How did you find/choose your career?

[Pistachiyo]

I'm a freshman in college and I've been lost for months about what I want to do. I'm interested in working with kids and i've considered occupational therapy but the truth is, i'm not completely confident in my ability to pursue that. My strong suit is English and have always been complimented for my work. I considered Elementary education only to find out that I'd be graduating a year late because the program doesn't want general education courses and wanted me to start with my major right away. Anyway, what's your job and what steps did you take to realizing that's what you wanted to do? And of course, if you have any suggestions for me I'm more than happy to read them and could use all the advice. Thanks!

[smars27]

I'm a freshman in college and I've been lost for months about what I want to do. I'm interested in working with kids and i've considered occupational therapy but the truth is, i'm not completely confident in my ability to pursue that. My strong suit is English and have always been complimented for my work. I considered Elementary education only to find out that I'd be graduating a year late because the program doesn't want general education courses and wanted me to start with my major right away. Anyway, what's your job and what steps did you take to realizing that's what you wanted to do? And of course, if you have any suggestions for me I'm more than happy to read them and could use all the advice. Thanks!

A lot of people change majors anyway, and it takes a lot longer for people to graduate (especially with the bottleneck). You technically still have two years to decide what you want to do, but honestly know one really knows what they want to do. My dream when I was a kid was to be an “author” but considering how unstable that is, and how hard it is to even get a book published (much less have people buy it) I gave that up pretty quickly.

I worked first but when the economy got bad I went back to school and decided to be an accountant because the other jobs took too long to start making money and now I make really decent money but I really really dislike my job as it is the most tedious shit ever. I spend a lot of time waiting around for other people, telling people to fix something, and inputting tedious information in (I mean I’ve started spending more time on this website because 90% of the time I’m bored as f**ck), finding out what’s wrong, etc. That being said, I’m sticking with it, because I went through a lot to get here and it’s really hard to change the careers the longer you’re in it. A lot of my professors were former accountants who said they made way more money at accounting but loved their job more, so someday I will probably change over.

My advice: Even if you’re not confident now, the more experience/exposure you will get more confident. As long as you’re not a sucker like me (saying no to puppy dog eyes is not my strong suit), kids are actually better to deal with than adults (even if they are hyperactive, easily distracted) and the parents will be the hard part of the job according to a few friends I have that are teachers. Kids are also more open to learning/correcting their mistakes so as long as you have the right balance of backbone and patience it’s a pretty great experience.

They also make me jealous with the fact that they can go on vacation so much while they’re young and able, because that’s the best time. I may be able to afford more material things now but I think good experiences are way more valuable than money, and I wish I had known that sooner.

You should try tutoring as a stepping stone to see if you like teaching too, so you’re not going in blind. That being said I know a lot of accountants/business people that were actually english, chemistry, and political science majors for some reason, so just because you major in something doesn’t mean you’re going to have a job related to it. And there are a lot of majors in accounting/engineering that switch over or change careers rather shortly because of how tedious it is.

Teaching jobs might be hard to come by right now but if you’re smart you will find them when it’s time. I’m going to have to say I also wish I had networked more in college (earlier on) as no matter what the best indicator of getting a job is not just what you know (that’s pretty much just meeting the basic requirements) so the more people you know/recommendations you can get the better off you will be.

[Looly]

I found something that I was good at, and liked. For me, that was English/writing, but translating a skill like that into the real world can be tough. I've never had one set career goal, I've kind of just flitted about, finding things I liked. I studied a double major in journalism and professional writing and publishing. I've worked in radio and tv as a copywriter and now work in media relations at a foreign embassy. It is what it is, but I'm not not nearly good enough at anything else, so it's the most logical career path for me.

You say you know you want to work with kids. That opens you up to a whole host of jobs and careers, from working in a day care, to being a pediatrician. I would maybe try to narrow down what part of a child you want to work with. Do you want to shape their minds? Teacher. Do you want to help disadvantaged children? Perhaps counselling or psychology. I agree with the above poster in that any experience you can get will help you figure out where it is you want to go. It was only through doing work experience at my uni's radio station did I realise that broadcast was an area that I was interested in.

[starrydust]

For me, it was a bit of trial and error involved in finding out what I wanted to do. I was lucky enough to figure it out quite fast, but it was also solidified by some summer jobs I had that didn't feel like the right fit for me.

