What Do You Do with Your Life Or What Will You Do with Your Life?

[MW7]

So this is basically meant to be a discussion of career or vocation. If you are already to a point in your life that you have a career then share that, and if you are not to that point then please share what you think you will do with your life. In either case please share a little bit about why you chose your career or potential career.

Personally I'm still a little unsure of what to do with my life. I'm still in college so I have a little time left to decide. I had a professor speak about choosing a career, and I learned two pretty interesting things. First off in choosing a career you should have the aptitude to do it and an interest in doing it. Seems like common sense, but for instance it's probably not too rare for an undergraduate aspiring to be a doctor to switch majors after struggling in organic chemistry. The second thing I found interesting is that people nowadays have many jobs throughout their lives. So the idea of choosing a single career might be a little antiquated now since a person might hold several quite different jobs throughout their career. For instance my sister in eight years since graduating college has worked as an accountant, a lawyer (after going back to school), then back to accounting but in her own practice, and now is a professor at a university.

 

[Heroine of Time]

I'm not at that point in my life yet, but I definitely want to be a novel author. I'm hoping to have my first book published within a year or two, if I'm lucky. Beyond that, I honestly have no idea what I want to do. My parents are suggesting I become a lawyer, but I don't know about that, haha. I've considered becoming a dentist or something similar, although I'm really not sure.

 

[A Link In Time]

Very interesting thread, MW7. Of course I'd expect nothing less from a person of your caliber. I do not have a career or vocation yet but seeing as how I will begin my college studies in just over a year, it's never too late to start finalizing decisions.

I've always been interested in a career in the medical fields. I've considered many different colleges and universities which all seek me due to my excellent high school performance and academic aptitude. Ultimately, a university close to home will be my choice. The problem then with becoming a doctor is selecting a university that will not put candidates on a waiting list but commence full medical studies after attaining a medical degree. I thus discard Northwestern University in my area and am thinking about applying to an honors college. At this point, I'm almost certain I will major in Chemistry fro premed. A field I've been considering entering is that of hospitalist, a new and rapidly expanding position due to it being in high demand.

As for some of the things you mentioned in the opening post, MW7, no joke that true love and dedication is needed to succeed in a job. Look at Mases-He loves Zelda and is still webmaster on his site nearly 11 years after creation. This boils down to the argument of would you rather be a carpenter earning $50000 a year or phone booth operator earning $100000 a year? Most would probably choose the former due to it being a more rewarding experience with interesting and tangible projects to accomplish. As for why people often choose multiple careers, that is due to both societal pressure to specialize in more crafts and make the most of one's talents as well as a secure block against the unstable economy plaguing the contemporary world.

 

[Pocket Asian]

I'll be starting my first year of college this fall. I originally decided to get a major in Mathematics. After much thought, I changed it because I couldn't think of many careers that I would enjoy doing with that kind of major. I thought about teaching and I would have loved to drill algebra into the heads of the future generations after interning for my geometry teacher and finding that kids didn't know their algebra, but I know that high school teachers don't make much.

I changed my major to Computer Science. I figured it's the next best thing, and probably better than a major in mathematics, since I spend a great deal of my time at a computer anyways. I felt that I did alright in my AP Computer Science class and with enough persistence, I'll definitely be able to get down the different coding languages. I plan on furthering my knowledge of Java over the summer and will take classes of it and C++ while in college. I'll also try to learn other things concerning the web since that's also part of the program at my college, and since I already know html and css.

I'm also doing this for my own enjoyment. I play too many games and I would also like to develop my own. Most games are coded with C++, so I can nail two birds with one stone with this kind of major. So in short, I would like to become a video game programmer.

 

[Nicole]

Oboy I love this thread already. I actually pretty much have my whole early life planned out. My agenda is basically succeed in middle school so I can take advanced class in high school, succeed in advanced classes in high school so I can get into a prestigious college, succeed in a prestigious college so I can have a good career that will make me rich and famous and benefit society. Meanwhile I'd also enjoy finding that special someone but that's not really a big bullet point on my list.

