über-strict and xenophobia is widespread.
But hey, those are just some very vague ideas for my future and it's still a long time to that and I might still fail at university, just letting out some thoughts
(Was that tl;dr?^^)
Unfortunately I'm not employed anywhere. But, keeping up with my schoolwork while I'm in college is my job right now. The more good grades I get; the more money I can give to my parents. 
