What do you want to be when you grow up?

[Phoenix~Mama]

Okay a silly question coming from someone who is almost 30... but seriously... I have no idea.

I never had a solid ingrained drive to become anything in particular like some people I knew in school. Tis one reason I did not go directly to college after high school because I had to pay for it on my own and did not want to waste my money when I had no idea what I wanted to do.

I fell into procurement through a placement with a temp agency soon after high school and loved it!! I picked it up quickly and rose up from a plain assistant to buyer-in-training pretty quickly. But then the company down sized.

I went onto a different buying job but that is when I got really sick and diagnosed with fibromyalgia and could not work full time for a long time.

So then I dabbled in web design and took some classes on that, figuring that had the possibility of working from home. Though I have a real hard time with cognitive things and logic of programming due to the fibro... and the way the web world has changed to much more programming based now, I just don't think I could do it.

I'm at a mediocre job with no way to advance. It's okay money, but not enough to support myself, definitely not something that makes me satisfied doing.

I'd really like to be "something" one day... But I honestly don't have a clue what path to take?

Any ideas how to figure this out? How did you decide what your dream career was going to be?

[Alyantavid]

Nope.

Mine changes constantly. I didn't finish college and won't go back until I have a definite plan to do something that interests me longer than a week. I just don't want to waste the money and then get into a career I hate.

My current job is good in that it's very close to home and it's super flexible. But I'm stuck, I can't move anywhere in this job.

[~Charlie's~Angel~]

I have an awsome job that I did not go to school for and worked my way up to from receptionist over the last 8 years. I make good money for someone with no degree, and there is still room for advancement. its an accounting position. Do I love it? HELL NO. Is it fun, not really. But Im good at what I do, and for the most part, enjoy myself while Im here. Is this what I pictured myself doing years ago when I was in HS? NO WAY!

Im with you that I didnt know what I wanted to do, so I got my cosmetology licsence through WeMoCo. I didnt plan to go to college because i figured I could get my career in hair dressing going while everyone else was still going to school and paying thousands in tuition. I didnt think that was what I would do forever, but it was a start.

Oh, how far Ive traveled from doing hair.

DO I plan to be doing this forever? Not really sure. It would be nice to stay with this company for a while and establish a good retirement and support my kids while they grow. It would also be nice to be able to stay home with them while they grow, but I have to leave lottery winning up to my MIL.

[pinksprklybarefoot]

I sort-of fell into what I want to do. I needed a job, a relative knew that there was one available at the pharmacy she worked in. I really enjoyed it. I wound up working at two other pharm-related jobs before realizing that becoming a pharmacist might be a good idea.

I am taking the PCAT and applying this summer.

Some of this was pragmatism, e.g. DH and I sitting down and figuring out who had the capacity to make the most money the fastest between the two of us. But I love going to school, and I am fascinated by the field.

DH on the other hand is another story - no idea what he wants to do when he grows up (he is 31). He may apply for admission to the local university and start figuring it out, though. You have to take a lot of general classes to get a BA, so he'll start with those while he sorts things out. Hopefully.

[inky leeuhhh]

i am still figuring it out, but i have it narrowed down to one of two things. meanwhile, i have started work on my BA to get some of the above mentioned general stuff out of the way. i'll either be getting my degree in english and try to get into doing some writing/ editing from home part time so i can cut down my hours at the preschool, or get my degree in social/ environmental science and try to open up a preschool of my own. i'm honestly getting the degree for my own personal advancement rather than for any sort of career, so i'm not feeling too much pressure there. i'm getting tired of the early childhood field though (which is why i'm not getting my ece degree). the only way for me to stay motivated working in that field would be for me to open my own program, or find some way to cut my hrs back and do something on the side. so yeah, i just basically talked in a huge circle. lol. i should not be up posting this late!

[MoOnFiReGlOw]

Don't feel bad! Not many know what to do when they 'grow up', heck, many don't ever find out!!

I want to do theater, I'm in school to do it, but I know the reality is probably that I'll be able to do it for fun, but it won't pay the bills b/c I'm not willing to travel as much as is needed to sustain a career in theater. I figured out what I wanted to do when I took classes in costume design and actually WANTED to do the homework! It didn't even seem like work, it was just fun

I'm also getting a 'backup' degree in organic agriculture to 'pay the bills' until hopefully I can make enough in theater to sustain us!