That's a pretty vague plan, right? Wrong. I have the details plotted out already. First order of business: succeed in middle school. I was my 8th grade class's valedictorian, so check that off the list. Next is succeed in high school. Working on that. The finer details of succeeding in high school are scoring a perfect 2400 on my SAT, taking the highest math course available during my senior year, Calculus 3 Multivariable A, and graduating with north of 200 credits because of all the AP classes I'll be taking. I'd also like to get a plaque on the athletics Hall of Fame at my high school. Maybe I'll be the Dennis Rodman of high school women's basketball.

My many accolades in high school will then earn me a full scholarship to Harvard, where I will major in the field of Biology and yadda yadda yadda. College planning is still kinda fuzzy to me, but I'll graduate and become an esteemed biologist. I will cure cancer, AIDs, Alzheimer's disease, and some other stuff. This will greatly benefit society; plus I'll be rich and famous. With my riches, I will tour every major league ballpark and eventually I will own the New York Yankees. Somewhere along the line I will fall in love and be happy. Then I'll die and I don't know what happens after that.

So in a nutshell:

Become 8th grade valedictorian
Score perfect 2400 on SAT
Take Calculus 3 Multivariable A
Graduate from high school with 200+ credits
Make the high school Hall of Fame
Win a championship
Graduate from Harvard
Cure a bunch of diseases and make a lot of money and get famous
Solve the Millennium Prize Problems
Use my money to tour all 30 MLB ballparks
Buy the Yankees
Tour the world
Get married


Those are my life plans. I'm 100% serious, too. Dream big.

 

[linkmoon89]

I'm going to be starting college next year (sadly to many things on my plate to start this year) but I'll be studying to become a veterinary technician. I love animals, that's been my career of choice since I was really little.

 

[nareky]

My main goal is to finish my Masters this year (Biotechnology) from there i guess my hope is to find a job i'll enjoy n stuff

 

[Musicfan]

Get at least a 2 year degree in vetranery medicin and then get a job as a vetranery technician/technologist ( get the 2confused all the time)

 

[Gannon]

I want to either become a prosecuting attorney in criminal justice or be a rock star.

 

[Ventus]

I'm nowhere near the point in my life, I don't have any plans really. My life as I want it to be is:

- Become a hero (fame)
- Get a decent job to live off
- Do good (by good I mean top of the classes) in high school
- Do good to people
- Obtain a career that pays well
- Win money in video game tournaments
- Laze whenever the chance presents itself

Yeah, as you can see I'm not an interesting person. I don't really know what I want to do with my life. I have memory retention problems so I don't know if I could do so well in college. I go to a tiny school, and just last year they axed AP courses so I really have zero chance at getting into a college without working extremely hard long hours in a job. And I don't have the smarts.

 

[misskitten]

I've always wanted to do something artistic with my life, however when it came down to getting an education I ended up focusing on programming, but life took some odd turns, due to an unfortunate choice in first employer... To explain: your first job in the IT world is the very foundation you build your career, if you end up with an employer that's a dud and doesn't make use of your skills, it doesn't matter how well you did in school (I was one of the top students in my class), by the time you apply for another job your knowledge is obsolete and you go from being valuable to worthless.

So life took a funny turn and I ended up working in the health sector instead, but strangely enough I enjoy it. I use my creative skills in a more practial and less stuffy way and I get to work a lot more with people - I would love to maybe one day publish a book, however whenever I sit down to write, I can't seem to steer myself away from fanfiction, lol, so I don't know where I'll find the motivation to write something that is completely original and thereby qualifies to being published in actual book form, lol. But we'll see where my life turns next. I've come to realize that life steers me a lot more than I do it...

 

[*M i d n a*]

In all seriousness I want to step it up with my writing and do something that I've dreamed of doing for a while. I want to write a solid piece/story for self publishing. Peeps who read my stories here and in the real world over here tell me that I am ready, that my writing is good enough to do that, but I still know there's much for me to learn. I am taking that shot soon enough, anyway, I already set things in motion to make it happen. What comes after that really doesn't matter to me, for I am not doing this as an attempt to make a few bucks or make a name for myself as a big time writer, I write for fun because I love writing. One day not too far from today, if all goes well, I will be smiling gladly and proudly to myself when I have completed this goal.