For most of the people attending that course, especially students, we will be facing a real problem: Student loans and debts.

If you just graduated from school and want your first job, most of you have student loans that you will have to start paying pretty soon; maybe it's in 6 months, maybe it's in one year or two if you have a lot of time. 

Same if you are reconverting; well, maybe you have a loan for your car, your house, bills to pay, and so on. So, in any case, unless you have a steady stream of passive income or parents to pay for everything, or you won the lottery, there will be that problem of getting enough money to live decently to solve.

You've realized that your art school degree is not a guarantee to get a job at all and that maybe, depending on the school, you still have a lot to learn in order to get a job or an internship because the school was super nebulous about how to get a job. Let's say you have one year before starting to pay your student loans. If you don't get a sufficient stream of income at the end of the year. Well, this is going to be rough for you, as debts will compound on your shoulders with interest payments. 

So in the end, you can either find a random job to pay for it, like flipping burgers at Mcdonald's or working at Uber, but this will vacuum a lot of your time and energy and thus will delay the moment you are ready to apply for that job in the industry, or else finally land that job in the industry. You are also probably striving for a form of validation from your work by getting your dream job and being recognized as a professional.

In any case, this might be quite an uncomfortable and stressful situation, time is running out, and the quicker you find a job in the industry that is steady enough to cover your loans and with the potential for you to grow within the industry, the better it will be.

For those unaware of that, let's do some quick math because it's very important to realize how debt works. This example is based on someone living in Europe, specifically France.

Let's say you have a 35,000€ student loan for your studies. I'm assuming it's just to pay for the scholarship, not the food and rent and material, and other expenses during your learning phase. Let's say you have 5 years of studies and then one year before having to pay your loan back every month for 10 years.

So 35,000 / 10 years / 12 months = 291€ per month for 10 years

Let's assume you get your first job in the industry just when you have to start paying your loan; you earn 2,300 €/month before taxes (which is kinda high already), so let's roughly assume you get 1,750€ after taxes

Let's quickly list your expenses:

Rent: 700€

Electricity: 100€

Phone + Internet: 80€

Food: 250€

Transportations: 50€

Insurances: 50€

Water: 30 €

Annual taxes: let's assume 150€ to save every month (around a 12th of your salary in France)

So just with the absolute bare minimum: 1,410€

Add your monthly payment of 291€ for your student loans, and you are at 1701€ per month, so you are left with 50€ in your pocket.

We are not accounting for credit card debt (if this is a thing in your country), potential accidents, Netflix, comfort, Adobe license, paying Christmas gifts to your family, and such... I don't know about you, but I would not feel comfortable being 49€ away from being broke every month...

And this is just with a 35k loan.... imagine you have to make a loan for your rent + food + expenses for 5 years; this can easily climb to 80k.... let's be generous and say the bank was kind enough to give you 15 years to pay for it, this would be 452€/month if we keep the same chart and same first job salary, we would be at -112€ per month, which is absolutely unsustainable. 

There is no way you can afford to let that situation happen because it will make it impossible for you to be financially stable until it's paid, and it makes it way harder for you to get a house, a car, or finance a family properly if this is your thing. And let's say you finish school at 25 years old; it means that your loan will be paid when you are 35 to 36 years old

for a 10 years payment, or 40-41 for 15 years, and you don't want to start your "adult life" at this age because banks will be terrified to lend you some money, or else if they do, that's a deeper financial grave that you are digging for yourself.

This is why, in order to avoid that, you have 3 possibilities:

1) Start working as soon as possible BEFORE you have to pay your student loan back in order to make an advance payment and reduce the monthly fees for your student debt, so it chokes you less financially

2) Earn as much money as possible when you start working and make sure you regularly get paid more money to pay back more of your student loan than what is asked, and gradually decrease your monthly payment until it becomes bearable

3) If you are still early in your studies, find a way to get as much money as possible to start paying your debt in advance and reducing the monthly cost

We'll cover the student loan aspect more in-depth later and how to make the situation described previously more manageable, but the TLDR is that: you need to start as fast and as well as possible otherwise, you will financially choke. And with that in mind, you need to go for the most efficient ways to get your first job, and preferably, you also need to have the tools in order to negotiate the best salary you can get right from the start.

I'm not telling you that to make you freak out for the sake of freaking out. But this is something you ABSOLUTELY need to be aware of, preferably even before you ask for a student loan.

A lot of students only realize the consequences of their student loans when they have to start paying them and realize how much it cripples them financially...and before they realize it, they think that it's okay to not try as hard as they can to get that first job.

Unless you can afford to not worry about money for whatever reason, I want to first make you aware of that or remind you about that potential threat coming soon. With that in mind, here is my message again: you must DO THE WORK, as hard as you can, because you can't afford to do the application process halfway.

We have little to no time to waste. That's why I was telling you in the previous video that everything in this mentorship will be result and efficiency-driven, not considering frugal comfort at all. It's not that I take pleasure in being cold and cruel with you; it's just that if you don't have a roof on top of your head, food in your fridge, and a bed where you can sleep with your mind at peace, well, the rest is irrelevant. I'm not talking about having a Rolex and driving a Lamborghini. I'm just talking about at least being able to secure the absolute bare minimum to live decently without being at risk and, hopefully, being able to save a bit of money to pay for our loans as soon as possible and get a bit of comfort in our life.

So always remember that during this entire mentorship and the work time after it, I'm simply assuming this mentorship will be your absolute priority. I'm not asking you to work 16 hours per day on it, you do you, but the more you do during the mentorship and for the homework review sessions, the more feedback you will get in order to get you on an efficient path towards your objective of getting the first job.

You are paying for this mentorship, and the more you work, the more you bring to the table during the review sessions, the more it will be possible for me to help you as much as I can, and the more this mentorship will grant you positive returns.

If you are a student who just graduated, in around 3 to 4 months, including this course, if you do the work, you can have a portfolio that can get you a job. That's a short and long amount of time at the same time, but if you do it correctly, it will be worth it because you will be able to peacefully apply to companies with good chances of getting your first job.

If you are still more on the beginner side, which is totally okay, it might take you a bit more time to get a portfolio good enough to get a job. However, this entire mentorship will provide you with a clear vision of how to get that job and give you the tools to close the gap in order to reach the expected technical level to enter the industry.

Basically, this mentorship is all about teaching you how to fish, but that's your responsibility to do the fishing work.