When I first made my choice I thought about: what am I good at? What do I like? And made some choices based on that.

But through my summer jobs I also started thinking about what different jobs entail and what a day at a job might look like, and comparing that to my skills and preferences. For example, I realised I hate office jobs with a lot of detail work, or jobs that are very routine-based. I had an office job for 3 summers and a lot of the time I hated it. I hated keeping registries, I hated spreadsheets, and most admin-related tasks. So I think considering whether you would enjoy an office environment with a lot of paperwork and admin work can really help narrow it down, because some people really enjoy that and some people hate it. And it's a very good way to narrow down choices, in my opinion.

So considering what you might want your work day to look like is one of those things I find really helpful when thinking about jobs. Because as someone else has mentioned, you can have a lot of different jobs involving kids, but the work day can look vastly different in many of them.

I'm a teacher at high school level and I really enjoy my job for these reasons:
- I loved learning in school and I still love learning, so I wanted to help other people learn
- It gives me an opportunity to talk about things I love every day
- The work day is very varied. The admin work is my least favourite thing about it, but every class is different, so it brings a variety to my life that I crave. I also have a new schedule every school year which again brings some variety to my life.
- It's also fast-paced, so I'm rarely bored.
- It's fun to be with the kids (for the very most part. and yeah I call them kids even though they're high schoolers haha). I have a lot of fun discussions and conversations, there's a lot of laughter, but it's serious too, sometimes.
- It feels like meaningful work for me. I feel like I get something back for what I put in (though sometimes that's not always the case)
- Even though you have to follow a lot of stupid rules and regulations, there's some amount of autonomy to the job. I decide how to teach my class, I can to some degree decide when to do certain tasks. I answer to people obviously, but to a large degree I also make a lot of decisions based on my own competence and I don't just follow orders.

So basically, I think my advice is trying to spend some time figuring out what you're good at, what you like doing and also how you actually want your daily working life to look like. You have to go to work every day, so it's important that you feel like the work day suits you!

[illuminate]

I'm not through college, so take this with a grain of salt; however, many in my circle are fairly recent graduates and I do a lot of research on the topic of choosing majors and later careers.

Generally, it seems that many employers are more interested in you having a degree than what it's in; the exceptions being if you're interested in going into a specialized field. So if you want to be a financial analyst or a chemical engineer, obviously major in finance or engineering. It sounds, however, like your interests are more varied and loosely-defined...which is great! You know how people tell you to follow your interests? In your case, I think it's a great idea. Follow your nose to whatever interests you; take classes that attract you, pursue more classes if you liked to first, etc. Eventually, you may have a degree in English, Literature, or maybe something you didn't expect. And that's okay. As far as being a teacher or writing for a living, pretty much any liberal arts degree will get you where you need to go. Just don't forget to get internships and start wiggling into whatever field you end up in as your approach the end of college. Job experience will be what they're looking for after you having a degree.

[illuminate]

My dream job found me. I work in the Internet. This is the best job in the world! I have a lot of free time. I can work whenever I want and have good money. this is my dream job. I play online casino and make good money. I know when to say stop. I'm interested in your opinion on the matter!

Mods, please ban this spammer. Her post history is all ads for a bullshit site.


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Removed clickable link from quote.

[fihe]

I majored in history education in college. Unfortunately, it was not until after graduating from college and having some experience as a substitute teacher that I realized teaching wasn't for me. Although the students could be unruly, my overall experience with them was good. The problem is not the students nor the teachers, but the system. It was when I started working in the public school system where I really started to lose faith in government institutions. So inefficient!

Now I work in logistics and transportation. This industry was literally assigned to me, as I started in it through a temporary job assignment. I, for the most part, like my job, but I feel like I'm not paid enough for what I do, considering how much knowledge my current position requires.

Most people in my industry don't have a college degree, which makes me wish I never went to college, or at least got only an AA. 5 years (my major was a 5-year program) and almost $100,000 spent on school, just to make $35,000 a year and not need a degree at all -_-

Honestly, if I were you, I would just go to trade school so you could gain some skills in a specific field. Too many college majors leave graduates with a very generic skill set. Employers want job skills.

[gasaki56]

i used online work and own startup

[Monicaq]

I just love freelancing, it's much better for me to work at home

[Grondin]

Agree I like freelance