Even if you can't figure out what to do, just try different things and you'll be surprised at what you are good at that you never had entertained as an option before!!

[wholewheatchick]

Well, it may change...but I think that I want to be a college professor in forestry and/or natural resources. So I'm going to start my MS in Forest Resources and Conservation, then work for a few years, then go get my Ph.D. Hopefully!

[laohaire]

Interesting question. I didn't have any solid plans and ended up at a major news magazine. Then I found out I was legally blind and losing vision progressively and I panicked, quit my job, and finished my degree. I wanted to do something in journalism but the classes I took convinced me I hated journalism. So I ended up with a useless degree. Too bad because I'm good at math and science, and could have had a very useful engineering degree or something.

I work for a consulting company now, and it's great and I don't have plans to leave. But it doesn't feed my soul. I want to be a farmer. Just the other day I was looking at my CSA farm's website and clicked the "job opportunities" page. $8/hour and all the organic veggies you can eat. I told DH that it sounded like a great deal to me. The $8/hour isn't exactly incredible but the food would cover half our eating budget. And, I'd be outdoors, getting lots of exercise, learning useful things, breathing fresh air, etc. My job requires sitting at a computer all day, I don't often even know what the weather is outside.

But, like I said, I have low vision. I am not self-limiting (heck, I'm legally deaf too, and I do ok) but farming is honestly something I just can't do. It uses exactly the kind of vision I have the least of. For example, on top of everything else I have cataracts, and when I'm out in the sun I can't see anything at all except a blurry glare. Like I wouldn't even see my hand in front of my face. Inside, with dim lights and my monitor set just right, I can see the computer well enough to work, so here I stay.

Sorry OP, I didn't really answer your question. I think it's not really encouraged in our society to decide what you want and work for it. Some people do, absolutely, but most of us end up with a high school degree at 17 or 18 or whatever and go "oh... now what?" We go to college and pick our degrees based partly on our interests, yes, but also partly on the requirements ("I love psychology but I don't want to do the statistics portion they require"), partly on expense ("X offers what I want but I can't afford it, so I'll go to Y"), partly on friends ("my boyfriend is going to Z and I want to stay with him") and so on. Of course only some folks go to college, others get a job right out of high school and it's whatever they can land.

I think we'd all be better off if we waited until we were 25 or so to pick what we really wanted.

[Galatea]

I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, except that I have very little tolerance for outside direction and start to feel "trapped" easily. So for me, starting my own business was good b/c no one gives me direction (except dh, and I have freaked at him enough to basically get him to stop it.) But now that my business is successful and we opened a store, I am beginning to feel trapped. I know this b/c I am starting to think about lottery tickets again. That is always the sign for me.

[samy23]

Originally Posted by MoOnFiReGlOw

Don't feel bad! Not many know what to do when they 'grow up', heck, many don't ever find out!!

So true! Unfortunately!!! I met some people in college in their mid 40s who said they still don't know what they want to be when they grow up! Geez I hope that's not me in the future....how frustrating.

OP I feel your frustration! So many people seem to just know from being a teenager exactly what they want to be, some finish high school with some idea of which area they want to be in, and the rest of us are like "ok now what???" and feel lost.

Start thinking about what things interest you to some degree, and explore what you could do in those areas, and if doing them will interest you even more and hopefully you will end up finding something you ENJOY doing that also pays the bills!

Maybe animals? or childcare? or computers? see if you can volunteer some place working with them, to find out if you really are interested in doing that and if you really enjoy it. Then look at career options in those areas.

[kirstenb]

Well, I still don't really know what I want to do. I got a business degree and have a job in that field, and while I like my job I don't love what I do, you know? There is not a whole lot of advancement in my current position but my company is a very large one and it would be easy for me to find a different job in the same company. I've also been thinking about going back to school for nursing for awhile, but since H and I are splitting up, I'm going to have to put that on the back burner since there is no way I can swing school and a FT job by myself. Maybe once I get myself settled and the kids are older and in school I will be able to make it work.

[akayerich]

I have recently realized that I'd like to be a photographer. A nature photographer, specifically. I really don't know much about photography, though- lol. I just like taking pictures and would love to be really good at it.

But I'm a nurse, and I don't expect to be making any career changes any time soon. And anyway, if I did photography as work, I'd probably start to resent it. I never expected to be a nurse when I was in high school. I never expected it when I was in college, either. In high school, I wanted to go to college for psychology, mostly because it interested me, not because I really knew what I would do with my degree. In college, I changed to sociology, because (and this is the truth) I didn't want to train a rat to follow a maze. I had ethical/moral issues with that- silly, perhaps, but I couldn't help it. And anyway, I still didn't know what I'd do with a psychology degree, anyway. So I switched to Sociology. Finished college, got a job working in a group home for people with Developmental Disabilities (which I could have done with no degree). I liked it alright. Which is how I would up becoming a nurse. Which I don't hate or love. It's what I do because we have to pay bills.

Sigh...so I guess I don't have any advice on how to figure out your ideal career. Maybe think about your hobbies and interests, and see if you can figure out a way to use those for work. But like I said, for me, if my hobby was my work, I'd probably get bored with it, so...

[1jooj]

I suppose I kind of am what I want to be. I'm quite close to living my dream. I work as a writer and I am a part time farmer in a volunteer position at my own home. I don't make any actual money farming, but we raise a lot of our own food--meat, eggs, vegetables and now milk and soon fruits.

Ideally, I'll transform the writing to my own rather than the hourly wage kind. In time and with effort.

And then, someday maybe, I'd like to be a Peace Corps Volunteer again. After the children are grown and established...if I can convince dh.

[sparklett]

Originally Posted by JSMa

I'd really like to be "something" one day... But I honestly don't have a clue what path to take?

Any ideas how to figure this out? How did you decide what your dream career was going to be?

Were I you, I'd start volunteering someplace that is of interest to you and also take a couple of on-line college courses in whatever looks good. If you search community colleges in your state, you'll probably be surprised by the variety of courses out there. I ended up developing a real love for anthropology thanks to community college- it's not a profession for me, but just something cool to study.

I absolutely love, love, love my field. Sometimes I think I should try something new, but I find my profession to be rewarding and challenging.

I thought my dream career was going to be in veterinary medicine. I studied animal science as an undergrad and was the director of nursing at a large veterinary hospital for 7 years. One day I woke up and HATED it. Just absolutely HATED it. I picked up the phone and quit.

I looked for a new job and saw that a local museum was hiring someone who could care for their animal collection. I got the job, transferred to a different college and got my degree in biology. I found that I really loved the museum field (specifically education and administration) and my career just took off from there. I've since branched off a bit and have done work in conservation education and conservation politics, but it's all connected- everything I do is related to connecting people to the world around them. I really love what i do.

One thing I always regret is that I have never really used my biology degree. But that's okay- if I ever feel the need to be a field biologist, I could start a new career and use the degree. I plan on volunteering as a wildlife rehabber next year, so that will allow me to use my academic background a bit.

Originally Posted by laohaire

I think we'd all be better off if we waited until we were 25 or so to pick what we really wanted.

Absolutely. I wasted a lot of my college years pursuing biology and animal science. If I could do it all over again, I'd scrub that and do environmental studies instead (which, incidentally, is what I'm majoring in now for my second B.A.)

[myjo]

Well, I have the opposite problem. I've always sort of known what I need to do, but I've devoted the last 12 years of my life to being a SAHM. Now that my youngest is old enough for school, it's time for me to think about working.

My plan is to go to a local Massage Institute and become a certified massage therapist. I have always wanted to have a part in healing people, and so massage seems like a good field. The only other thing I would love to do is to become a Naturopath, but I would have to move my family to Seattle to do that and it's just not possible. I'm also too impatient. I don't want to wait 8 years before I can start a practice!

I would also love to have a career as a musician, but I think that particular talent will have to stay in the realm of hobby. It's like someone else mentioned, if I had to do music to make money, I think it would lose much of it's charm.

I've also begun to look into freelance writing. I've begun a novel as well. Don't know if that will go anywhere, but I know I love to write.

There was great book written in the 80's called (I think) Do What You Love and The Money Will Follow, or something like that. Anyway, I really enjoyed it, it helped me to pinpoint what I should do with my life.

[BunnySlippers]

I want to be a police officer.

[AndrewsMother]

First I want to be a Medical Dosimetrist or Radiation Therapist, but my ultimate goal is Obstetrical Oncology.

I am two weeks away from finding out if I am accepted to a BS program in Medical Dosimetry and about 2 months away from learning if I am accepted to a BS Radiation Therapy program.